Life continues on the hard

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Life continues on the hard

Day 43:

Todd: (who is having difficulty typing due to a large blister on his palm
from sanding all day) We did our good karma act for the day. Wendy, who
we met the other day, sailed off for the South Pacific today. The other
day we were talking and she was interested in learning how to do sprouts
aboard a boat. We let her borrow the instruction sheet that came with our
sprouting kit so she could make a copy. Still she needed to find a Mason
jar, some type of screening and possibly the most difficulty part the
actual bean sprouts. Since she didn't have time to get all that together,
Ellen took our sprouting kit and the rest of our sprouts to her before
they left. Now she can grow sprouts all the way to the Marquesas. We
will be able to buy a new sprouting kit in the states when we visit. I
think it really made her day. Also while Ellen was in town she picked up
some more sandpaper and some groceries that we have been needing. If you
ever have to do a job like this, start out with a box, usually 50, of 60
as well as 80 grit disks for a random orbital sander, a box of 80 grit
strips for fairing boards, a box of 36 and 50 grit grinding disk for your
7" grinder. Also recommended are many 50 grit disks for a high-speed 5"
grinder. Yes, this will cost a ton, but it is much cheaper and less time
consuming than buying them several at a time every couple of days. In the
unlikely event that you have any left over they can easily be sold or
traded.

I spent all morning alternating between the random orbital sander and the
fairing board. The workers were bringing a catamaran into the yard from
the water so we didn't get any help until afternoon. Ellen and I both
faired on one side while Tomás faired on the other side. Stephanie from
Cutter Jones was surprised that we actually got one of the yard workers to
use a non-power tool on our boat. It is slow going; I figure we are about
half way done sanding this pass. After a delicious tabouli salad we are
going to head over to the marina and watch race four of the America's Cup.

Day 44:

Todd: Went for a walk this morning. La Paz is one of the first cities in
Mexico that we have been to where the locals are interested in health and
exercise. Along the water from from Marina de La Paz, along the city
front and past Marina Palmira is a walking/bike path that extends further
north of town. This path gets heavy use every morning and evening by
people out enjoying themselves and the company of others while the keep in
shape. It was nice to join them for a bit.

Grover came over again this morning and helped fair for most of the day
with us. Jim from Coast Chandlery had a suggestion on how to make things
go faster in fairing out the large amounts of epoxy that Lalo put on the
boat. Jim brought his grinder and an eight-inch soft pad. This has about
one inch of soft foam which 50 or 80 grit sandpaper is then attached to.
I tried it out and was suitably impressed so I purchased the pad from his
store. The grinder we are borrowing from my Grandpa is working great. I
faired out the forward half of the Port side of the boat in that
afternoon, which probably would have taken us two days. We still have to
go at it with the fairing board, but I got the big stuff off. I am
feeling it though in my arm, neck, back and stomach muscles. Somehow I am
not used to holding a 10-pound grinder over my head with some precision.

Ellen picked up the new shive for the main halyard we had made in town and
did a huge shopping trip with our friends on Nimbus who have a vehicle.

Day 45:

Todd: While Ellen goes into town to the Dupont store and buy them out of
sand paper for our fairing boards and pick up charts from Shadow, I get
busy on Mandolin. The worker Jesus is fairing on Mandolin today. He is a
good worker, but he cannot hear or talk, so communicating is a bit
difficult. We get pretty good at sign language and gestures, although he
loses me pretty quickly sometimes. I find myself translating what I want
to say into Spanish then into some gesture. Anyway I spend most of the
day fairing the curved area where the keel meets the hull with the large
grinder and pad with 60-grit paper. Jesus follows me with a palm sander
for a final pass to remove the marks left by the grinder. This afternoon
Ellen and Grover show up to work. Hey, party on Mandolin, well work party
that is. I get Jesus interested in the fairing board, which I think is
quite the accomplishment. He did a great job with it since he is very
strong. I also think he likes the fact that he is fairing the part of the
hull that Ramiro messed up with the grinder. There is this competition
thing among the workers. After work we spent some time with Rick and
friends aboard the Flemming 55 "Cutwater". A beautiful almost new power
yacht. By the time we got to Popeye's the America's cup race 5 was half
over. NZ won again, keeping the cup. Maybe we will make it the New
Zealand in time to see the next one live in 2003. I guess we better get
to work.

Day 46:

Ellen: After the America's Cup, I hung out at the bar playing pool with
the professional captains from three different private power yachts. Rick
offered to buy me a rum and coke for the road. Unfortunately I didn't
leave right away and Rick kept offering me one more for the road. I ended
up having three for the road and was a bit lit by the time Anne, Rick and
I left the bar. I kept my promise to Todd, though, and woke him up for a
back massage when I arrived back at Mandolin.

