Tropical Storm Rick Has Left Mazatlan

Rick blew in here early this morning with gusts of 70 knots and sustained winds of 60 knots. The barometer went from 988 at 7:30 this am to 993 at 8:15 as the center passed over us. No problem with the boat or crew, but a lot of damage in the area. Trees down, flooding , windows blown out of a few buildings at the marina and adjacent properties, Debbie will post some pictures in a few days. We are alive and well.

__________________________________________________________________
Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr!

http://www.flickr.com/gift/

Hurricane Rick now Tropical Storm Rick Tuesday Oct 20th

Tropical Storm Rick is now scheduled to pass North of Mazatlan by 60 miles with winds of about 60 miles per hour around mid day Wednesday providing nothing changes over the next 24 hours. We have everything off the decks and stored below and will take the last shade tarp down tonight and wait and see what happens. We may get some surge from the swells generated and have checked all the lines a chafe protection.

__________________________________________________________________
The new Internet Explorer® 8 - Faster, safer, easier. Optimized for Yahoo! Get it Now for Free! at http://downloads.yahoo.com/ca/internetexplorer/

Sweating it out in Mazatlan

Sweating it out in Mazatlan.

It is still very hot and humid but should start to settle down in a few more weeks. But when it is 33 degrees in the boat it is hard to say we are suffering when we are sitting at the pool and having happy hour. We have 4 fairly large fans running 24 - 7 so it sounds like one is living inside a jet engine getting ready to taxi and take off. The fans give us a temperature of around 29 degrees we think that's almost as workable temp. It is taking a long time to get the boat back together as we are only working on boat jobs in the early morning or in the evening. Even then we are sweating like roasted pigs.

Debbie says we have finally become true Mexicans. We needed some pieces of wood to make some shelves and they would not fit in the borrowed car we have, so, it is down the road with the wood resting on the outside mirror and Debbie hanging onto it. At least she was not running along side holding on. Trying to explain in Spanish that we wanted some 1 x 2 lumber was a trick, when the homes here are brick and cement.      

We have had a few thunderstorms with lots of wind and rain, but they do not last long so you just need to time your travels to stay dry. The lightning is a bit of a novelty for us folks from Victoria. Right now we are keeping an eye on Hurricane Rick that is offshore and heading towards Cabo and possibly back towards the mainland North of Mazatlan. It is forecast to be about 370km on its closest approach to Mazatlan with winds of 90 kms. Sometimes these hurricanes decide to take a left turn before they make it farther north so we are praying to the wind stays on track.

__________________________________________________________________
Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr!

http://www.flickr.com/gift/

Back In Mazatlan

Back In Maz.. Hot hot hot and humid.. (not that we are complaining) All is well on board so far, the boat survived the summer with no issues showing up yet. We will be here until mid November or so and then move on further south. Right now we are getting some heavy rain showers off a tropical depression heading for Cabo.

The flight here was very smooth, and in no time at all we were hustled thru customs in a cab and back at the marina, and believe it or not all our luggage arrived when we did...another miracle.

__________________________________________________________________
The new Internet Explorer® 8 - Faster, safer, easier. Optimized for Yahoo! Get it Now for Free! at http://downloads.yahoo.com/ca/internetexplorer/

Summer Update

July and August Update:

We attended the Beneteau Rendezvous with our friends Bob and Camelia on Navigo and had a great time visiting with friends. Lynn won the toilet seat toss and picked up a new winch handle for Dolphin Tales.

Made a road trip to Alberta and Saskatchewan visiting family and friends (racked up 5000km in 4 weeks). Victoria – Vancouver- Vernon- Cherryville- Naskusp - Revelstoke – Golden – Calgary – Lethbridge – Taber – Burstall - Edmonton- Valemount - Salmon Arm - Victoria. On this trip we tented a few nights and all was good since it did not rain. However we both think that we are a little old to be sleeping on the ground and are thinking about some kind of RV for future trips. Also used this trip as a chance to stop and visit places we normally drive on by since we are going from A to B and never have time to stop. It is amazing what great attractions we miss because we do not have the time to stop and smell the roses.

We had a nice couple of evenings with Blue Water Cruisers John and Rosy from Mopion in Calgary and Steve and Sandy from Mungo in Edmonton. Also discovered how good those car GPS units are when you get mixed up in your directions and the navigator (Debbie) cannot read the printing on the street map claiming the print was too small but was probably due to the amount of wine she drank at dinner.

Finished a few more house chores and are starting to get stuff together for our return to Mexico in early October.

__________________________________________________________________

Update

Well since arriving home we have been busy catching up on house and yard chores. Painting bathrooms and installing new flooring in the kitchen and dining room as well. Have been spending a few days grandparenting here and in Vancouver. Much easier living on the boat. It did take a while to get used to the temp here once we got back (dam it was cold). hard to get used to 15 c after 28 c very day. Nice to see our family and friends. We also attended the Blue Water Cruising get together in May with Jordy and Judy on Sea Turtle.

Well thats all for now.

The end of the first eight months

Well after 8(eight) months we are finally moving to windward. Nothing beats a 737 when going to windward. We fly out on Sat. April 18 in to Vancouver, we will spend the night with Christa, Scott and the boys and then ferry over to Victoria on Sunday. One last bus ride, and a taxi and home is where we will be.

At least our flight is only 5hours, the Butteryflys we saw in the sanctuary fly from farther south all the way back up to Texas and into Canada and it takes them a lot longer

We are looking forward to going home and seeing all our family and friends . After wearing nothing but shorts, muscle shirts and sandels, we are not sure how our bodies will handle the cooler weather. Not to mention having to be clothed in more items then we have in the last 5 months.

So ,I don't think we will be doing any more posts untill we come back in the fall and head farther down the Mexican coast. Plans are to be back in Mazatlan no later then OCt 15 and heading south by Nov 1,2009.

Thanks to everyone that followed are blog