Out and About

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Out and about the past couple of days. We went for an evening stroll down to the fishermen’s end of the beach, watched a big group of kids play baseball in the sand and our kids poke around in the boats and sand for treasure. Ouest seems certain that any … Read More

More Nonsense

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First off, I was apparently fooled about the valve sleeves/liners/jackets, whatever they are called. The engine doesn’t have those. The manual shows them, which is why I thought it did have them—but it doesn’t. So anyway, we put the engine back together, fired it up and ran it for a … Read More

The Leak Hunt

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Yesterday, with the help of a mechanic and his partner, we tore apart the engine. This time instead of ripping off the head we dug into the belly. We wanted to get the oil pan off so we could have a look at the underside of the valves and see … Read More

Uninspired

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I have to say that the past few days I’ve been feeling pretty uninspired. I’ve been spending a lot of time on the boat, going out there in the morning before the kids get up and coming back around noon tired and not much fun. Tomorrow a mechanic is going … Read More

Revolution

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Revolution Day. Another worthy cause for celebration—or at least for the young kids to get dressed up in their traditional Mexican garb. Ouest and I stop here after school almost every day for tacos and/or taquitos. Oh my god—the pork tacos. Lowe spends the majority of his days playing with … Read More

The Bull Fighter

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Yesterday I went out to the boat to run a test on the engine. The test consisted of nothing more than pulling the exhaust header off a couple of inches so I could see inside the exhaust ports. The coolant has been disappearing all on its own overnight, and we … Read More

Cathedral

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A walk around the Basílica de la Inmaculada Concepción. Or the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Or just the plain old Cathedral. Completed in 1899 it’s looking as good as the day they installed the last blood-stained statue. I sincerely mean that—it really is a beautiful place. The cathedral is just … Read More

Could It Be The…

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Yesterday morning I took my new torque wrench and went back to the boat to wreak havoc. I torqued the head bolts, in sequence, to a smudge under 110, just like the manual said. Just about every bolt took a half turn. I then adjusted the valves and closed the … Read More

Twenty-seven and forty-seven months

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Ouest is one month from being four years old. Which sucks because she was finally getting good at answering the “how old are you” question correctly. Now we have to start all over again. Meanwhile Lowe just had a monumental month. Yes, he no longer pees in diapers, he pees … Read More

Torque

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I went out to the boat yesterday to clean up a bit, get an awning up, and change the oil. When a friend on a neighboring boat mentioned he had a torque wrench I figured I could check the torque on the head bolts as well. Unfortunately his torque wrench … Read More

I’m Back

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So I finally arrived outside of Mazatlan around two o’clock in the morning. This is not a breakwater that you go through in the middle of the night on the wrong tide, so instead I anchored behind a nearby island. I started the engine, dropped the main sail, glided slowly … Read More