Tsunami report

Tsunami report for Ensenada: about 4:28am this morning 2nd cat Maui reported a slight tremor on board, waking the officers who otherwise might not have noticed.  Punta Banda is good at blocking stuff from the south.

Fleas

Maui has been confined to quarters.  His crimes are:
1 Eating the marina cat's dry cat food, resulting in bladder stones which cause blood in his urine.
2. Bringing home fleas.

Since he's decimated the Brush Rabbit population, we haven't seen too many more sticktite fleas.  But he still has the rest of them, and has shared them with his older sister, who does not leave the boat.

We've been flea-combing the cats daily.  Still pulling the buggers off.

Today, I put another dose of Frontline on Maui.  The fleas started vacating the premises. I was not quick enough for two of them, so I decided he needed to vacate the premises, too, so the vacating fleas would vacate some place else. He had no problem with that.  Good news is he has been back twice for lunch and dinner. Hopefully he will not come back with scars from cat fights.  Fleas like that.  Or a belly full of dry cat food.  He was pretty full of Doug's cat chow #6 when he left.

More odds than ends

We've been trying to listen to the morning cruiser's net on VHF radio.  It's a way for the cruisers in Ensenada to communicate needs, events, and otherwise be sociable.  We hadn't heard anything in a week, had assumed that everyone had dropped off.  Doug's the net control (host) for Monday mornings, he started off, didn't hear anyone check in, so assumed no one was there and signed off.  Peter, one of our neighbours and radio experts, ran over to say something's wrong, we're all here.  Turns out the volume on the radio had gotten turned down, so everyone could hear us, but we couldn't hear them.  Doug got back on and finished the net with egg on his face, but had a good laugh at himself.  Once a bozo...

We finally got far enough down in the todo list that we pestered the guy who does higher speed internet on the docs again.  He took our information, he did program his equipment, but never let us know he had. Doug checked yesterday, saw we had signal, and now has it set up with our external antenna/signal booster and on board wifi.  Cindy can watch "Bones" again, and we don't have to go up to the office to make cheap phone calls and download updates for the devices.  It also cuts out the major part of our phone bills (data plan).  Near as we can tell, we're down to about $50US/month for unlimited internet on the boat, cell phone coverage, and unlimited phone and text between us.  We pay by the minute for outgoing calls, but a lot less expensive than our old Verizon plan.  Ya'll know you can still call us on our old US numbers, right?  Sorry, text messaging from the US still doesn't work, so we get to hear the sound of your voice.

Big shout out to our nephews and nieces.  Kyle and Shannon Monroe just gave birth to a healthy baby boy, and along Daniel and Keisha Lira celebrated third wedding anniversaries.  Getting to see them married was on Doug's mother's bucket list.  We just celebrated 26 years in May, keep the adventures coming.

Blessings to all.

Odds and Ends

Crazy busy time in Ensenada.  Three weeks ago Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto visited for National Maritime Day, so we had Navy ships, helicopters, brass bands, 21 gun salutes, the big Mexican flag, Federali military guards in addition to the regular private security, a number of road closures, and we were restricted from leaving the marina by sea or land.

Then the next weekend was the Baja 500 off road race, which started and ended right outside the entrance to the marina.  Roads were closed, crowds were huge, loud music and exhaust noise, helicopters, and Bud Lite was everywhere. We stay on the boat as much as possible during the crazy time, but we needed to provision on Friday so we braved the crowds.   Then Saturday we ran out of water on board, and the water truck couldn't get to the marina because of the traffic.  Sunday we  went to 7-11 to get a couple of 20 liter jugs until we could get more water on Monday. Yes, a cruise ship was in town, too.

About water:  In the US, the water at the docks is usually drinkable, so we used to filter it and put it in the two 100 gallon tanks on board the boat.  At Ensenada, the water on the docs comes out of a well that is not deep enough or far enough away from the ocean.  It has a high mineral (a.k.a salt) content, so we don't really want to drink it, even though it is safe to do so.  But there is a booming business in purified water here.  We call a truck, and these burly guys deliver purified water in 20 liter jugs to the boat and pour them in to our tanks.  The company is Ciel, which is owned by CocaCola.  We get about 200 liters (50 gallons) every week, which we use for drinking, cooking, and washing dishes.  Water cost about 1 peso/liter, or about 28 cents/gallon.  Showers are done on shore (with the salty water), as well as the laundry.

