"All of us are travelers lost
our tickets arranged at a cost
unknown but beyond our means.
This odd itinerary of scenes
--enigmatic, strange, unreal--
leaves us unsure how to feel.
No postmortem journey is rife
with more mystery than life."
--The book of Counted Sorrows

I read that passage and it just seems to fit the strange journey we've had this past year. At least the scenery in Chacala is superficially beautiful and the anchorage is calm today. We're heading to Punta de Mita early tomorrow morning. Our little plastic boat is anchored in a beautiful little cove and we're overjoyed to be free again.

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We’ve spent a lot of time wondering if we would even see the day we were able to set sail again.  There were times when things seemed very bleak and our sailing future seemed impossible.  But despite all the setbacks, Sherrell has really bounced back strong and there seems to be no stopping her.  We recently had a full checkup with the oncologist and he was happy to see all the progress Sherrell made over the summer and gave her a clean bill of health.

Now that we’re wrapping up the last of our projects:  sewing a rain-catcher, a waterproof cover for the towed generator, a new hatch cover, mending some clothes.  We put the sails back on the boat, provisioned our dry goods, loaded up on diesel, cleaned the decks and ordered some parts for Sherrell’s mom to carry down in Dec.  We’re itching to go.  Just some more laundry, some more provisioning, a few errands and we’re off this Saturday.

Depending on the swells we’ll try to stop at Isla Isabela and we’ll probably go to Manachen Bay again to do some warm up surfing in the southerly swells so I’ll have a chance to get back in shape before Punta de Mita where the other surfers are congregating for Thanksgiving Day.  With our new HF setup, we’ll be able to post our position and what’s going on from anywhere!  Stay tuned!

By the way, I did some web work for http://www.probillfish.com which is a sport fishing charter company that has a good environmental policy and I really liked the owner.  If you like sport fishing, check them out.  Also, I did an overhaul of http://www.marina-mazatlan.com adding some new features to their site.  Too bad the marina was recently sold to a new owner who is probably going to replace our beloved harbor master Antonio.  We’ll keep our fingers crossed for him and the staff!

We are almost done with getting the boat ready. At the last minute, I traced a problem in our fresh water system down to a corroded pickup tube. Tomorrow we have to go on a hunt for some material to make a replacement. We still have to wire in our experimental water towed generator and while IÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢m doing that IÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢m going to finally wire in our solar panel now that we are happy with its location. Then weÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢ll have to finish off the to-do list, but each day we get closer.

The weather still isnÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢t cooperating yet. Since Hurricane Lane weÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢ve seen: Tropical Storm (TS) Miriam, Tropical Depression (TD) 2-C, TD 3-C, TS Norman, TS Olivia, TD 4-C and now TS Paul. Paul is expected to build into a hurricane and is currently predicted to make landfall about 100 miles from us. If youÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢re comparing this to my earlier prediction, youÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢ll see that I was off by a few storms since Hurricane Lane. WeÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢ll just have to watch the weather, and our next destination is a good hurricane hideout. If youÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢re curious about Pacific Hurricanes, IÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢ve found a good summary on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Pacific_hurricane_season

Anyway, part of our philosophy of life is to leave a place better than you found it. It could be anything from picking up plastic debris from the water, to volunteering time to build/teach/help do something. Here in Mazatlan weÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢ve spent a lot of time trapping cats that have either been dumped here or born in the wild. In total weÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢ve helped about 20 of the 30 cats weÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢ve caught (in a humane trap of course) find happy homes for them to live in. Some of the others were sterilized and released. We have 2 more 6 week-old kittens to catch (theyÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢re really tough!) which will bring our total to 30. The marina, some businesses and the cruisers have been helping us to recover our costs for getting the animals sterilized and adopted out. The first cat we tried to rescue this summer ended up joining the Sarana crew!

HereÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢s a picture of Jordan. She was six months old and pregnant when she found us. Now sheÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢s about a year old and at least double in size.

WeÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢re really looking forward to the peace and tranquility of hanging on the hook.

Sometimes the “to-do” list seems endless – it can even get depressing at times.  Since we’re getting ready to depart in a few weeks, we’ve been working extra hard and it seems like there’s not enough time.  So I went over the list of things we’ve accomplished so far and now I feel a little better.  I know I missed a few things but I thought I’d share the “done” list here.