As you can probably guess, I was a little slow today. The idea of picking
up a fairing board didn't fill me with joy. What's the best way to put
off an unwanted project? Embark on a different (and easier!) project.
So, I finally cut Todd's hair. It had been two months and was way
overdue. He looks like a new man.

Jesus is an animal with the fairing board; he worked with it and a power
sander on our boat today.

This afternoon, Todd and I laid two coats of fiberglass on our rudder. It
looks really really good. So good that it impressed Rigo, the top yard
worker, and he offered Todd a job. Since Rigo only makes about $5.00 per
hour and the newest worker only makes $6.50 per day, Todd decided he would
rather stay in the computer field.

For the past week or so, the city of La Paz has been preparing for
Carnival. Vendor stalls for food, drinks, candy, books, as well as band
stages and game booths now line the entire Malecon (waterfront). A dirt
lot has some pretty serious carnival rides set up. The street is closed
to vehicles and tonight is the first night that the party is in full
swing. Rick, Anne, Todd and I all headed into town to check it out. Lots
of things would give OSHA conniptions, like the mechanical bull for kids
that had a soft landing pad, but a metal base a child could bounce into.

My favorite was the BB gun booth. Metal figurines were placed on about
seven shelves. The operator of the booth hands you a BB gun with
ammunition in it. You then see how many metal figurines you can knock
down. So there you are standing in the street with a loaded weapon and
there is nothing blocking people from being oblivious and walking between
you and your target. Not a real safe set up. Rick decided he had to try
it; and several people walked right in front of him. The rest of us
finally made a human blockade to keep this from happening.

All in all a fun evening. The party gets revved up on Sunday with the
first of three parades. Sunday is Todd's birthday. We think it's
terrific that La Paz is throwing him a week long party.

Day 48:

Ellen: I'm actually writing this the morning of day 49. Todd held a
grinder and a fairing board to the hull of Mandolin most of the day
yesterday. For some reason he is sore this morning. Go figure. Fairing
Mandolin's hull is definitely physical labor. I've done some of it, but
don't have the stamina of Todd. I am realizing why women chose their
traditional roles. Gathering food, cooking it and then cleaning up
afterwards is easier than laboring all day.

Yesterday I cleaned the boat, made a wonderful mushroom asparagus pasta
sauce for lunch, cleaned again after lunch and took a nap.

Well, I'm not the complete domestic woman; before lunch I worked on our
amateur radio installation. I emptied out two of our storage lockers to
run copper foil into the bilge for its ground plane and electrical wire
for its power. Running these two items required a bit of kneeling in
awkward positions and sticking my head down into the storage lockers and
the bilge. The least fun part was trying to get our scuba gear and dry
food stores to fit back into the lockers.

Todd was wiped out at the end of the day and went to bed. Ellen still had
reserve energy and went into town with friends to check out Carnival. And
since this is Mexico, we didn't go into town until 11:00pm. Oof. It was
a cold, breezy night and thinking of my husband warm in bed, I almost
didn't go. But it didn't take much peer pressure and off we went.

Town was hopping. Bands were blowing out their speakers and our eardrums;
people packed the streets - drinking beer, dancing, shooting BB guns, and
having a party. Jill and Anne are both blonde, tall and noticeable in a
sea of black hair. Some men had difficulty keeping their hands off all
that blonde hair and somehow these hands made their way down the back for
a squeeze of the bottom. Jill and Anne asked me if I was having the same
problem. I guess brown hair, fleece, shorts and Tevas just doesn't catch
the eye like blonde hair and a snug black dress.

Somehow I didn't find my pillow until 2:30am. Oof. So how is it that at
now almost 9:30 am I am enjoying a cup of very good coffee in one of my
favorite cafés in town after waking up at 7:30am and walking , yes
WALKING, into town? Ug, groan, moan. How do I do this to myself? While
it is a gorgeous morning, there ought to be rules about watching the town
wake up after only 5 hours of sleep. But hey, someone has to go get
ingredients for Todd's birthday cake and more sandpaper to fair Mandolin's
hull. I suppose walking into town is better than holding a fairing board!

