Into The Arms Of America By Michael

According to this sign, if you want a bigger pompas, you should
wear Tequila jeans (Note the before and afer pics).
I don't have a song or album that will help me to later recall this.

I like to listen to a lot of music, but I will often focus on a single song, album, or band for a concentrated period of time. While this can drive Windy mad, I develop auditory associations. Every minute of every hour I spent building the basement bathroom in our DC house, I listened to Modest Mouse’s Good News For People Who Love Bad News album. Years later when I hear a song from that album, I am transported to that time and place. At my consulting job, I wrote proposals with headphones on and the Jack White and Alicia Keys duet “Another Way To Die” repeating. I no longer listen to that song.

And so it goes. Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever puts me back on my first motorcycle. I hear Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” and begin to see disco lights reflected around me and four-wheeled skates on each foot. Tori Amos equals scuba diving lessons. The Steve Miller Band is transiting the Panama Canal on our first Del Viento. One listen to the Dead Weather and I see every bit of the streetscape from my DC office to home, through a bus window. Nirvana’s In Utero and Bush’s Sixteen Stone are most of my life in Ventura harbor.

When we arrived at the villa, we listened to a lot of the CDs in the owners’ collection. But the girls took a liking to U2’s The Joshua Tree after we talked about a few of the songs and it has been in heavy rotation. I know years from now, when I hear any song from this album, I will return to these past six weeks in the Puerto Vallarta villa.

The exceptional highs and lows notwithstanding, our time here is defined by a focus on the mundane: boat work, hydration, child care, Spanish communication, airport pick-ups/drop-offs, and grocery shopping. Our mindset is incongruous to the seeming exaggerated intensity and urgency in Bono’s delivery of politically- and socially-conscious lyrics. Yet the weight of this album is strangely suited to this significant time in our lives. This is it. We are on the eve of completing our monumental upheaval, a complete change of our priorities, lifestyle, and future. It’s been quite a journey from the genesis of our plan five years ago to this week. Yet unlike Bono and his band mates, as we countdown the hours until we move aboard, Windy and I are convinced we have found what we are looking for.

--MR

Yikes, No Bilge Pump! By Michael

The unpainted wood in this pic are my new supports for the
plywood floor supporting the batteries under Frances's berth.
Note the two longitudinal members stradling the tabbed
hanger for the old support.

Tonight, if our boat begins to sink, neither of the two automatic bilge pumps will do us any good, as there are no batteries aboard to power them. As the countdown to moving aboard seems to accelerate (five days!), I am focused on the jobs that have to get done prior. Because replacing all five of the ship’s batteries has proven so disruptive, this job is at the top of the list.

I have long been suspect of the four Mexican LTH six-volt, wet-cell batteries that comprised our house bank. They spit, they hiss, they are swollen, and they are well past their 12-month warranty period. For this reason I brought four larger Lifeline AGM batteries down with us. These guys are 20-hour rated at 300 amps, which will give us a house bank of 600 amps. (For perspective, the two group-27, 12-volt batteries on our last boat served as both the house bank and starting battery, and totaled roughly 170AH. Of course, we deep discharged them so often we probably were not getting close to that capacity. I recall many times waiting for the 75-watt solar panel to do its thing so we could start the engine.)

The four batteries are divided into two banks: a pair under the nav station and a pair under Frances’s berth. Yesterday I removed the pair under Frances’s berth and found the batteries were sitting in about an inch of acid that accumulated at the bottom of the single box. When I removed the plywood on which the box was mounted, I found the acid had, over time, destroyed the solid teak support just beneath where the batteries were mounted. I gutted the area, washed and scrubbed with tons of baking soda, rebuilt the supports, and painted everything with Interlux's Bilgekote (I really like that stuff).

The plan is to combine all four batteries into a single bank and locate them all under Frances’s berth. I thought I could do this job while leaving the existing nav station bank in service for lights and fans and such.

Nope.

I noticed today that the windlass cable from the switch to the battery bank was in terrible shape, stiff as a board and badly corroded at the terminals. To remove and replace this cable, I had to first remove the batteries under the nav station, leaving me to work by flashlight and to sweat even more than normal. These batteries were worse. There were only a few tablespoons of battery acid accumulated because the rest had leaked out through holes at the bottom of the box, where screws (now just rusted, corroded shards) were used to anchor the box. The plywood underneath is shot and everything around was contaminated and had to be neutralized.

