Back in La Paz!

We have been on the move! Our goal was to get to La Paz quickly so that we could start on our BIG list of projects. You know us, we don't move so quick and neither does Moondance, but we did good.



We only traveled ~200 miles, but it took us 10 days. Lots of beautiful stops along the way, plus reconnecting with our boat buddies.




Highlights of the trip:

• Homemade pizza on AirOps - thanks Dave and Merry
• Fishing
• Watching the wildlife
• Marvelous Dorado dinner on Totem - yum
• Cruising again!
  

We are enjoying being back in La Paz and re-visiting our favorite eateries. Special treat - the crews from Evergreen, Totem, and Capaz converging on the Burrito Lady for wonderful cheap eats!

Ana and Steve - wish you were here!

The Dolphin Roundup!

We had a special treat on our sail south - the Dolphin Roundup!

We were traveling from Puerto Escondido to San Marte when we were joined by approximately 200 dolphins. It was amazing to see them jumping and flapping their tails as the rounded up dinner, plus listen to them "talk". An amazing show that lasted about two hours - WOW!

Hope all of you get to see the Dolphin Roundup one of these days.

Thanks for the fish!

Back on the Baja!

We had a beautiful moonlit sail from San Carlos to the Baja Peninsula last night! We sailed 55 miles and motored 15 - that is pretty good for us! We were able to test out a lot of our equipment (new and old) and except for a fuel issue (TBDL), everything worked well.

It took us a long time, but nothing too crazy - except for the Frigging Frigates that were trying to land on our mast in the middle of nowhere, which generated lots of yelling and banging. People wonder what we do all night!

As we pulled into Punta Chivato on the Baja this morning, we were amazed to find the sun rising on our port side - and the moon setting on the starboard side. How often does that happen?

We also had a pod of dolphins join in to celebrate our arrival and help us find our way.

We have really enjoyed "cruising" again. We are sitting at anchor with a beautiful view (plus free wi-fi) and eating good old home cooking - the luxuries of life!

We had a very nice surprise tonight - Totem pulled in - yeah! We have really missed them and looking forward to spending some time together.

We will probably stay here a couple of days and then start heading South to La Paz. Looking forward to exploring the Baja again!

After that, we aren't sure what's happening. There is a "discussion" about our next step. Oh my. We will keep you posted!

Happy Halloween y El Día de los Muertos

Happy Halloween to our American Amigos; Feliz El Día de los Muertos to our Mexican Amigos!

We have been in San Carlos for two weeks now, getting Moondance read to sail again - it has been much more work than we thought!

Besides putting Moondance back together, we (Doug) has been repairing lots of important stuff, plus installing some of our new goodies!

In our "spare" time, we have enjoyed watching all of the Major League Baseball games (go Phillies), plus some football. What a treat - San Carlos is definitely Gringo friendly!

We met a lot of new boat buddies, plus hooked up with some of our old friends. San Carlos is pretty festive this time of year - lots of activities and parties - our kind of town. It was a special treat to spend time with our Alameda buddies, Marv and Ardy on Odyssey.

We hope to leave San Carlos on Sunday/Monday; heading to Punta Chivato. It is about 70 miles, so we will leave around 5pm and should get their about 7am.

If all goes well, we should have a beautiful moonlight sail over to the Baja - how romantic!

Most likely, we will be incommunicado until we hit La Paz - around November 15. We hope to get caught up on our R&R time, plus catch some fish along the way. Hope you are well and enjoying life!

Hasta Luego!

Naked Man and the Raccoon!

4:30 am - Doug (Naked Man) staring down a Raccoon that had scampered inside our boat, found the snack bin, and stole a bag of Snyder pretzels - hah!

The Raccoon would have got away with it except opening a bag of pretzels is very noisy and I sleep very light!

I wake up Doug who flies out of bed, grabs a flashlight, and sprints up the steps - a very attractive site for Naked Man! The Raccoon jumps off the boat, leaving the pretzels behind.

The Raccoon doesn't appear to be afraid of Doug. He is more interested in the pretzel bag Doug has in his hand. The Raccoon runs up and down the dock thinking ... flee or tackle Naked Guy and grab the pretzels? The Raccoon finally decides to run away, but we are sure he is going to come back. He knows where we keep the goods!

We have checked with other boats at the Marina - Raccoons are harassing everyone. Guess we had better start closing the hatches at night!

PS: Photo is not of our Raccoon, but a good substitute!

Back on Moondance!

Yahoo - it is wonderful to be home again and sleeping in our own bed - even if it is a mess! Our summer vacation lasted 3 1/2 months and completely wore us out. We decided that was too long to be away (for lots of different reasons) - but especially because of the hardships to the boat and equipment caused by the heat, humidity, and lack of care.

Our first day back, we spent the day goofing off and checking out some of favorite watering holes - just to catch up on some rest, plus acclimate to the weather.

Next day, we actually starting to "think" about our projects and shuffling stuff around. We have been keeping busy multi-tasking: catching up on email, blogging, and bombing cockroaches that snuck aboard while we were gone - oh my!

Today, we actually got some boat projects started and worked all day (almost).

We had an easy trip from Arizona to San Carlos. Thanks to Bill and Linda for letting us crash at their place, plus for the wonderful steak dinner. We went through Mexican customs, plus a Checkpoint, without much stress. Doug overwhelmed everyone with his fluency of the Spanish language (not!), his impressive amount of paperwork, plus the quantity of stuff stashed in the pickup. The locals didn't even want to start digging through the pile of boxes and bags that we called treasures!

San Carlos is in much better shape than we imagined, plus it beautifully green (from all of that rain). Tropical Storm/Hurricane Jimena left it's mark and there is still a lot of work to be done on the infrastructure, but it is coming along.

We hope to have Moondance sailing away by the end of October. Wish us luck!

The Wild, Wild, West!

We have been having a grand time visiting family and friends - can you tell? We loved spending time in Albuquerque with Kathy, Deb, and Chuck, visiting old haunts, and hanging with our buddies.

Plus, we got to spend some time with some of my SWIFT work team (miss them!) and Doug's old Gunrunner softball team. Can't believe it has been a year!

Next stop, Ruidoso to visit my family. This is Billy the Kid country and has lots of history, plus just beautiful mountains and valleys

Mom and Dad threw a 42 party (dominos) and, as you can tell, we ate lots of yummy stuff and stayed up way too late!

We got to enjoy some of the nightlife of Ruidoso with my sister and family (Anessa, Eric, and Gavin) - a chuckwagon dinner and western show at the Flying J Ranch.

Gavin braved the horseback ride and shoot out and we all laughed and sang during the entertainment - it was a hoot!.

Jim and Tawona invited us out to their house to pick yummy apples in the Hondo valley. It is harder than it looks, but we were able to get plenty!

Doug and Eric really enjoyed learning how to "Fast Draw" - check out the video. I gave it a try, but couldn't hardly hold the gun. It is tough.

Jim and Tawona compete in competitions. Jim is going to the Nationals near Reno this weekend. Good luck to them!