As terrific as Mazatlan is for engine work, boat canvas and stainless steel, there is a dearth of sail makers. If your main sail has experienced some…ermm…user error lately; saaay, in the form of an excessively taut outhaul that stresses the grommets along the luff and tears the sail fabric? If you're in Pacific Mexico,…
Way back in 2008, we purchased a Sailomat self-steering wind vane. Our Autohelm autopilot, aka "Otto," has always worked very well, but like all autopilots it uses a lot of battery power so was not the best choice for all conditions, especially for long passages. We also wanted some kind of a backup device in…
Having serendipitously discovered Internet access where it was least expected, I can update this here blog with some words on where we've been traveling since last Christmas. 26. Dec. 2009 – Boxing Day aka St. Stevens Day. 0700, raised anchor and crossed the El Mogote sand shoals, departing La Paz. Stopped briefly at the Pemex…
Sometimes it's economical to hire a professional for boat canvas work. For example, certain projects are too large and complicated to be done well by one person using a small sewing machine on a boat's deck or down below at the salon table. A cockpit's spray shield, aka dodger, is one such project. As Karen…
There are worse places to anchor than off of the city of La Paz, Baja California Sur. It is one of the places in which a cruising boat can anchor comfortably, dinghy ashore, tie up at a friendly marina's dock, and get all kinds of work and provisioning done without once having to pay for…
I suppose that cruising is the kind of activity in which people make friends quickly because it's so obvious from the first encounter that boaters share common interests, and have gone through similar experiences to all get to the same place. Perhaps the longer you cruise, the more your values become in common with those…
If you go fishing in the Sea of Cortez – whether by dinghy, snorkeling with a speargun,or via the mother ship, chances are you will catch some kind of critter and it'll most likely be yummy. Here's how GB typically processes his catch, using the broad flat space of our forward bow. We have for…
Every so often while beachcombing in the intertidal zone in firm sand, I see deep tubular holes of about 1-2 inches diameter clustered near each other, with odd slash-type tracks radiating out from them. I've seen similar holes (minus any tracks of course) while snorkeling in about 6-12 feet depths. I'd assumed the underwater holes…
Here we go again. Having obtained a succession of two Mexican sportfishing licenses in the past two years, you'd think I'd be able to get a renewal online in less than two days. You'd be wrong. This year, CONAPESCA's online application* had a few bugs that were not there last year. Namely, its "Help Page"…
We arrived in Mazatlán on July 31, 2009, technically 2-1/2 months after the start of hurricane season. From our own experiences and from what we heard from other long-term cruisers during the summer of 2008, most of the tropical storms and other strong weather events don't get active this far north in the Eastern Pacific…