Windy wondered if there was a correlation between the blisters we found on our haul out and the acid on the inside of the hull in these spots. I sure hope not. The fiberglass appears sound and Google says it shouldn’t be affected.

Tommorow I’ll get the new batteries in and avoid another night at risk. It ain’t easy being self-insured.

--MR

Paradise Lost On Me By Michael

This is about the only shopping available in Paradise.

We may be headed for Paradise and I ain’t happy.

We are determined to move out of the villa and aboard our boat September 1. Because of the nature of the work left to be done on the boat, we will live in a marina for the months of September and October. After that our life at anchor begins. But the question for the interim is: which marina? There are four primary choices in Banderas Bay:

• Marina Vallarta in Puerto Vallarta was the only game in town up until a few years ago. It is the old, grand dame of Banderas Bay marinas and closest to the vibrant Mexican life found in the older section of Puerto Vallarta. (Marina Vallarta is where the boat and the villa are today, but we can’t live aboard in the particular slip). Hands down, Marina Vallarta is our first choice because of the walkability and proximity to the bus lines and downtown Puerto Vallarta. There are slips available, but the marina does not have a pool. We really want a pool, especially for the kids’ sake. (In a marina, you cannot just jump off your boat and go for a swim, the water is not clean, and there are the cocodrilos.) We had a couple leads on Marina Vallarta slips that assured pool access (Puerto Iguana and the Hotel Flamingo have slips), but both fell through. We are still exploring other possible pool access, but it isn’t looking good.
• Marina Riviera Nayarit in La Cruz is at the northern end of Banderas Bay, a forty-five minute bus ride from Puerto Vallarta. As a town, La Cruz has its own charm, including Philo’s Bar and an expected large number of cruisers to settle into the anchorage outside the marina in a few weeks. Marina Riviera Nayarit is also the newest of them all—just completed a couple years ago—but pool access for the girls is a limiting factor here too.
• Marina Nuevo Vallarta is in Nuevo Vallarta, adjacent to Paradise Village Marina and on the same large, ensconced parcel as everything else Paradise Village, including the golf course and shopping malls. These marinas are between Marina Riviera Nayarit to the north and Marina Vallarta to the south. Marina Nuevo Vallarta has long been a small, run-down backwater marina. For the past year, they have been in the process of displacing boats and reconstructing the place. The amenities do not compare to those of Paradise Village Marina, and because the net cost difference between the two is not great for a two-month stay, Marina Nuevo Vallarta is out of the running.
• That leaves Paradise Village Marina in Nuevo Vallarta. The place is run by competent staff and includes a small, onsite chandlery. The docks and environs are clean and secure. Living at the marina, we would have access to all of the amenities of the hotel bordering the slips, including four beautiful pools. The problem? Paradise Village offers a feeling of Mexican authenticity on par with the Mexican restaurant we visited in Omaha, Nebraska on our trip here from D.C.

Paradise Village is not how I want to spend my time in Mexico. It is a moneyed sanctuary from the un-zoned, un-planned, rich and lively Mexico I love.

I read a recent post from the crew of Savannah, from the South Pacific. About the ubiquitous McDonalds, they write unabashedly, “Some criticize those of us who eat at the fast food joints because they don't serve the 'local' fare. But we contend that when the lines are full of locals, it's local food.” They make a point. As the world changes, so do cultures. Folks cannot visit the South Pacific and expect to find the islanders living as they did 100, 40, or even 10 years ago.

This is not Paradise, this is walking the streets of
Puerto Vallarta with my girls.

I’m the first to admit I have a romanticized notion of Mexico. But it is not unrealistic. I’m not pining for a diorama-esque streetscape of starving dogs, taco stands, and sitting figures shrouded in oversized sombreros.

No, I want Mexico as she is. And I want to discover what that is today. I’m already struck by the differences from our pervious times here, most recently 14 years ago. Despite the Home Depot, Costco, and Walmart mega stores that moved into town in the past decade, there does not seem to be a shortage of the tiny, open shops that are either specialized or serving as little convenience stores. And the character of those places seems unchanged.