The towel is on this guy's head to keep the sun off, and because our boat just geysered some water on him.  We've fixed the geyser problem.

The marina is a busy place for social events.  We've had several Quinceanera's (girl's coming of age party at 15), and last night was a wedding reception complete with sit down dinner and a live band.  Fortunately last night the band knocked off at 11pm.  The Quinceaneras go on until 2am.  Shouldn't these girls be home in bed by then?  Some of us old fogeys need our sleep.

The cats are fine with us being on the boat, especially for the Navy gun fire and the helicopters.  Since we haven't been able to find a suitable cat food in Mexico, I have been making it for them, from chicken, with the proper nutrient additives.  Maui had been having an issue with his urine again, probably due to him wanting to stay off the boat all night and eating the marina cat's dry food.  We add water to his chicken chow and feed him "Tinkle Tonic".

Maui in his marauding has become quite the hunter.  He pretty much took out the marina's population of Western Brush rabbits, and has since brought us several gophers and field mice.  Thanks Buddy.  With the bunnies he was also bringing back a face full of "stick tight" fleas that Cindy would have to pick off of him.

We'll try to get updates out once a week, but so far this has been an elusive goal.

Adios!

Floating again

The view from our friend Karla's boat last Friday 05/15

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On April 20, after two weeks "on the hard", we got splashed again.  Boat is floating nicely just below the new water line, so hopefully no more growth on the boot stripe.

 

  Our friends Eric and Pati on Shearwater were in the boat yard two weeks before us and another week after us.  Not that the work they had done was much more than ours, but they needed their propeller rebuilt, and had some communications problems with prop shop in Seattle.  Shortly after splashing, they headed south, and are currently in Cabo San Lucas on their way to the Sea of Cortez.

We've elected to stay in Ensenada until after hurricane season, then we'll be headed that way too.

A week (or more) 'on the hard'

We hauled out Monday morning 04/06/2015 for a week on land.  They pressure washed the bottom and supported us with 8 triangular based stands while they work on the boat, starting tomorrow.  Logistics are entertaining.   Planing is pretty much unknown as is the time frame.  All is the 'manana' way.  lol  Some parts are ordered later than needed others are added to the list then decided we don't want to wait that long so will fix now and do again later.  Main goal was to replace cutlass bearing and sand and paint the bottom with tropical barrier coat that will slough off when sea creatures try to cling on.  They go to San Diego Tu & F to get parts.  We knew we wanted some new instruments in stalled through the boat bottom and have them ready.

We have to climb a 12' ladder to get on and off the boat.  Maui hasn't tried to climb down the ladder yet, but he'd really like to.  Can't use the sink, The toilet flushes to the holding tank but we have to use a bucket of water to flush because we can't suck in sea water for the task.  Not much in the way of cooking because washing up is a problem without being able to drain the sink, so we're eating out more than normal.

Update: Replacing the cutlass bearing (keeps the prop shaft straight) showed that the strut (thing that holds the cutlass bearing) is out of alignment, and may have been for quite some time.  We adjusted the engine and shaft alignment as much as we could, but were still a ways off.  No documentation for this boat, so had to cut into the fiberglass around the strut to figure out how to adjust it.

So now we have to wait for fiberglass to harden, then repaint these parts.  We still haven't put in the transducers for the new depth and knot meters.  The crystal ball says we might get to go back in the water next Saturday or Monday, but the marina staff are not committing to anything.

Ensenada

We've been in Ensenada a little over two months.  Thought I'd better post some pictures so you know we're okay and still having fun.

"On the hard" at Baja Naval boatyard.

Bored cats.  Squishy's fine with this, Maui really wants to take a walk.

Cindy gets a Pina Colada on the boardwalk.  Tasty even with no rum.

At Marisco's Bahia de Ensenada restaurant.

These are the best performers we've heard yet.  The guy on the left is flat-picking a 12 string, guy on the right is doing rhythm. Both had great voices.

With friends Eric and Pati from Shearwater, also getting work done in the boat yard.

This young lady plays really well.