A trip to Yakima

Yesterday, morning we caught the 10:25 am ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle and then on to Interstate 90 for a drive over to Yakima in eastern Washington. The weather was 'clearing', a weaselly expression meaning it was still cloudy and overcast but that the sun was starting to peak through in places. After we crossed Snoqualmie Pass, the sun was shining and you could see blue skies between the puffy white clouds. We met Doug and Nancy at the Yakima airport. They had flown in from Euphrata, where they had been judging an aerobatic competition. We drove to the Birchfield Manor where we are staying as we join 6 other couples to do some wine tasting on Monday before heading back to Seattle on Tuesday.

Rich and I realized it has been a long time since we were in eastern Washington. The last time may have been in 2003. I guess when you live on a boat, you don't go inland as much.

The Birchfield Manor includes a restored old home and a cottage house with nice accommodations including restored antiques. Our rooms has a large window seat and a private bath with a shower. It is named the Victoria. Other rooms with such names as Jenny, Anne, Elizabeth and Allison, vary in the size and amenities. 

Last night several of us had a hankering for pie so we drove to the nearest Shari's restaurant for some cherry pie. Very delicious.

This morning we enjoyed breakfast in the large dining room. We have some time to relax, read and enjoy a little sun before the limousine pick us up this afternoon and takes us to several wineries to do some tasting. In the evening we will have dinner back at the manor.

Perhaps we will have a few bottles to add to our wine cellar in the bilge.

Sent from SV Windarra iPad

Life on land

We are settling in to our life on the land and off of the boat. It has been a bit of an adjustment. We are lucky that the place we are staying has a view of the water and we can see the ferry go by as well as some of downtown Seattle, the cruise ships, container ships and of course sailboats. I miss the rocking of the boat, some of the warmer weather and sunshine (I don’t miss the really hot stuff or humidity), the anchorages, changing scenery, different cultures and some of our ‘stuff’. If you are a George Carlin fan you can appreciate if I say we now have stuff in two countries. I do have to admit it is easy to adjust to a private bathroom with a free shower, a free laundry that is a few steps away, an upright refrigerator and a dishwasher plus being close to grocery stores that have everything you can imagine without having to search multiple places or wish that you had stocked up on it before leaving the United States.

Rich and I joined a fitness center so we can get back in shape. We are trying to go almost every other day. My muscles were a bit sore at first but I am hoping there is some muscle memory left as we get back into our routines. I plan to get back into yoga but I will have to buy a new yoga mat as I left mine on the boat and did not have enough room in our duffel bags to bring it as they were stuff full with all the other stuff I thought I would need while off the boat.

Rich has seen some of his doctors including a cardiologist recommended by his vascular surgeon as well as our friends Doug and Nancy. Rich’s previous cardiologist retired some years ago to go cruising. Go figure. We were able to establish a good rapport with this new doctor and feel comfortable working with him. He went through Rich’s medical history and the documentation we had from his incidents in Portland, May 2011, and now Mexico, April 2012. We are developing a plan and the prognosis looks good.

In the meantime we are doing chores like claiming unclaimed accounts of my parents, working with the insurance company to get reimbursed for Rich’s stay in the hospital in Mexico as well as the fun part, reconnecting with friends.

We had dinner with Dan, Madeline, Megan and Lauren Sego. As you may recall Dan joined us on the Baja Ha-Ha late last year. We stopped by our old dock at Shilshole Bay Marina and visited with Michael Pack of Caelistis. He and his family recently moved from Seattle to San Diego and he was preparing to sail his boat down the coast to it's new berth at Harbor Island in San Diego bay. We wished him fairwinds and following seas for his run down the coast. Our friends, Wendy and Garth of SV Vellala, recently bought a house with a large workshop here on Bainbridge Island where they will live while Garth builds his dream sailboat. Paul and Suzette of SV Altair sailed from Shilshole Bay Marina over to Port Blakely here on the island on Friday after work. Saturday morning we picked them up and drove into Winslow for the day including a visit to the Farmer’s Market, checking out the waterfront walk and a stop at Doc’s for some liquid libation and a snack. That evening we rode with Doug and Nancy up to Port Townsend for dinner with 3 other couples at Doc’s new location at Port Hudson. It was a great evening, good food, good company. We remember sailing to Port Hudson on our previous sailboat, Fairwind, with the kids and stat, Fairwind, with the kids and staying at the marina. The building, where the restaurant is now, once housed the bathrooms and showers.

We look forward to seeing more friends (just give us a call) and family during our stay on land.

Signing off from Bainbridge Island

"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"

On Saturday, June 2, we helped Doug and Nancy pick up their oyster seedlings to put out on their beach. There is a program on Bainbridge Island that will sell you oyster seedlings and all of the equipment necessary so you can 'grow' them on your beach. The Puget Sound Restoration Fund is a non-profit organization helping to restore the eco-system of Puget Sound. One of their programs is to restore the nitrogen balance in the Sound by having people raise oysters on their beach. So since Doug likes oysters, and this is a good cause, he decided to become a shellfish gardener.

Along with 500 little oyster seedlings, we picked up two mesh bags with wire ties to contain the seedlings while they grow and discourage starfish and other predators, plus two rebar stakes and some line to stake down the mesh bags.

On Sunday we set about planting the oysters. With 250 seedlings per bag, we used wire ties to seal the bags and prevent starfish from getting inside. Two stakes are stuck into the sand and the rope is tied from one stake to the other. We then wire tied one end of the bag to the rope so that the bags would lie flat.

The oysters are ready

Now you do this and ....

Doug choose to plant Pacific oysters which will take about a year before they are large enough to eat. In the meantime he will watch them grow and flip over the bag once a month, per the instructions.

