Prepping to get ready for a Pacific crossing, but still have to get those daily chores done. This picture grossly overstates my involvement in doing laundry, though. Ali is the one who seems to be doing this on a non-stop basis.

The new dinghy motor arrived and I didn’t even realize it was a long shaft that didn’t fit the dinghy until I had driven it around and then brought it up on the dinghy davits a while later. The prop was practically down in the water still, despite the dinghy being hoisted up. The mix-up had been as much my fault as the Yamaha dealer—something was lost in translation at some point—so I was happy when he agreed to come back out a couple days later and swap it for the correct short shaft motor without any problem.

In addition to the typical epirb (emergency beacon) we have onboard, we decided to pick up a couple of these little personal epirbs that also have AIS built in. These will be a nice safety measure for night watches or when having to go out on deck when the seas are nasty. A normal epirb sends out the signal to the Coast Guard, but does nothing to help the people on the boat find a person who has gone overboard. With these, the boat can follow the AIS signal right back to the man overboard. It’s just one of those things on a boat that you hope never gets used.

Operation Organization underway. It appears our Turkish towels are having babies.

We sent the cockpit table off for a few coats of varnish. In the meantime, this has pretty much been the state of the cockpit all week.

Solar wiring is pretty straightforward. The only really tricky part is figuring out how to route it cleanly through the room and ceilings to get it down to the batteries.

I didn’t really want names on the sides of the boat, but because the old boat name was up there previously, I really needed to try and cover it as much as possible. The shadow of the old name is barely visible now. Also realized that our dinghy hangs in front of our name on the back of the boat pretty much all the time. I have to say, today’s decals are so easy to use and apply that you almost feel like covering the hulls in tattoo sleeves full of them.

Over in La Cruz, just around the bay a bit is the La Cruz Marina where there are a couple of people really dedicated to making fun things to do for boat kids and local kids alike. We tried to move over there while we prepped to go, but they were full up. But we still head over sometimes. The kids have a bunch of friends there, and one night they got to help build a nice big bonfire.

The cockpit lockers on this boat are right on the curve of the hull, making them a terrible shape and virtually impossible to store anything.

At the last minute we decided to put a flat floor in. It’s just cheap plywood, so I don’t expect it to last forever, but it’s amazing how cutting the volume by about 25% made it easier to store twice as much stuff.

Our neighbors here at the dock are awesome people. Super friendly, kind, and modest. They’re heading home soon, so here I am being gifted a few gallons of dinghy gas from an Emmy Award winner. A first for me.

Georgie is still alive. Looks like he or she is going to be a sailor soon.

Our friends know music, so when they invited us to their birthday party we knew we were in for a treat. She said when her friend back home asked what she was doing for her birthday she told her she was having a party with seventy of her boat friends, as if that was totally normal. That’s sort of the way things work in the cruising community. Everyone seems to get to know everyone else.

Wiring the solar panels. I was so happy when I finally found a tiny gap I was able to run a couple wires through beneath the cockpit roof and ceiling. That allowed me to keep all the wiring for the new panels completely underneath the panels themselves. Nice and clean.

Popped open the Code Zero sail. Then went and read about what a Code Zero is used for. Close to the wind in light airs. Good to know. I probably would have been floating it too far out in more of a downwind situation. The exciting sail has yet to come out of the bag. That’s the Parasailor. Hoping to pop that out after we leave and not have to put it back down again until we arrive in the Marquesas. That’s the downwind sailing dream, anyway.

I’ve never used this sort of continuous furler before. Still not entirely sure the best way to use it, or where to run the line.

After topping up the diesel there was a distinct smell in the fallout shelter. Fortunately, it was nothing more than a bolt that needed a little twist. Heck, it was even easily accessible.

And then we were off the dock. Only two days late on our countdown clock. This was just to get out on the water and check the systems, not to actually leave Mexico.

All ship shape.

Hardly any wind, and only moving about two knots, but we were actually under sail again. It’s been a while.

Took the drone up and after a few minutes realized that it wasn’t moving properly. “MAXIMUM DISTANCE REACHED!” it kept yelling at me. Okay, well, then fly back to me, I thought. Then it occurred to me, the drone doesn’t know I’m sailing away from it. We had to make a U-Turn and sail back to the drone. Actually, we had to sail directly underneath and past it before I could get it to move again. Made a nice landing, though. A couple days later I sat down and made about an hour’s worth of software updates that it had apparently been waiting on. Seems to be working again.

La Cruz anchorage. There are probably fifty boats (maybe more) anchored directly out front of the marina entrance in 25’+ water, while just around the corner is a nearly empty anchorage in 20′. We’ve always hated the La Cruz anchorage either way, though. Each morning is calm, and every afternoon is rough. It’s an open roadstead anchorage (no real wind/waves protection), always ends with wet dinghy rides, and yet it is always packed to the gills. We ended up here because the kids’ friends were here. We also don’t mind a night of tacos and live music in La Cruz. I guess those are the trade offs.

Mornings are lovely.

The only thing we found not working well was our inverter. Actually, not working at all. It’s one of those things I’d considered replacing countless times in the last few months. It’s an old 2000w Mastervolt unit, and I really prefer the new 3000w Victron anyway, so that project has moved to the top of the list for the week to come. I had actually been surprised when I tested the watermaker a few weeks ago and it was able to run off that old 2000w unit. The 3000w should alleviate my concerns about that tripping.

Anyway, we’re back at the marina with a fairly manageable to-do list. Semana Santa is this week, so a lot of partying, and very little work will be happening. Which means we probably wouldn’t be able to clear out of the country for a few days, anyway. We’re watching weather and ticking off the jobs around the boat.