Stuck in Paradise (Village)

Crewman Shawn Brayman arrived six days ago. Brought the average bedtime on the boat down by at least an hour. But he rises earlier than Bill and me by all of that, and then some. Typically Shawn has gone for his morning beach thermal, and played with a tech toy or two, before the kettle has even boiled for coffee.

Shawn is a bit of a tech wizard – OK, more than a bit – and he has a seemingly inexhaustible reserve of patience and curiosity. In other words, an ideal shipmate!  Honestly, I’m not sure how well Bill and I would have managed on the technology side of things without Shawn. He has been our maestro on everything technological, from the Iridium sat phone, to the hydrophone, to his drone, and even downloading entertainment for our viewing pleasure underway.  Every one of which is surprisingly complicated down here and each remains a bit of a work in progress.

All to say, yes, here we are, stuck again in Paradise (Village Marina), this time for another week to wait on our new generator – that took weeks to find, another week for delivery, and costs as much in Mexico as a pretty nice car at home. Holy cow, too much fun!  We could’ve, and in retrospect should’ve, started our generator quest sooner. But we were just so enthusiastic about going off-grid and reducing our fossil fuel consumption – maybe a tad overly optimistic about living on solar and hydro power alone. Still, our goal is to use the generator as seldom as we can …

As we wait for it, we’ll continue to use our time here to get ready for the big crossing. What I’ve learned is there’s a Parkinson’s Law of preparedness for offshore cruising. Give us more time here in Mexico, and we’ll just keep getting readier yet. 🙂

Today was a simple day that turned into a small adventure.  Started in the usual way, with Shawn up and out early, and Bill greeting the day by mopping up the morning dew on deck. 

We set out to buy a few simple items – a cable connector for PredictWind and some necessary additions to our medical kit.  Five hours later, we’re back on the boat – having made some wrong guesses while riding on the local bus system and unwittingly visiting a couple of nearby Mexican towns in the process – not at all terrible, in fact quite interesting, but definitely a dusty and unexpected adventure that took us well away from the exquisitely manicured gardens and other amenities of resort living. 

Back at the marina, Shawn discovers that one connector was good, but it’s not enough, and so we’ll be out and about on the search again tomorrow.

But for now, it’s after 5 – running late for happy hour and volleyball on the beach!