Moments On The Way: 2019 Trek To Mexico

First stop: the home of boating friends in Seattle for important cross-cultural learning - we introduced them to our Smarties. Their Smarties are what we call Rockets. The ways of marketing are strange to me but there is probably room for us to do more research regarding national differences in candies and snacks.

Bjarne's arrival had been eagerly anticipated for his electrical knowledge as consultation was needed on one of the boys' wind generator project. Apparently, not all diodes are created equal.

Canadian Smarties

USA Smarties

In Nevada we enjoyed a lunch break at Walker Lake. Although picturesque, our blurry photo of the lake is not. They have quite nice picnic tables set up here for which we do have a photo. If you are lucky (we weren't this time) you might spot mountain sheep clambering the cliffs. We didn't linger as we had a dinner engagement in Las Vegas.

Just before we hit Vegas, baby, an almost full moon rose and set several times over the Nevada hills. Beautiful colour gradually filled in the sky, reflecting off snowy peaks and deepening into a brilliant blaze. Although we'd hoped to be in Vegas earlier, the scenery on the way provided compensation. We managed to find the restaurant and rendezvous with Don, a school chum of Bjarne's from military college days. It had been many years so catching up was the main thing on the menu, with Barb tagging along through most of the geeky conversation.

Walker Lake Rest stop

We found a great lunch spot at Burro Creek Recreation area, where we were very excited to see a road runner, and guess what - it was running across the road! It was here the weather became noticeably warmer. We did well this trip with finding nice lunch spots. The next day's lunchbreak was in a park just north of Tucson skirted by a great bike path. We took vicarious pleasure from those cycling by, knowing we've given up biking for several months.

After driving for hours on arrow-straight roads, one really doesn't want to miss a turn on this snaking road.

That wild foray into the world of gambling, along with a stop for some groceries, had us still driving later than we'd prefer. Once again, though, we were compensated by a great sunset as we drove along the winding Vulture Mine Road. Barb was amused as Bjarne enthusiastically snapped photos of cactii silhouetted against the orange sky, completely unaware of the gorgeous full moon rising up behind him. Earlier in the day we had scoped out a place in Buckeye, which made arrival after dark less troublesome. The room was spacious but thin walls informed us when the owner's baby was unhappy with the world.

A vaguely rude cactus, telling us to stop snapping photos and get back on the road.

At 0745h we breezed through customs. When that happens, do others also think, "gee, we could have brought more wine"? In case any border guards are reading, no need for concern, we will stick with our law-abiding approach. Ethics aside, the stress of worrying about getting caught would not be worth it. Actually, due to poor research, we had less(!) wine than allowed. No doubt we will survive this hardship. At Km 21, where the fees are paid and the visas issued, Bjarne chatted with a security guard who explained that it was good we weren't entering a little closer to Christmas - the drastic increase in travellers means it can take half a day to get through. The drive to Guaymas was great. Highway construction we'd manouevered around during other trips was virtually completed, and a new toll road allowed us to bypass the white-knuckle suspension-killing drive through Hermosillo. After a short(ish) stop in Guaymas for groceries, we pulled up to our lovely Hoku Pa'a at 1400h on Friday, December 13th. E-zed, pea-zed!

Beginning our provisioning with important beverage supplies. The yellow container has powdered whole milk, packaged with the means to turn it brown..

Boatyard life is one of the less glamorous aspects of cruising so we'll share just a few details. Days involved installing, repairing, recommissioning, cleaning, stowing and provisioning, interspersed with an exchange of opinions, tools, materials and labour with other cruisers. Early sunsets enforced an end to activities and provided time in the evening for socializing if one wasn't too tuckered out.

We discovered an abandoned nest in a bundle of line. The eggs were just a little over a centimetre long but were dried out. If you shook them they rattled.

"Hmmm, what's that falling on the deck?" Barb wondered. It turned out to be bits of blood and fish bone, courtesy of an Osprey dining on top of the mast. "How cool!" we said, until Barb spotted the "gift" of entrails and excrement on her newly-cleaned deck. Fortunately, our crisp new mainsail lying nearby was only lightly splattered.

In addition to the new mainsail, one of our Christmas gifts for Hoku Pa'a was a radar.

Bjarne preparing to haul the radar and its new mounting up the mast. Let's be clear about this: Barb did the actual hauling.

Provisioning included searching town for things like a caulking gun (did we take it home and, if so, why?) and acetone (never did locate that although apparently we should have asked at the pharmacy), in addition to the usual things like fresh fruit.

We rinse fresh produce in water with a little bleach before stowing it below, mainly to avoid bringing bugs onto the boat.

A perfectly-sized Christmas tree for our boat. Wine bottle provided solely for scale.

A few Christmas activities also occupied us although we kept things very simple. We made our Christmas fudge from memory but forgot the salt in the first batch - perfectly edible but not edibly perfect. The second batch was much better and acceptable for sharing; the obvious conclusion is that we should stay in practice throughout the year. We had a few Christmas decorations including a tiny tree, courtesy of Bjarne's sister, and roasted ourselves a nice dinner (albeit chicken instead of turkey). On Christmas afternoon we joined a boatyard potluck, complete with the richest egg nog you can imagine.

Christmas dinner. Rice pudding with our now traditional jamaica-and-lime sauce for dessert.

There's always some trepidation when the boat is being moved, and it isn't helped when one notices things like this tire tread, or more accurately, lack of tread! Nonetheless, we were launched without becoming a topic of boatyard conversation. Our travel lift had arrived about 50 minutes late, which would normally not be a problem but in this case we worried about the falling tide. We got underway lickety-split, not even bothering to reattach the forestay - good thing too as we had only 0.2 feet of water under the keel as we backed out of the launch dock.

An hour and a half later we were anchored in nearby Bahia Catalina, listening to loud Mexican oom-pah-pah music from the nearby trawler. Time to decompress. Ahhhhh!.