When we went to the Dupont paint store across from the airport in Puerto Vallarta, the young man behind the counter helped us with a level of knowledge that reflected the fact that this was his career. We spent 20 minutes talking with him about the various two- and three-part paint options. We learned how best to test our unknown existing paint for compatibility When we selected a color, he created it by eye, patiently adding the primary pigments until he nailed it. My friend Tim Fitzmorris once told me about the joy he gets from seeing someone do their work well, work that represents knowledge and skill born of pride and dedication. That’s what I saw in the paint store.

These guys are expert at what they do. The guy in the red

shirt is going to re-upholster the settees in our boat.

You can't find their shop in Paradise.

In Mexico, there is still the opportunity to talk and deal directly with the tradesmen, craftsmen, and artisans who do the work. There is no clerk interface. This was the case when I had our engine manifold welded. This was the case at the small electronics store where I found my obscure-sized, 12-volt wire plugs sitting under glass waiting for me. This was the case at the upholstery shop where the guys on the sewing machines are the same ones we’ve dealt with over the past three days over fabric, approach, and labor cost. I imagine these workers enjoy respect in their community for their specialized, needed knowledge.

Of course, these experiences are less common in the U.S. I think I understand the underlying reasons for this, and it is likely to change in Mexico over time, but for now, this is the kind of thing you see daily in Mexico, at the myriad, highly specialized, hole-in-the-wall shops and workshops.

All of this is missing from Paradise Village. In Paradise Village, there is no need for the hundreds of specialized micro-stores and shops and the working class that inhabit them and the supporting businesses that cater to the workers. At Paradise Village, there are working class Mexicans, but they are clerks ready to sell you a $45USD kid’s bathing suit in the mall or take your pizza order at Dominos. There are no tortillarias in Paradise Village, all the tortillas served in the air conditioned restaurants are brought through the gates by trucks each morning.

They sell food in Paradise, but not like this, and at
prices that make a cruiser blush.

I have nothing against exclusivity for the sake of privacy and security, and Paradise Village offers this: a 440-acre sterile compound surrounded by kilometers of barbed-wire-topped concrete walls. Perhaps my biggest problem with Paradise Village is the size of the place. Our villa is no less exclusive, but a 60-second walk out the front door takes us out of the Isla Iguana complex and onto the streets, where buses roar by in clouds of dust and exhaust and will gladly stop and take us anyplace for six pesos. The only means of escape for the Paradise residents is a 10-minute drive off of the compound, either by car or licensed cab. A week long stint in Paradise Village would be easy, like a couple of days in Las Vegas. But two months living on the strip in Las Vegas?

As we look at our options, we may be calling Paradise Village home very soon.

--MR

Grandma Linda and the girls the night before she flew home.
They are here on the malecon that surrounds Marina Vallarta.
From their smiles, you can see that they aren't in Paradise.

Thank You Auntie Julie By Michael

Eleanor and the dolphin (I forget its name). Auntie Julie
arranged a half-day adventure for all of us to visit
with the dolphins.

After a couple false starts, my sister Julie and the girls’ cousins finally got on a plane back to the U.S. the day before yesterday. (Because her husband is a pilot, they fly standby everywhere and can’t always depend on getting a seat.) She and her kids were here for nearly four weeks and for most of that time she watched all four kids, allowing Windy and I to focus on the boat. After our mom’s injury, Julie and I spent our time caring for her, or overseeing her care, until my dad arrived this past week. Boat work was put on hold while Windy watched the four cousins. It was a time none of us will forget.

My folks leave this afternoon and then it is just the four of us left in Mexico. Eleanor and Frances are both eager to move aboard. Windy and I are still acquiring information to determine in what marina we’ll be for the next two months before we are living on the hook. We are both mentally ready for anchor life now, but know we need a couple months in a marina to complete the boat work on our list.

--MR

Auntie Julie (back) also arranged for herself, Windy, and the four cousins to ride the

banana on a rough windy day--they loved it. We don't know who the girl on
the front is.

Auntie Julie and the kids spent hours and hours and hours at "our" pool. All four kids
emerged strong swimmers, without instruction but with a desire to increase the level of fun.

To Varnish Or Not To Varnish? By Michael

Our stripped, sanded teak toe rail awaiting it's fate.

