Weather (WX) & Mexico

This has been a longer absence from the blog than I had intended. The truth is that this has been a time with guests and there has been a bit of boat work to complete. We have been bouncing between the Barra de Navidad lagoon and the Tenacatita anchorage during all this time. I can’t say that it is taxing in any way but it has had its moments of excitement.

We have had more rain than I thought possible for this time of year in this part of the globe. Starting with the water spout we witnessed while in the marina in La Cruz (near Puerto Vallarta) and the storm, complete with hours of lightening and high winds, in Tenacatita we have had more weather excitement than all of last season! When you see gusts up to 70 knots while at anchor you tend to be thankful for a really good dig in on your anchor. When the storm was first upon us we were playing Mexican Train (dominoes) and I found it difficult to sit while the storm gathered force. At each break I was up and down the companionway to see if we had moved and finally had to abandon the game to watch our position and to see the spectacular lightening show. Our guests got a real taste of cruising that night as we bounced around until almost 0500 in the morning!!

With all this change in the weather we have had so many days of zero sunshine that keeping ahead of the power needs with the help of the solar panels has been a challenge too. We find ourselves running the generator so much more when there is a cloudy day and we have had some seriously cloudy days (many including rain)!! This is supposedly an El Niño year and that, somehow, explains this. What I can see is that we have extended periods of little wind when the rain and clouds come through and then some exciting days with a bunch of wind. The pattern seems to be meant to produce lots of mosquitoes. We went out to dinner for a six month wedding anniversary recently only to be eaten alive by hordes of descending mosquitoes at the second story restaurant. The waiter was concerned enough that he brought repellent to our table and followed that with hand wipes to keep us in good humor. We have had, naturally enough, experience with mosquitoes in many places here but nothing previously encountered comes close to this year.

Managing the boat has been easier in some ways because we are more organized this time. Even with guests we now have a better way to shower at the end of the really hot days. We have a pattern for running the generator that takes into account that the neighbors probably don’t want to hear it run ALL the time. We have started swimming and “Noodling” earlier this year than last and cooking continues to be about adapting to locally available items. Sandy has baked cookies, cakes and muffins too… yum!! Our water usage is well under control this year and we have a new filter system that allows us an easier way to take on water than pouring five gallon jugs into our tanks. Lots of little innovations make for better cruising overall.

We are still discussing the Autopilot issue. Our research has yet to give us a clear winner in the replacement category so we are still asking lots of questions and looking for the best way to fix the problem. In the meantime we hand steer more and watch Dion (the autopilot) like a hawk when we turn him on. We have a new GPS that I can now program from the computer and this has helped reduce the time for trip planning somewhat. It also gives us a better backup than we had before. One plague we had for awhile was a Deflatable Dinghy. We would patch the hole then not have the patience to wait for the glue to set before we pumped it back up and tried to use it. In part this was because we had guests and needed the use of the thing. After they left we did a patch job waiting two days for the glue to set and all is now good. This was just one more adjustment for us. In any case, between checking batteries more often and taking care of smell in the holding tanks better we are finding our way this season to more comfort than last year.