RECANTING; HULL-CLEANING AND WATER
La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Nayarit, Mexico, Tuesday, 03 January 2006

Recanting

OK. I was pretty upset about the treatment I received at the hands of Tomas. And being treated like the bearer of bubonic plague by the fishermen around here is pretty annoying. But having damned the whole town the day before yesterday, I am the recipient of several incidents of unsolicited friendliness yesterday: a young man helps me drag the dinghy up the beach above the high-tide mark; another sees me carrying bags of trash along the street and helps me find a trash bin. Ah well! I guess general condemnations are unfair. But stay away from Tomas.

Hull-cleaning and water

After putting a finishing coat of Cetol Gloss on the brightwork we have been refinishing as an initial step in Vilisar’s annual maintenance, we head in to shore. The tide is out and half the harbour basin in exposed. I think the seawall that has been built has perhaps protected the fishermen’s beach from waves. But the swells refracting around the point have also silted up half the basin. Little boys are walking out into the middle of the harbour though just there close to shore where the fishermen launch their pangas and the cruisers land their dinghies, it is a little deeper. We have to get out of the dinghy way out, walk the boat over the sandbar and then get back in again to row the last twenty-five yards to shore.

We have brought two of our five-gallon blue jerry jugs to fill them on shore. We have enough water aboard for another week perhaps but think we should perhaps be bringing water out each time we go ashore. But first I head up to a very nice souvenir shop near Phylos that is apparently run by a young American lady named Michelle. She gets things done around here someone has told me, Kate I think over at Café Viajero.

We find Michelle in the shop along with her mother and her auntie and a couple from Ottawa. Michelle is shocked that someone (Tomas) would demand Pesos 20 for a five-gallon jug of water and even more scandalised that he wanted Pesos 300 to ferry it out to the boat. If I came back on Wednesday morning she would get it all done. The water would cost Pesos 16 a bottle and it should not cost more than Pesos 100 for the boatman. She wanted nothing for her efforts.

The second good piece of news is that we may get the hull cleaned in the next couple of days as well. Jan on S/V Slipaway called me on VHF in the morning for the contact to the chart-lending library in Puerto Vallarta. In the course of the conversation I explained my problem of getting Jens’ diving tanks filled and our bottom scraped. She said her husband would do it for a six-pack though he could not do it until today (Tuesday). Jens takes the bottles over this morning. I told Jens that if and Steven clean the hull I will pay him the same as I would pay any other diver plus I would also pay whatever it took to get the bottles filled.

So, as bad as Sunday was, things are starting to move. We might actually be out of here by Thursday, heading south around Cabo Corrientes together with Veleda. I sure hope so.

This morning I finally mount the repaired and refinished port lightboard that was shattered last February off the Pacific coast of Baja California. Everything is mounted using heavy fisherman twine, i.e. without screws, clamps, etc. Very salty! I seem to have got the hang of that thanks to Bob Valine who once showed me how to do it back in Port Townsend, Washington, so long ago now in summer 2001. Another job well done by Captain Ronnie, Boy Spot-welding King-of-the-World; Captain Epoxy!

Kathleen gets into the dinghy and in a superhuman effort finishes scrubbing the topsides near the waterline where scum has built up from the waves. We are low on our lines. In these tropical waters green slime builds up even from the waves slapping against the hull above the anti-fouling paint. It looks great now.