I admire the efforts of those people. They spend a lot of time varnishing the teak on their boats. The wood on their boats gleams. Their boats are beautiful. My friend Dar is one of those people. For more than a decade, she maintained 23 coats of varnish on more than 100 feet of teak toe rail on her Passport 47. The wood on her boat gleamed. Her boat was beautiful.

The varnish on our toe rail and the rest of the outside wood was in pretty bad shape when we arrived. Our long to-do list of before-we-move-aboard projects does not include wood care. Painting lockers, replacing batteries, repairing the engine, and installing fans are high on our to-do list. Making the teak on the outside of our boat pretty is not on the list. We didn’t even bring anything down here with us to do that work. And stripping old varnish down to bare wood requires a heat gun and is a lot of work.

Ricardo works in our marina on some of the big, snazzy powerboats. He gave us a bid on stripping our wood. It was a lot of money, but a bargain. Windy and I began rationalizing. We decided it wouldn’t take much of our time because someone else was doing the work. We neglected to consider the time and effort that would be required once the stripping was complete.

Windy seemed to be leaning toward letting the wood go gray —a clean, uniform gray—or paint it. Re-varnishing wasn’t out of the question, but not likely, we are not those people.

Then the stripping progressed and we saw that the wood was stained in places and the black caulk in some of the seams was cracked and dried. Where we removed all of the hardware we saw teak that is further cracked and water stained where no bedding compound was used. Going gray looked like a poor option in terms of protecting the wood from future, additional damage. I could smell the paint on the horizon when we began to imagine aloud just how beautiful all of that bare teak could be re-varnished, after all of the repairs were completed.

Windy declared, “Maybe we should varnish just the toe rail…and the handrails, the wood would look sharp and stay protected.” She was leaning towards painting the hatches and off-white to match the gel coat.

Today I finished applying the third of four coats of varnish to all of the wood surfaces, including the hatches and the companionway and the cockpit table. The wood on our beautiful boat is beginning to gleam.

We acknowledge we have a new chore on our hands, a coat or two of varnish ever so often, sanding between coats. But the payoff is seeing every day beautiful, finished wood trimming the outside of our home. Cruising aboard a 1978 boat means we forego a lot of the niceties common to more modern designs. Varnishing our large, solid teak toe rail is a positive trade-off, a reminder to us both that they don’t make them like this anymore.

___________________________________________

Grandma Linda (my mom) is recovering well from her fracture and surgery. My dad flew in and they are holed up at the Hotel Flamingo, just a short walk from our rented villa. Her room overlooks a pool where she can watch the grandkids swim and my dad pushes her along the marina malecon in a wheelchair. She is eager to get home.

Her extremely detailed, itemized hospital bill came to over $23K. This includes about $2,500 for all the drugs they gave her and just over $9,000 for the services of the surgeon and anesthesiologist and others. This seems reasonable for a private hospital, and I suspect less expensive than a comparable surgery and stay in a U.S. hospital. I wonder how much this would have cost in a public Mexican hospital and how the level of care would have been different.

--MR

It hasn't all been about the wood. Here I am yesterday repairing the dodger, working inside
and taking a respite from the sun. I'm getting pretty good with the sewing machine,
but I worry that I used just standard thread, nothing specialized with protection from
UV exposure--I may be repeating this job soon. I also repaired the mattress cover
on Frances's berth.

Tough Old Broad By Michael

I am pleased that the staff here seem to have taken
a shine to my mom, making this paciente feel good. 

The kids were falling asleep Saturday night and I was downstairs writing a post about the work we’d accomplished on the boat and reflecting on our eminent move aboard, when my sister called me from her room upstairs. I heard a distress in her voice unlike anything I have ever heard. I ran upstairs while she continued calling for me. I heard her yell that something was wrong with our mom, here visiting for a short time.

The door to the upstairs bathroom was closed and my mom was inside, lying against it, blocking it from opening inward. She was conscious and in extreme pain, unable to move. She could hardly communicate her belief that her hip or leg was broken. It was difficult to listen to her agony.

Windy called 060 (the Mexican version of 911), corralled the kids in front of the TV in the other bedroom, and went out to the security gate guard to alert him and direct the ambulance. While my sister kept a dialogue running with our mom, I ran out to the boat to retrieve the tools needed to break into the bathroom. I returned, pried the trim off from around the door, and pulled on the door until the hinges ripped out of the frame.

