Back in the USA

It has been awhile since I last wrote here - we got busy preparing for the trip north and seeing old friends in Mazatlan.  I have said it before and I will repeat it - I love Mazatlan and would not mind staying there.  Although we are having a decent time here, I miss Magda Jean and want to get back there. 

We came up here mostly to get boat parts ordered (new windlass, new solar panels, and some miscellaneous other parts) and shipping arranged and to take care of other business.  I renewed my driver's license, and got my voter registration sorted out.  It is not easy to negotiate government bureaucracies when you have no real valid residence address.  I have a mail drop, but a lot of bureaus and agencies want an address of the place you actually live.  Ours moves around all the time.  But sometimes you have to fudge things a bit.  Otherwise you will never get all the stuff you need to have. 

When we get back to Mazatlan we have to go to the consul there and get our passports renewed, and then we head off for points south. 

I went to my old office yesterday and had lunch - as it turned out, they were having their Thanksgiving potluck and I got a chance to see almost everyone.  It was great.  I don't miss my job but I do miss all the people and the great cameraderie in that office.  I had to leave when I did though - I was burning out and the dynamic in the office was changing - the old guard was going fast and I do not think I would fit in as well with the new guard, so to speak.  It was a good decision and I have not regretted it.  I do not miss going to work every day.

We got pretty much everything done so for the next few days until we leave we can just sort of take it easy, visit with Steve (who by the way is doing great and I am so proud of him) and maybe buy another new bathing suit - one cannot have too many the way I live.  We are planning to take another drive up to the mountains - we did it once but the area we wanted was closed - and we will see all the changes since we were here last.  Since it all burned a couple of years back, it is really interesting to see how the landscape is transforming itself.  It is different - no more conifers - but it is still bebautiful up there.  It is especially pretty because the recent rains have greened things up nicely.

I have to leave here as soon as possible because I get fat up here really fast.  It is the HUGE amount of food they serve at restaurants and all the junk.  In Mexico,  the portions are normal sized, and although they love to fry everything, there are a lot of things that are not fried, and, importantly I think, there is less processed food.  Even the fast food seems like there were fewer steps between the farm and the table than there are in the US.  And of course it is so hot that I eat less.

Another thing I must say about Mexico is that their medical care is wonderfully accessible and affordable.  Mike hurt his finger really bad right before we left - he got it stuck between the floating dock and the concrete pier that make up our marina dock and crushed it.  It looked horrible - I had to rush him up to the hotel lobby for a taxi, then we sped off to the hospital.  The cabbie drove like an ambulence driver, lacking only a siren and flashers.  We were seen right away.  The fingers miraculously were not crushed or even badly broken - one had an "imperfect fracture" at the tip and the nail was completely gone.  They x-rayed it, cleaned and dressed it, and sent us away with scripts for pain meds and antibiotics.  The whole treatment period was shorter than it took Mike to hurt his finger in the first place, and all it cost was a whopping $150 American dollars, and that counts the scripts, too.  If they can do it, why can't we?  Every cruiser I have talked to has nothing but praise for the Mexican medical services. And since most of the cruisers are on the elderly side, a lot of them have medical issues, and being on boats means falling, banging into things, and a lot of other possiblities for getting hurt.  So they know what they are talking about.  If something bad happens to me there, I will not be bankrupted.

I am spending a lot of time finding out about Central America and Ecuador.  There is not a lot of information out there about sailing to Colombia on the Pacific side - there is stuff about the Caribbean side,  where Cartagena is, but that is not where we are going.  And you have to pass the Colombian coast on the way from Panama to Ecuador.  It may be that the Andes mountains come right down to the coastline on the Pacific side, making it difficult or impossible to anchor a boat safely.  Or else the political and drug violence is still really problematic.  I had heard things were greatly improved down there, but we may end up sailing past Colombia and heading straight to Ecuador after Panama.  We got new boat insurance that covers us from Canada to Peru - $3000 or so for a year.  I know many, many cruisers that only carry the minimum of liability to be accepted into a marina, and some cruisers don't have any, preferring to trust their "prudent seamanship".  I prefer to have insurance - if my boat gets wrecked, I want to be able to get another one. 

If anyone is interested in having a sailboat, I can tell you they are very cheap these days and there are a lot of them out there.  We flirt every now and then with the idea of getting a bigger boat, but we won't do it - this boat is all we need, and a bigger boat means bigger sails and more physical work, as well as higher costs for everything - most boat stuff, like marina slips and bottom cleaning and painting, is charged by the foot.  Besides, we are making this boat near perfect - the new solar panels will greatly increase the amount of power we can generate without using gas or diesel.  Between the new panels and the wind generator (it is usally sunny or windy or both), Mike has figured that we can support all our general usage with those two insturments.  That will  be especially nice at anchor - we won't have to use the generator as much, except for making water.  And we can fill our tanks (all 90 gallons) using only one or two gallons of gas.  Not bad.  This will all be very helpful when we cross the Pacific in the spring of 2013 for Polynesia.  At least that is the plan so far.  This season will be the Pacific coast of Mexico for the winter, Central America, then Ecuador for the fall and winter.  I hope to go go the Galapagos either from Ecuador, or on the way to Polynesia later.  They are close to Ecuador, and Ecuador controls them.

This is it for now - I will likely not write again until next week, when we get back to Mazatlan.  Have a great day and a great next week!