You may recognize the title of this post. It is from the poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter" from Lewis Carroll's book, "Through the Looking Glass".

Change of Plans

If you have been wondering why we have not written in a bit, it is because we have had to make a major change in our cruising plans.

In the early hours of April 28th Rich awoke with chest discomfort and cold sweats. After an uncomfortable night we decided to take a taxi to the local tourist hospital, where he was diagnosed with an ongoing MI. The EKG's were normal (for him) and matched the most recent graphs we had in our records from May 2011, but the blood test indicated unusually high enzyme readings. After an angiogram and four days in the ICU the diagnosis was angina brought on by low blood pressure and low heart rate. This is new for Rich. The local cardiologist recommended a two wire pacemaker and took him off the high blood pressure medicine which Rich had been taking for 18 years. We have opted to return to Seattle and visit his doctors in the Swedish system for a full workup to get a handle on this new development. We are renting the guest cottage in the house next to Doug and Nancy and plan to be in the Seattle area through the summer returning to Windarra in the October time frame.

The engine installation is complete and we are happy with the results. We have prepped Windarra for the hurricane season and moored the boat at Paradise Village Marina.

We flew to Portland on Wednesday, 5/16. After a weekend with the kids, we took Amtrak to Seattle this morning, Monday, 521, and Rich has his first doctor’s appointment on Tuesday.

Rich is feeling fine and up to speed. This incident was more serious than the "blip" he experienced last year in Portland and deserves a more serious evaluation.

Our cruising plans are on hold right now as we work through Rich’s health concerns. We hope to visit friends and family and do some land travelling in the mean time.

Windarra has left La Cruz

Windarra finally escaped from La Cruz and we are now at Paradise Village Marina in Nuevo Vallarta. We are enjoying a busy social life getting together with our friends Reg and Phoebe of SV Three Sheets and Bob and Sherry of SV Nirvana. Last night we all enjoyed dinner at Three Sheets and we probably kept the south end of the marina awake with our talking and laughing until almost midnight.

Don't get us wrong, we enjoyed the town of La Cruz. But the 110 days from when the old engine quit to when we had a new engine running was a long time.

Hooray, the new engine starts!

Today, May 7, 2012 at 3:15pm the new Yanmar 4JH4-TE mounted in Windarra started for the first time. It has been 110 days since our old engine quit.

This morning Fernando arrived and completed the installation. Friday he had put in the transmission fluid and engine oil and did some of the connections. Today he connected the engine to our heat exchanger associated with the hot water which required a special fitting, connected the power cables to the starter and put in fresh water and antifreeze. There was a little hiccup in the power from the engine control breaker to the fuel lift pump due to a relic of the old engine control system, so Rich ran a new wire from the breaker to the terminal strip for the fuel lift pump. When we ran the lift pump to bleed the fuel lines, Fernando realized that the plug for the new Racor fuel / water separator was missing, so we paused for a bit so he could get a plug. When he returned and bled the fuel lines, Rich went into the cockpit and turned the engine on.

It was a delightful sound.

We still have some more checkout to do which we plan to do on Tuesday and a sea trial early Wednesday morning.

We are so excited. Woohoo !!!!

La Cruz - sleeply little Mexican town ?

I am not sure why the moniker, "sleeply little Mexican town" was given to many places in Mexico, La Cruz de Huanacaxtle included. At times walking through the town especially during the day, it seems appropriate when it is hot and the inhabitants are taking a siesta or sitting in chairs on their front stoops in the shade.

Since we have been at La Cruz, the town has hosted the Copa Mexico races, MEXORC races, El Presidente, Coctel Tianguis Turistico 2012, Easter celebration as well as a 9-day celebration for the founding of the local church. The last event just ended at 5 am on Friday morning. Of course all of the above activities went on while they were repaving the roads, putting in new plumbing, and new sidewalks in town.

For the founding celebration there was a carnival of rides including a merry-go-round, bumper cars, twisting, turning, spinning rides for kids that set up in the vacant lot between the marina and the church. In the main town plaza were more rides for small children as well as a mechanical bull. Some townsfolks as well as others set up gaming as well as food booths. They would set off fireworks and it seemed to us at random times day and night. Blanca, who runs the marina office, explained that they set off the fireworks in the morning and evening to remind everyone to go to church. I am not sure what service was being held at 2:00 am but there were fireworks and the rides were going and you could hear music playing.

Booths along the main plaza

Main plaza

On Thursday they had a parade of the charros or horsemen. I was walking up to town to buy some vegetables and was able to take a few pictures of the parade. I am not sure where all of the charros came from but they filled the whole length of the main street and down the hill to the plaza. No parade is complete without a brass band and in this case a horse princess, selected from the fair maids of La Cruz.

The cross of La Cruz

The parade coming down Avenue de la Langosta (Avenue of Locusts)

The brass band in the parade and they played all night long

The horse princess in her tiara

This horse would paw the ground on one side and then the other on command

Charros come in all ages. This young fellow was the pride of his family

Today is Cinco de Mayo and we thought it was yet another holiday celebrated by the town but alas, this is more of an American holiday. To quote an article by Michael Martinez, CNN:

"Cinco de Mayo does indeed mark a Mexican military victory over the invading French army on May 5, 1862, but it's celebrated more in the United States because in 1862, U.S. Latinos of Mexican heritage parlayed the victory as a rallying cry that the Union could also win the Civil War."

Over time Cinco de Mayo became an unofficial American holiday similar to St. Patrick's Day fueled by salsa, guacamole, tacos, Corona and Dos Equis. It is not something special here in Mexico except for places encouraging business with tourists.

I think we will enjoy a little peace and quiet.