My sister covered my mom in a towel and the paramedics arrived very soon after. My mom was in extreme pain while the emergency personnel did the necessary manipulations to remove her from the bathroom and strap her to a back board. It was extremely difficult to watch. They carried her downstairs and to the ambulance. I followed behind in the car while my sister rode aboard for the five-block trip to the Amerimed hospital.

My mom with her surgeon, Dr. Plantillas.

X-rays revealed a fractured femur, just below her hip. She had successful surgery late last night to install a rod down the length of her femur and some screws top and bottom to hold it in place. She returned to her room from post-op about 1:00 a.m. this morning, conscious and feeling good. In fact, she was feeling a bit too good and this morning we've had to repeat all of our post-op conversations. Today we’re expecting a visit from her surgeon and will hopefully get a sense of how she is expected to progress over the next few days.

During the ordeal, she never lost consciousness, enduring unimaginable pain and the fear of an unknown situation. She is going to have to delay her return to the States, remaining here until she is fit enough to travel, likely not before August 23. She will not be able to return to the villa we rented and we’ll find a ground-level hotel room nearby where she’ll be able to recuperate following her discharge.

How did she break the largest bone in her body? We don’t yet know. She did not fall. She says her bone simply snapped while she stood on that leg while drying the other (it literally threw her for a loop in the small room). For the past nine years, she has been taking a bisphosphonate-based drug called Zomata for her multiple myeloma. While this drug is intended to strengthen her bones against the debilitating effects of the disease and the chemotherapy she is taking to combat it, studies over the past year have increasingly and ironically linked it to spontaneous upper-femur fractures.

On first blush, it seems like her body picked the worst possible time for her bone to snap, assuming it was destined to happen. She was trapped alone in a small bathroom up one narrow flight of stairs in a foreign country. In retrospect, these were the perfect circumstances.

That the room is tiny was a blessing. When her bone snapped, she said she felt catapulted, out of control. In a larger space, she could have gone anywhere and caused more extensive injury. Worse, she could have been on a flight of stairs carrying a small child. In the small bathroom, she fell back onto the door immediately behind her before winding up contorted on the floor.

That we three adults were there to coordinate an effective response was a blessing. Had she been alone at home she may not have been able to summon help, instead waiting in agony for assistance. Even she wasn't alone and my dad was able to assist, she would have faced a much longer response time in the rural community they live and then an uncomfortable ride down the long dirt road to their house.

My sister and I are impressed with the level of care she’s received in this small Mexican hospital (maybe 20 rooms). From the time she arrived we have felt assured she would receive excellent care and confident in the knowledge and skills of the doctors and staff. That said, it’s fascinating how things are different from the U.S. hospital culture. Everything is much more casual. The care is often participatory in that my sister and I have been enlisted to help transfer my mom from one bed to another. Characteristic of Mexican culture, time and schedules in the hospital are quantified in precise terms (viente minutos!), but with an imprecise actual meaning (dos o tres horas, mas o menos…). Her two-hour surgery scheduled for 6:00 p.m. did not happen until 8:45 and it was five hours before they wheeled her back into her room. When my mom decided a sample of her bone at the break might be of value to her cancer doctors back home, she asked her surgeon to remove some. After the surgery last night, Dr. Plantillas walked into her room and handed my sister and me small containers, one containing a marrow sample and the other containing a piece of her femur. We didn’t sign for them and there was no mention of a pathologist or anything else, just super casual. Visiting hours? I don’t know. My sister and I have come and gone at all hours without restriction. She spent two nights on the couch in my mom’s room. (Yet the kids are not allowed upstairs to visit Grandma, a big disappointment.)

And the room is really nice. It is the standard room, yet private and includes a leather couch, a leather recliner, a table with four chairs, a refrigerator, a big screen TV, and a window. The building is new, completed only this past June. It turns out this hospital is private and does not serve the working class participants in Mexico’s nationalized health insurance program. It is intended for U.S. tourists and upper class Mexicans or those with private insurance. Mom’s HealthNet coverage should absorb all of the costs—or my credit card is on the line. Either way, I am eager to learn the actual costs of her care here in Mexico, I suspect they will be comparatively low.

She is supposed to check out of here manana…we’ll see.

--MR

A view of last night's sun setting from my mom's hospital window.

