August 5

Joe and I just watched one of the best documentaries ever!!! It's called Maidentrip.  It's about a 14 year old girl who sails around the world.  It's on Netflix
As we sat watching it we both had tears in our eyes.  We really miss Flyin Sideways and life on the water. It kind of shocked us how much living on the ocean has changed us and how everytime we return to the real world it is harder to adjust. We hope to be like Laura someday and just keep going!!

July 15th, 2014: Update on the 6.9 Earthquake in Tapachula

We had a fun 4th of July weekend with our drop zone friends. We woke up Monday morning, and I turned on the news. The first story was a 7.0 earthquake in Tapachula!!! Karin was already at work, and I was on my way. All I could hope for, was that being in the water may have helped save the boat.

 Thinking about all the boats in the yard, on stands; oh no! Fortunately, Karin sent an e-mail to Enrique, and he responded quickly, saying everything was fine at the marina. Whew! I don't know how much damage the town suffered, but we heard from Arturo of  McCaw Tours, and they were fine as well.

We are still sorting out what we need to bring with us when we head back to the boat. Karin is back in the research mode; checking forums and blogs to find useful information for us. Otherwise, we're looking forward to Flyin Sideways again!

On a whim, and with the help of our friend George, we flew stand by to N.J. for my birthday! The reason for the trip was to see my brother, Rich, and his family; Patti, Ryan and Kristen.

All you can eat sushi for the birthday dinner!

 I also got to explore my old neighborhoods with Karin. I think she enjoyed hearing some of my childhood adventures, and seeing where I grew up.

The Asbury Park boardwalk.

The famous Stone Pony, where Bruce Springstein got his start.

It was a great trip! Now, it's back to work, and getting ready to go!

July 3rd 2014

Karin wrote:

Joe went back to "Flyin Sideways" to check on her.  We were really worried about mold, pests and anything else that could happen to her being so far away from us.  She really is a part of the family now.  It's hard to describe, but she has kept us safe through another season and we are closer to her than ever before.  I have always had that connection with airplanes, an inanimate object that takes on a personality.

But She is clean and looking good so the money spent to check on her was worth the peace of mind.

Our time at home is filled with our amazing jobs and  Friends.  Life is good, but we are more anxious than ever to get back to travelling.

When Joe Flew on AeroMexico to Tapachula, Chiapas, they flew over Eloy and Pinal.  I love my brown dirt state.....just sayin,  it's home (politics aside, don't get me started how messed up this place is).  I love that we get to split our time between Desert and Ocean.

....June 19th!

Wow! It's been over a month since our last post. Naturally, it took a couple of weeks to get settled, start working, and figure out our accommodations at the Drop Zone. Overall, we've been very fortunate. Both of us are working, and a friend offered his RV for us to stay in, when we're in Eloy. Life is good!

I'm flying down to check on the boat next week. It's been raining almost every afternoon down there, and I'm anxious to see how she looks on the inside. I'll be getting measurements for replacing the head, and for trying to install a shower. The main thing is checking the batteries, getting the bottom cleaned and checking the zincs.

O.k., I never finished the story about the last part of the drive home.  To make a long story short; after spending the night in San Carlos,  the next morning, we drove to Hermosillo and changed rental cars at the airport, it worked out perfectly, I was able to pull the new rental right up to the old one and move all the bags! After turning the old one in, we made our way north to Nogales. The problem was that we'd never been in downtown Nogales, and had no idea where the rental car company was. Being resourceful, Karin asked someone to call the rental company,and then call  for a taxi to lead us there. That worked perfectly, we would have never found the place, anyway the rental car folks agreed to take us back to the OXXO, so we could wait for Tom to pick us up. After a few phone calls, Tom was on his way.

Here we are with all our stuff, and Jack, on the side of a convenience store, looking kind of desperate I guess, because a woman in a truck, in the parking lot, asked me if we needed any help! I told her we were fine, but thanks! Tom arrived a few minutes later, and droves us back to his place in Tucson, for a great dinner and lots of stories.

So, we're back; we are making plans for our return to the boat, but right now, enjoying the house, our friends, and some of the convenience of living in the USA is working fine.

5/14/2014: Driving across Mexico

Saturday morning, May 3rd. We were up and moving by 4:30 am; the car was as full as we could make it, and still leave room for Jack. One final look at the boat, and we were on the road by 8:30.

I closed that hatch.

We got on the road by 8:30. Karin had printed out directions from google maps (about 5 pages), with that and a road atlas of Mexico, (in English!) we were confident that we would find our way home.

The first challenge was getting out of Tapachula....for some reason every major highway in and out of town is Mexico 200. We drove past one intersection, but felt like there was another one a little farther ahead. To make a long story short, we drove all the way around Tapachula, only to end up on the 200 we saw at first. 

9:30, we're on the highway, paying tolls, and making good time.

