So now we joined Larry’s mom, Jeane, and met up with many of her friends that we have not seen in a while.  She bowls at least twice a week, and Larry and I watched her almost every Monday and Friday.  We visited Alameda and caught up with our boating buddies at the Oakland Yacht Club.  Paul Goss of the sailing vessel Virago has bigger and bolder stories to tell than we do.  His boat is currently in a marina on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal.  He plans to transit the Canal next fall and proceed onwards through the Caribbean, up the east coast, to his home in Maine.  Harry Reppert, who crewed for us last fall on the HaHa, is getting psyched up for knee replacement surgery.  Joel Tuttle, who also crewed for us, is getting his boat and his life ready to untie the docklines and come to Mexico next fall.  Larry will help him do this.  While we were in Alameda, we naturally had to visit West Marine and pay our respects (literally and figuratively).  Spent about a boat buck before we returned to Mexico.

We caught up with Modesto-area friends – the Webmaster Patrick and his lovely bride, Valerie;  Brady and his mom and dad, of course;  Dr. Charles and Cherrie Llewellyn. Dr. Charles helped Larry get an appointment for a general check-up.  His basic health numbers – bp, cholesterol – are as good as they have been in 40 years. Charles also helped me with a dentist referral when I lost a filling – at least, that’s what I thought had happened.  The dentist told me that the tooth was actually falling apart.  So I had to have a crown.  That cost about one months’ living in Mexico!!  Oh, well – such is life.  Getting the tooth squared away required more time than we had scheduled.  So, Larry returned by car to Guaymas with Doug and Linda while Muggs stayed behind.  I (Muggs) finally followed on my own by bus all the way from Stockton to Guaymas.  Thirty hours in busses and bus stations.  Not much difference between the US bus stations and the Mexican stations – all pretty basic and tired looking.  But it was very inexpensive – much less than the cost of driving or flying. 

So here we are back in HOT, HOT Guaymas.  Our insurance company instructed us to paint our masts after the new insurance survey we had done last summer.  We were told that it didn’t need to happen immediately, so we waited until now.  Three years ago, we were given a price of $5000 plus paint to do this.  Here in Mexico, we have paid $1600 plus paint.  The job is done, and the masts are curing.  They should be ready to step (put in place) at the end of the week.  Meanwhile, we are struggling to stay reasonably cool.  This would be impossible without the regular trips to anywhere that Linda regularly takes in her air-conditioned car!  We have been to San Carlos, about 12 miles away, to check on the boats of our cruising friends – Blue Dolphin and Ubuntu.  We have gone “sight-seeing” at the Hotel Playa del Cortez.  We have spent hours dawdling and browsing in grocery stores and Wal-Mart.  The one thing we dare not do is swim in this bay – it looks and smells polluted.  Not a good thing.  The marina has a swimming pool, but they seem to drain and refill it regularly.  Not really sure what that’s all about, but we have used it a few times in between (when it is full, naturally!)

Here we have Peregrine and Aquadesiac side by side at the end of May, soon after our initial arrival.  The water guy is here, selling us 100 gallons of purified water, 5 gallons at a time.

Interesting what you find when you finally stop playing and clean up:

Bird’s nest on the aft deck.

Dinner at the Oakland Yacht Club.  Joel (red t-shirt), Larry (obscured), Marj and Paul Goss, and Sherry Stock.

Larry and Doug under a sunbrella, getting the winches removed.

It’s a little tricky to see in this photo, but the surface of these masts is very shiny, newly sanded and scraped and ground and filled aluminum.  Mucho hard work!!

More pics of the mast work progress.  I consider this a readily accessible archive that the insurance company can refer to if they have any doubts!

Last weekend, July 10-13, the city had a large celebration surrounding the events of July  13, 1854.  That is a date they cherish because the local citizenry successfully repelled an attempted invasion/take-over by a French warship based in San Francisco.  I don’t know anymore than that.  Mexicans don’t need much excuse for a fiesta.  There are carnival , rides set up and running every night that weekend and still today – July 18!  Larry, Doug and I went over a week ago and enjoyed the bumper cars (Carros Chocones) and Tilt-a Whirl.  The bumper cars had no rules like one way traffic, prohibition of t-boning and seatbelt requirements.  However, a seatbelt was available, and I used it.  Doug and I laughed ‘til we hurt!  And then we did the tilt-a-whirl, this time with Larry in the middle.  The operators of this ride came on board during the last few minutes and pushed the cars so that they would spin continuously and very fast!!  It was crazy fun, but I finally had to scream “Uncle!”  I felt the possibility of motion sickness for about three days after that.

There was also a meeting of a car club on a nearby lot.  The unifying theme seemed to be high-tech, shiny BIG stereo systems:

Plus other special refits:

The middle car here is a woodie-style VW.

Tomorrow, we drive to Ciudad Obregon to buy mahogany for a cockpit table that Doug will have built for his boat.  We don’t all need to go, of course, but it is a nice long outing in the air-conditioned car.  I don’t think anyone will be staying behind!  Muggs has to go, of course, because I am the resident Spanish-speaking expert.  That is a relative term, of course.  I am a little more expert than the rest, but they know almost no grammar.  Grammar is about all I do remember, and the vocabulary is easy to keep close by with a dictionary.  So far, I have kept us out of trouble.  That’s as much as I can hope for!”

Larry and Doug have been busy in the cockpit all day replacing the engine gauges.  They just started the engine and are pretty sure that the “overheating” problem we had has now been fixed.  For now, they are coming down into the salon, we will turn on our small a/c unit here and have something cold to drink!

Hasta luego, mis amigos!