On the sea again

December 5, 2012
Here I sit in Chacala again, with the sweat dripping off me!  This year, so far, it has been much hotter than the last 2 years.  Of course this year I am geared for cool weather...polar fleece pyjamas and a new storm jacket.  This year I will be buying hot weather clothing, but one can never predict these things.
So we left Marina Mazatlan on Monday about 1 pm and actually sailed to Stone Island (1.5 hr).   Leaving the marina was a bit interesing (that means I was sure we were going to knock off about 5 boats) as the wind was blowing us around.  Bob tried to reverse but our boat doesn't do that very well.  Of course we did not hit or even come really close to any boats.
Going to Stone Is gives us an opportunity to see if there are any issues with the boat and this year we sailed there with no problems.  There were warnings about Stone Is as there had been a dinghy stolen from a sailboat, but we saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Confession time:  I was dreading the overnight sail as it seems we encounter bad weather which means either too much wind or not enough.  Our trip was quite uneventful weatherwise as we had little to no wind to begin our journey.  We did motor sail  the entire trip and never had any head winds.  That meant 24.5  hr of sailing and if not for an encounter with fishing lines it would have been 23 hours. 
Patches got into a frenzy about midnight because he needed to pee. W went through the entire ritual of years gone by.  Then because it was so hot and he was panting so hard, he drank water.  I had prepared a little toilet area for him and put him and kept returning him to the spot.  FINALLY at 2 pm he peed and we were all much more comfortable.
While I was below with the panting dog, Bob was doing major renovations to the sailboat..at least it sounded like that to me.  When I asked what all the banging was about, he tells me he has been ..what would I call it..rerigging the sails to get more out of the wind we had.  At that time, I was getting a little frazzled with dog panting and Bob crashing around over my head.  At those times I wonder WHY am I here??
Our only mishap was running over fishing lines, not nets.  The first one we managed to get away from and when Bob took a wide berth around the marker, we found out that the market had lines on both sides!!  That little problem took over an hour to sort out.  Bob was diving down to cut lines off the prop and rudder.  Luckily nothing was broken.  Then this morning, Dec 5, we ran into another line which had a maker barely visible in the distance.  Bob saw a pop bottle (not uncommon sit) but the fishermen use pop bottles for floats, and you guessed that pop bottle was part of a line.  That one did not get tangled in the prop so Bob cut us loose in a few minutes.  After that I stayed up top and we watched very closely but of course saw no more lines.  These lines run for a mile or two and are badly marked.  At night you would never see them.
So we are hot and tired but just fine.  It will be early to bed tonight.
Bob has done extensive work on the interior  this past year.  The clean white ceiling is the best part.  We have all new sofa coverings and new covers for the berths.  I think this makes the boat smell better!  Oh yes and Bob oiled all the teak with linseed oil so the whole place is looking 'ship-shape'.
We are planning to say in Chacala until Dec. 8 and will leave for La Cruz early on Dec 8.  Unless something really exciting happens I won't be writing again until then.  The internet is very slow here so putting up this blog takes some time.
Love to all.