Travelling at 120 kph,.. in a few hours we had driven past the Gulf of Tehuantepec. Wow! That was easy. It was very windy, the perfect location for a wind farm.

Eventually, we were getting close to the Gulf of Mexico, near Veracruz, when we turned north toward Puebla and Mexico City. It was getting late and we needed to find a place for the night. At a large Pemex truck stop, there was a hotel,  and 24 hour restaurant. Perfect, but would they take dogs (Mascota)?

At first the answer was no, then .... o.k. While we gathered our things, another man showed up and wanted to see a room, we found out later, he was upset because he had seen a dog on the premises.

As we settled into the room, the phone rang. Who could that be? The guy at the front desk needs to see me now. He explained about the other customer, and said we couldn't have the dog, o.k. now what are we supposed to do? We agreed to hide him, he couldn't come out,.. no one can see, or hear him.

O.k., thank you!

Sunday morning we were up at 5 and on the road. Jack has resigned himself to being trapped in the car, he sleeps. By mid afternoon we were approaching Puebla, the "Arco de Norte" or beltway around Mexico City. I had not thought about the scenery much, being focused on directions, and other traffic. Winding our way up to about 7500', it looked like European alpine pastures, it was beautiful.

When we got on the Arco de Norte, it was great! Nice road, no traffic, just cruising through the countryside... oops, all of a sudden it turned into a two lane road!? What happened? Are we lost? We did a u turn and ended up on an off ramp going to Mexico City. We told the attendant, and Federales that we  were going the wrong way,... they told us to turn around and go back up the ramp!! O.k., we drove past another Federale who had witnessed our u turn, he honked, we waved and kept going! Unreal. A few miles later an accident happened up ahead, and everything stopped. While we waited, we watched half a dozen people on horseback, with their dogs, herding sheep and cattle on a Sunday afternoon. 

A small truck had hit the guardrail, and gone off the road. Hopefully he wasn't seriously hurt. A few minutes later, traffic was moving, and we were on our way. 

We made it to the west side of Guadalajara just before dark, and found the ZAR Hotel. It was nice, with A/C, and dogs are no problem. We had some Pollo Feliz for dinner and made it an early night.

Monday; Cinco de Mayo. Surprisingly, the traffic was fairly heavy until we had driven for an hour or so. Things were going well, the tolls were getting frequent an expensive. Just when we thought we were done we got off of Arco de Norte; 388 Pesos! We had to count every bill and coin we could find and still came up a few pesos short. Karin gave her 2 quarters, and she let us go. A few miles later, another toll booth appeared on the horizon. Guess what? No mas dinero. We tried to find an ATM with no luck. We had kept a $100.00 bill for a backup, but they wouldn't take it, again we had to turn around at a toll booth. We drove to the next town and found a bank, now with plenty of Pesos, we're headed for San Carlos.

The rest of the drive, and our adjustment to being back in the U.S. will be in the next post

A note from Karin:  Mexico was absolutely BEAUTIFUL.  I had a long time to think about it and came to the conclusion that the lack of billboards, and fast food chains were what made it a little different from the U.S.

5/7/2014; Back home.

 3000 miles of sailing, 2000 miles of driving, some great people, some great stories, and we're home!

Following 5 months of living aboard, the boat was in pretty rough shape, once everything was stowed away we were able to really clean her up.

Now she's tied up in Marina Chiapas for the summer, the staff regularly checks the boats, so we feel good about leaving her there.

We're still adjusting to being back. I'll post soon about the drive, and Chiapas. We made it through our second sailing season, and the drive across Mexico, with no real problems, having fun all the way!

 Yeah!

5/1/2014: Preparing to leave the boat

This week has been cleaning, organizing, and planning the road trip back to Arizona. It has been pretty hot and humid, with mosquito's at night; we are loving our air conditioner!

We've removed both sails, and the solar panels, I also made sure to run fresh water through the outboard, and run all of the fuel out of it.

I still have to take care of the generator. We "pickled" our water maker, though not without some difficulty. The fuse for our boost pump blew, and it didn't seem to work right. Eventually we found our mistake; the brine discharge line was closed, and we were just pressurizing the system. A few calls to Cruise R/O and we got it working. Rich was great for answering our calls after hours. Great company!

We had a get together with some of the cruisers at the Baos restaurant here in the marina, as well as our friend Arturo from Macaw tours..

Later last night we had our first heavy downpour. We had a couple of hatches open, but luckily nothing got too wet, before we closed them. Unfortunately, there were a lot of clothes, tools, and books in the cockpit, hopefully, we'll get everything dried out before we leave on Saturday. 

We'll pick up the rental car tomorrow afternoon, and do some last minute running around, then head for Puebla first thing in the morning. It's going to take us a few days to get home. We'll stop in Mazatlan to see John and Lisa from Molly J and Dave from Rogue, then on to Hermosillo, Nogales, and Scottsdale eventually.