Day 49:

Todd: Worked with Jesus in the morning fairing some more. Imagine. We
are getting closer. I focused on the areas next to where the stands are
holding the boat so that first thing on Monday we can have the stands
moved and start on our 3rd and hopefully final pass of filling. Ellen
surprised me with an early birthday present: a 1-hour massage at the local
salon. Just what I needed after a hard week of holding a grinder and
fairing boards. We spent the evening with Calliope, Cutter Jones and
Circe having a pre-launch party. Cutter Jones is close to launching, and
we all are not too far behind so celebration was in order. Ellen and I
spent an hour at the new Internet Cafe at Marina Palmira reading email and
Internet birthday cards from our families. I also figured out how to get
their network and microphone working properly so that we can make internet
phone calls using www.dialpad.com which allows a computer with working
speakers and microphone to make free long distant calls to or within the
US. While we still have to pay about $5.00USD per hour for the Internet
cafe, it is better than the $1.00USD per minute that a regular phone call
will cost. I was able to talk with Mom and Dad, Grama and leave a message
for Sonja. The other good news is that the two companies we invested in
Tuesday: Nokia the leader in cell phones and JDSU who make fiber optic
network components earned us $1300 in three days. This cheers us up as
this job on Mandolin is not only taking longer than we expected, but also
costing much more. So, the next time you get cellular phone service and
they offer you a choice of phones, you know which one to pick: Nokia. The
weather has cooled down significantly the last few days in La Paz, we have
had to wear sweatshirts and it has been windy. This is fine for sanding
and fairing since we don't sweat so much, but when it comes time to apply
the barrier coat we are hoping for warm windless days.

Day 50:

Ellen: Todd's birthday and, of course, another day off. I planned a
birthday brunch on our friend's boat, Shadow. First thing in the morning,
I baked Todd a carrot cake. I had never baked one before and the mixing
process was kind of interesting. The batter gets all its moisture from
four eggs and three cups of grated carrots. I had my doubts as to how it
would mix up, but it really did work.

While the cake was baking, I cooked up some home fried potatoes for the
brunch potluck. The birthday celebrants included Georgia, Steve and Don
on Shadow, Chris and Kim from Jasmine Isle, Grover and Candie from Koloa
Kai, Kelley and Sherry from Alma, and Rod from Nereid. Much fun, good
food and conversation was had by all. Todd received a pair of shorts from
me, a Yachtsman's Eight-Language Dictionary from Shadow, and an offer to
be dragged back into the water by Jasmine Isle. Grover provided us with a
small refrigerator for use while we are in the boat yard.

We walked back to Marina Palmira and didn't arrive home until 4:30 in the
afternoon. On the way, the booths were opening for carnival and families
were out waiting for the parade to start. Todd saw a jester hat he just
had to have. For about $3.00USD, we decided it was in the budget. We've
been getting a lot of our investment advice from www.fool.com and decided
a fool cap was appropriate for Todd to wear after our stock gains of the
last few days.

Around 6pm we brought the carrot cake over to Cassiopeia, which is owned
by our new friend, Anne. She was having a cocktail party and had invited
us to turn it into a birthday party. The frostless carrot cake was a big
hit and everyone sang Todd Happy Birthday.

We went into Carnival with Anne and her friends Jill and Larry. The crowd
was much more friendly and happy than it had been on Friday. We had a lot
of fun but didn't get back to Mandolin until 1:00 am. Oof. Todd enjoyed
his 29th birthday very much.

Day 51:

Well, I didn't roll out of bed until after 9am this morning. Go figure!
It is currently 11:25 at night and it is raining in La Paz. Unheard of
for this time of year! Luckily, we saw the possibility and covered the
cockpit and everything in it, with a tarp. Glad we didn't barrier coat
today. Of course we can't barrier coat until we finish fairing. Jesus
and Todd faired all day, and I cleaned all the dirty dishes left over from
birthday cooking.

In the late afternoon, Todd, Anne and I walked into the beginning of town
to watch the carnival parade. The parade was a little hokey and homespun,
but so much fun. There were old cars, papermache floats, African canibals
who demanded we take their picture and then painted our faces with black
paint, and clowns who dragged Todd and I into the street to dance with
them. A very fun evening.

After walking back to the marina, we got out the work light to shine
across the hull. This identifies all the low and high spots, which we
marked with pencil. This was somewhat depressing, as we now know that we
have more fairing to do before we can start filling.

Day 52:

Todd: So, I talk to the manager to get Jesus to sand with us for another
day. We made quite a bit of progress on the Port bow. After a two-hour
nap I was ready to continue fairing for the rest of the afternoon. Ellen
washed our rudder and sanded the overcoat off. This came out really well.
We went into town for the last night of Carnival. There was a totally
different crowd this evening, mostly teenagers and lots of them. It is
the most crowded we have seen the Malecon. Several times we had to attach
ourselves to a train of people to make progress and avoid getting
trampled. Tomorrow starts lent and Ellen is giving up alcohol, I think I
am going to give up having a bumpy hull on Mandolin and keep fairing.
Possibly tomorrow we will do our third and final pass of filling with
epoxy.

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