Crocs And Bums By Michael

That's him. He is hard to see in a picture, but at
least I had my camera, unlike my encounter with
the Bum holding the Mexican.

I’ve heard and read stories for years about the crocodiles that populate the lagoons and marinas of the Pacific coast of Mexico. I’ve heard about them in Manzanillo (where they filmed the 1979 movie Ten starring Bo Derek) and later heard about them in San Blas and Puerto Vallarta.

A few times since we’ve been here, locals have made it a point to warn us about the cocodrilos when they see our girls lying on the docks or kneeling in the rocks at the water’s edge here in the marina, poking at sea anemones or trying to catch small crabs. Some of these folks have seemed genuinely alarmed to see us casually standing by with our children only a hairsbreadth away from being snapped up by sharp rows of teeth and drug below the surface as a snack.

The notion that they are in any danger seems exaggerated to me, even after my first sighting of a modest-sized specimen the other night. Windy was at the store and returned with a big smile on her face, “You guys want to see a crocodile?” I grabbed the camera before we hurried out. Swimming slowly just below the surface with his the top of his head and snout out of the water, and about 15 feet behind our boat, was a six- to seven-foot long crocodile.

And today I spotted my first Bum, and holding a small Mexican. My sister and I were at the Puerto Vallarta International Airport (a much, much smaller place than the name implies) when I noticed Pat Schulte standing next to me (and holding his daughter Ouest). I introduced myself just as his inlaws appeared down the corridor. His wife, Ali, is due any minute with their second child. We look forward to meeting them more formally and having them aboard Del Viento once both our families are more settled into our new lives.

--MR

Stuff Is Getting Done, Slowly By Michael

Applying two-part primer to the old, prepped non-skid.

The heat and humidity are sucking the life out of us. I think we’ve acclimated as much as we can acclimate and it is still oppressive. Within an hour of starting work on the boat in the morning, our shirts are sopping wet with sweat. I drink six or seven 20-ounce bottles of refrigerated water a day. I rarely have to pee.

Yet, stuff is getting done. The non-skid on the topsides and cockpit looks sharp, the bilges are starting to shine, and I ran about 130 feet of 14-guage wire for six fans down below. Since Saturday, we’ve had a crew stripping all of the varnish off the teak. Windy plans to apply new varnish to the toe rails, companionway hatch, and cabin-top handholds, but paint the teak on the two forward hatches—an off-white to match the gel coat.

The start of the bilge under the v-berth, all clean and shiny.

I also found the source of the leak on the exhaust manifold where the hot salt water is injected downstream of the heat exchanger: a pinhole at the weld. After asking around town for a guy who could repair the weld, I found a shop just across from the airport. When I entered the place, I could see a few guys grinding and welding metal for various projects. There was a line of about a dozen ornate street lamps, a stack of custom iron fencing, and a pile of fancy metalwork that looked like bird cages. Off to the side was an office that looked empty. I walked in the door and called out, “Buenos tardes.” A guy appeared. I showed him my water injection manifold. He nodded and walked me outside. He showed it to one of his guys, asked him to fix it, and walked away.

I was hoping for a price quote or something, but the guy was already grinding at my piece, hitting it with the spot welder, and banging on it. Except for the welding, I watched intently. After a long 15 minutes, the guy stopped, nodded to himself, and showed off his work to me. It looked great.

“Cuantos? Y se acceptan tarjetas?” He shrugged and directed me to ask El Patron. I walked back to the office again, told the boss it looked great, and asked how much I owed and whether he accepted credit cards. He shook his head and told me to simply settle with the guy who did the work. I thanked him and walked back out.

“Cuantos?” The welder looked confused and directed me again to his boss. I told him that it was up to him to name a price, per his boss. He thought for a second and then asked, “Cinquenta pesos?” That is less than $5. I told him that was fine, but that I would have to leave the piece here and return with cash in a few minutes. I returned with 60 pesos and thanked him again.

I saw this leak a year ago, even before it showed up on the survey. In my mind, it had grown into a much bigger problem and I imagined working with a Mexican machine shop for a week to refabricate a new piece, and paying a lot of money. Now I can install this (dripping in sweat) and rest assured that the girls’ cabin aft will not be filled with carbon monoxide from this leak.

--MR

The girls and their cousins with their new, temporary pet.