Escaping La Paz.

Ever since we arrived in La Paz, we have heard people refer to the "La Paz bungie cord" 'cause it's such a great place to stay and take short trips to the islands and the weather is great here (except for those days when the wind is blowing 120mph) , people end up coming back many times or never leaving. We personally know many who were coming through here, on their way around the world, and never left. We have been here for over 7 months which is WAY longer than we planned. And it looks like we'll be here for another two months, or so. Now, even though we love La Paz, our number one goal is to get out! We are going to break that #!%#ing cord.
One of the issues foiling that goal is the engine crapped out on us. After many hours of taking it apart, it became obvious that this 1971 engine was toast. It's going to cost over $2500 to rebuild and about the same or more to buy a used engine. If we want to leave anytime this decade, this is out of the budget.
Some of our cruiser friends have run into the same thing in the past. Two of them just put a outboard on the back of their sailboat. Seeing how we sail 90% of the time anyway, this seem like it may work for us too. We currently have two small (3.5 and 5 horse) which we should be able to trade/wheel/deal for a 15 to 20 horse. This should be enough to move us about. We'll let you know how it works out and take some pictures.
Another resent project is a new (to us) wind generator. We bought it from a fellow cruiser for pennies on the dollar. It took me a couple weeks to get all the needed wire, charge controller, connections, thru-hull leads, etc. Almost everything was bought at swap meets and the whole installation cost me about 1/10th of new but works just as well. The solar panels we have (300 watts) seems to be enough to keep the batteries topped off most the time. But sometimes we need to run the Honda generator if it's cloudy or we need to charge many items. Also at night we try to keep our electric usage to a extreme minimum. This wind generator should fix all that.

Carnival in La Paz!

CARNIVAL!!!! Is here. Our first one in Mexico. It's loud and colorful and full of life. We went last night with our friends from Silent Sun, Jess and Chris. The Malacon is covered in booths, rides and food vendors. Music blares from stages spread out along the beaches. James got me on the biggest ride there. Something called a G force. Two people strapped in to each side of a spinning cage that swings round and round while the ride swings up and down and out over the beach about 200 feet in the air. I swore in two languages. I did not know I knew that many swear words in spanish. I begged them to stop in two languages. I shouted "ALTO ALTO Mon Dios! ALTO." of course they did not stop the ride, they kept it going and the left us at the top while our friends got off the ride, then they finally slowly let us down to the ground again. My legs did not buckle, and I did not throw up. And I will never do that again…until next time.

 And the next day...the parade. The floats were amazing and the costumes incredible. The theme...ancient plumage....wt?

Goin back a few weeks to Dave's Birthday sail!

Had a lovely day sail with Dave on Moondance to celebrate his birthday. We had chocolate cake with a cream cheese frosting (Thank you Capi) and Pina Coladas :) We had a full boat, with James, Dominga, Mika, Bean, Chris and Martini, Capi and Buddy, Graham and Justin.

 First time sailing someone else's boat!! 

 Star Baby

 Birthday Boy and Justin

 Chris Lounging

 No, we did not share the cake with the dogs..though they kept asking.

 Mmmm...chocolate Cake with Cream cheese frosting :)

 Birthday Boy and his Pina Colada

 Chris, deciding we are all crazy.....

 for jumping off a perfectly good boat...

 while sailing at 2.5 knots.....

 and catching the dinghy we were pulling behind us.

 not such a small Bean anymore.

 that's my boy. Such a handsome pup.

 surrounded by my entourage.

 Star baby in for her close up.

 Mika..."Please can we go to the beach now?"

 Teeny Martini...he bossed all the dogs around.

Chris and Martini, taking a nap.

Ahhhh Mexico

It's cold! LOL. I guess this is only something you say if you've spent a whole summer in the Baja. We miss the triple digit days, the long swims in the afternoon....the perfect tan. We are still in La Paz. We'd hoped to be moving on soon, but our engine has other ideas. I'm hoping that James can persuade it to cooperate with us. We'll see.

We had a fabulous bon fire on the magote Monday night. We were saying goodbye to a new friend, who's visit was way to short. At the height of the evening we had almost 40 people. Some new friends made an amazing traditional guatamalan drink called Atole. (sp?) and fresh tamales! What a feast of food and friendship.