Yatista Two Step

Buenos dias, amigos. In case we forgot to tell you we have begun our spring/summer sailing trip, and this is the first of our e-mails to let everyone know what we are doing. As usual you can just click reply and tell me you could care less about our “vacation”, and we will drop you from this mailing list.

We flew from San Jose to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico on April 29 to pick up sailing where we left off last winter when we went home to work for a few months. Our trip was delayed slightly because I insisted on waiting until after the Apple City Amateur before we could leave town. From my point of view the wait was well worth it because I am now the reigning 2008 Apple City Net Champion. Yes, I won the tournament with a nice 75 in the final round. I am a happy golfer, if not a happy sailor. Andrea has not yet shared my enthusiasm for this accomplishment, but I am sure that if I keep telling her all about the round she will grow to appreciate the grandeur of the award.

If you want a carefree vacation I have a piece of advice… Don’t take a boat with you. We have been in Mexico for a week now, and we are enjoying everything about Mexico except the sailing. Why you might ask? Because the boat has had one problem after another, and we are still cleaning, repairing, ordering parts and paying $$. None of this sounds like swimming, partying, exploring or sailing does it?

We are doing what I call the Yatista Two Step. This is the popular boating dance that goes two steps forward, one step (or more) back. We arrived to find that all of the work scheduled for February (repairs from last year’s adventure) had yet to be started as promised. In addition the very valuable lower drive shaft for our motor which we had painstakingly smuggled into Mexico in a golf bag was the lower drive shaft for someone else’s motor, certainly not ours. Wrong part, no solution available, no motor. Well, only one motor. Because we are a catamaran we do have another motor tucked away in the other hull, and it was this second motor which was going to allow us to sail away even with a less than complete propulsion system. Alas, when we dropped the boat in the water the “good motor” failed to start.

After some emergency repairs to allow us to get to the marina it took us another two days to find the electrical short which had caused this problem. And finally (because I know some of you have already nodded off) we discovered that a part from the “good motor” had disappeared over the winter. We mysteriously lost the choke lever from our unlocked motor well which also caused the motor not to work . Backup motor to the rescue again, but that backup motor looks woefully incomplete without a drive shaft, choke lever and whatever else we will cannibalize from it in the next few weeks.

We also discovered that we made a significant error in judgment leaving the boat in a working yard for the winter. The decks are stained and filthy and they are taking lots of elbow grease and rubbing compound to clean up. Andrea is headed up the mast tomorrow to try to clean the 50 or 60 feet of the boat that we can’t reach easily. Of course the cleaning might not be so bad if it weren’t 90/95 every day. That’s 90 degrees and 95% humidity. Tengo calor.

So what else have we been doing our first week in Mexico? We had a very nice hotel room overlooking the marina for the first 3 nights (pool included), and we have enjoyed some fantastic Mexican bars and restaurants. Our old favorite Victor’s still offers $1.50 beers (free shot of tequila with every beer), we found Brando’s (home of the Jumbo Double Margarita for $2.00) and, lest you think all we do is drink here in Mexico, we discovered El Coleguita which serves fish soup, large seafood dinners (think 30 or more shrimp), dessert, Kahlua and cream AND free tequila for under $10.00. Hard to beat a place that puts a fresh bottle of tequila on the table for the two of us. Next week we are definitely ON THE WAGON.
Jay, Linda, David and Angela… we had breakfast on Sunday with Fox who owns Café Roma where we had lunch with you last December in Viejo Vallarta. He was dining alone and shared his table with us in a crowded restaurant.

We will be out of Marina Vallarta by the end of the week and if all goes well we will be sailing south for the next 30 days. We expect to visit Mexico’s Gold Coast with stops at Chemela, Barra de Navidad, Tenecatita, and perhaps Zihuatenejo along with several smaller towns and bays. Our goal is still the Panama Canal, but now we are discussing how to get there sailing only two months at a time and trying to avoid both the summer heat and the prospect of hurricanes. Minor adversities are behind us. The world is our oyster and we are off.