Repaired broken dinghy wheel

Replaced 2 thru-deck fills

Emptied/Removed/Cleaned/Installed Fuel Tank

Installed new fuel fill hose for tank

Repaired/Painted manual bilge pump

Installed new filter system for drinking water

Designed/fabricated new dodger frame

Had new dodger and bimini made

Had new lycra suit made for Sherrell

Designed/fabricated water towed generator

Cleaned jerry cans

Removed/Cleaned Stove

Fiberglass/Painted area behind Stove

Polished Stainless Steel fittings

Sewed bag for surfboard

Sewed bag for anchor chain

Sewed 3 new pillows

Sewed bean bag pillow

Sewed covers for our new cockpit chairs

Cleaned/repaired fittings on toilet

Caught/Fixed/Released/Adopted 24 wild cats

Uninstalled electronics in event of lightening strike

Removed roller furling jib

Sanded/finished all external teak wood

Worked on two website design projects

Volunteer work for 3 websites

Added insulation to icebox

Added insulation to galley food lockers

Cleaned all shelves/teak oiled interior

Sorted books/DVD’s/CD’s

Designed new LED anchor light with more lights

Sherrell had gall bladder removed

Ok the last item wasn’t really on the list, but there’s no time like the present to deal with a medical problem that could become deadly like gall stones.  So if you’re counting, that’s 5 surgeries in 9 months for poor Sherrell – that’s a lifetimes worth.

The flood waters have all dried up and much of the debris is gone. I saw some blubs on CNN about Mazatlan that made it sound worse than it could have been. If the catagory 3 had hit us directly, it would have been a real mess. There were only two or three fatalities in Mexico from Lane and they were related to flooding. There were lots of places where trees were knocked down.

And a boat next to us was intent on saving his pet tree, much to the amusement of people on the dock.
But all the boats were stripped and the hurricane was far enough away to make the conditions feel like a normal Pacific Northwest fall storm, but we were in shorts and it rained about 10x more.

Hopefully the hurricane season winds down quickly. I'm predicting we'll see two more hurricanes and maybe one more depression/storm before the season's done.

Everyone got down to business yesterday getting ready to get our asses kicked by Hurricane Lane. We totally stripped our boat and helped strip several other boats whose owners werenÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢t around. At 3:30am Lane turned more right and towards Mazatlan and to make things even happier, it built to a category 3 hurricane.

By about 4:30am we braved the flooded streets to get down to the marina and prep SherrellÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢s dadÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢s office and put some more lines on the boat. By about 6:30am we realized we got a very lucky break. Lane continued past Mazatlan missing us by about 30 miles and making landfall north of us by about 60 miles.

Instead of 127 mph winds, we only saw about 45 mph and a TON of rain. I couldnÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢t even guess how many inches of rain weÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢re getting, everything is flooded. Amazingly we still have power and by 11am the winds have shifted and hopefully in a few more hours everything will settle down.

Some Independence Day for Mexico! Looks like we'll spend it cleaning up all the debris.

Ray & Jeannette wanted to do something fun for their day off. They thought a trip to see the petroglyphs would be a nice break from the monotony of work. And they were half-right.

The trip started out normal, but the summer rains had really bogged down the roads in some spots. We found one particularly hungry spot that ate the front-end of RayÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢s mini-van, creating the rarely seen mini-van glyph.

We tried all sorts of things to get the car unstuck. ItÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢s surprising how hard it is to dig with your bare hands, digging with a old spoon would have been faster. Oh why didnÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢t we have an old spoon?! The goop we were suck in was powerful. I even tried jacking up the front-end to get something solid under the tires but it would sink faster than I could work.

So we called the rescue team: Scott & Liz. While we waited for them to arrive, we washed off in the ocean and looked at the petroglyphs. When we returned to the car we found weÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢d created a traffic jam. Two Mexicans and I went about trying to free the mini-van glyph so they could get by in their car. All of our digging, rocking, pushing, shoving didnÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢t work. So they sent a kid off on a bicycle to find a guy with a 4x4 truck.

The truck arrived along with Scott and Liz. And Scott and Liz brought a backpacking shovel, which is basically a large spoon. After some more digging with the spoon, we made an attempt with the truck. Bam! The old rope broke. We doubled up the rope. Bzzzzz! The truck tires started spinning. After a few more attempts with the truck, we called in the heavy guns and tied the mini-van glyph to the Jeep. A little more digging here and there, then POP! Out came our monument leaving a massive trench scarring the road.

We waited until the other car passed through the muck successfully, then had a round of beer, killed 10,000 mosquitoes and hit the road back home Ã?¢ââ??‰â?¬Å? tired, muddy and hungry.

Maybe they should have just gone into the office? Maybe their idea of fun is a little wacked...?

Sherrell’s been doing so much better now the doctor expects her to be healed in about a week. Our friends Scott & Liz have just returned to their boat ‘Ocean Lady’ after a 2 month long drive through the U.S. visiting family.  With Sherrell feeling tons better, and their return, I should be getting some surfing in pretty soon – Woo hoo!

Today, we are driving about 1 hour North of Mazatlan with Sherrell’s dad and stepmom to see some petroglyphs.  They were carved into boulders leading down into the ocean thousands of years ago.  We have to time it for low tide to be able to see them all.  It’s also a beautiful drive along the coast, so we’re really looking forward to it.

I wrote a new PHP script to process our blog text and search for LAT and LONG data in the following format:

The tool will pull out the information, then post it to the map on the blog site.  This will allow us to post to our blog, with our current position while underway by just sending that simple text string.  The tool will read all the blog messages on this page and create points on the MAP with a hyperlink to each point.