After lunch we decided to head 20 miles north back to Barre de Navidad to get some marina time. 20 days spent anchoring. Not even a fuel dock. The boat (and us) need a good long bath. Salt is everywhere on Appa and she needs a spa day.
I forgot to mention on our way down to Zihuatanejo we were stopped by the Mexican navy. I'll bet most of you haven't had a Marine with a machine gun on your boat before.
This is the naval officer taking our information. Passports and US documentation. He was extremely nice and very young. Wore shiny black shoes.
There they go to intercept Sand Dollar and then Unleashed. Jen has a bit more in her blog I believe.
Here are some photos from today.
The crew walking back from town in Bahia Santiago.
In trying to figure out a way to stop the kids from having some much screen time, be it movies or the damn ipad/iPhone games, I thought I'd try some role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons. Tomorrow is our first adventure and the kids are pysched. I'm just going to wing it. The rules have changed soooo much since I last played, it isn't even the same game. I'll report later on how it goes. So much reading of the rules is making me a little cuckoo.
I figure we will be in Barre for 2 days. Change oil and the like. Head out to Tenacatita which is about 10 miles north of here and hang there for a couple days. Hit a couple other little coves around here and by that time Max should be back. Then we will head back up to Puerto Vallarta for a bit. The thought is to go see the Monarch butterflies at the end of their migratory route. Suppose to be just wonderful. The area where they hang out is near Mexico City. 11 hours by bus. But the buses are huge and nice. Also travels at night so maybe we could sleep. They serve food, have a bathroom and wifi with gaming consoles. Better than first class airplane I'm told. 4 days of doing that. Maybe 3. I don't know, I just drive the boat.
While we are doing the butterflies, I'll have the local sailloft do some repair to our jib and main. They are in need of some love. The clew on the jib is starting to pull out. I just had that redone in Seattle before we left. Put some miles on the old sail.
I'd love to get another solar panel on the boat also. Maybe have a welder come out and see what he can do. After 20 days without hooking to shore power, I think one more panel might just cover our needs. We use a lot of power. The freezer and fridge have separate compressors and being so hot down here they run quite a bit. About 10 minutes on and 15 minutes off for each compressor. One runs and the other is off but occasionally they both are on. The amp meter shows -10 amps when that happens. The solar panels right now put in about 40 amps per day. More if the boat isn't swinging all over the place. The boat swings and then the panels get shaded by something (radar mast, boom, etc.) and the output drops dramatically.
The picture below is one of my favorites. Jen has really gotten into the SSB radio. It is like a HAM radio. Same thing actually. Here Jen and Sam are talking with our friends on Vales Veleo who are in the southern most part of Mexico waiting to crossing this stretch of water called the Tehuantepec. They are 400+ miles away from us and Jen tuned that radio in to talk to them. Samey is saying hi to Anna on VV.
Such good friends.
We'll more later. JC and I have to take the laundry into town and visit the port captain and then try to find a place that will print up my DnD stuff. Also have to fix a small irritating leak in the inflatable dinghy.
Lots to do tomorrow.
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