What happened in Dec and Jan

Tropical sunset Mantanchen Bay

Jay was running out of time, his flight was leaving from Puerto Vallarta on Dec 21st.  That was a real deadline, so we made tracks out of San Blas, we spent one night in Mantanchen bay and one slightly rolly night at Chacala on our way to the La Cruz anchorage in Banderas Bay.  Jay made his flight on time and I was alone on Kialoa.  That was a new experience and there were a few learning moments.......I ended up spending a month in La Cruz.  I had Christmas dinner with my lovely friends on Riki Tiki Tavi, I spent time with friends on Avant, Adios and Ultegra, started going to yoga in the mornings, got some projects completed on Kialoa, visited with Marshall (he is the one that helped get Kialoa to SanFransisco way back when) caught the bus to Sayulita, caught up with a high school friend, and bought a new spinnaker pole.  Yup that was one of my learning moments.....

Jay waiting for the bus to the airport and back to cold BC
see you later Jay.

flopper stopper in action

Oh, that spinnaker pole.  During the summer my friends on Searover II and Avant worked out how to make flopper stoppers (these are things that go in the water to help stop the boat from rolling too much in the swell when at anchor and are useful in the anchorages in this part of Mexico as there is often swell entering them) and had parts made as a group project that I was able to buy into. So one of my boat projects in La Cruz was to put my flopper stopper together, which I managed with help from Rob of Avant, and then of course I had to deploy it to test it.  The flopper stopper hangs in the water off the end of my spinnaker pole and does actually attenuate the rolling motion, yay, however during testing the wire to the outboard end of the pole failed and the end of the pole dropped in the water.  I got everything back on board and raised the inboard end of the pole up the mast, everything was going fine till it got kind of stuck and one extra tug on the line while I was looking up sent the pole right down at me and gave me a fat lip and a chipped tooth.  The cast aluminum fitting on the end of the pole had actually broken.  The end result was a visit to the dentist and a new spinnaker pole. Its better than the old pole anyway.

One of my projects was rebedding the starboard side cabin top
hardware.  There had been a leak over the summer so it was time.

rebedded and leak free

While I was at it I thought I would clean up the mess on the
under side.

Some paint added much more light to the head and
it is nice not to have a mess of wires any more.

It is a small world.  This is Lisa, who I knew in high school, she now lives and
owns a breakfast cafe in Sayulita, just slightly north of Puerto Vallarta.
In this picture she is standing outside my Aunties house in Sayulita.  As you
can see it is for sale in case you are interested in a lovely home in Sayulita.
It was fun to catch up with Lisa and I enjoyed the bus ride over the hill from La Cruz

Heres a horse picture just because.