MULEGE

We went to Mulege on the bus last week. We started the day off with breakfast at the hotel in Santa Rosalita that was built by the French in the late 1800's and is still furnished in that style, what a great way to set up a day.

Muelge was a wonderful spot. We bused through desert hills for miles and miles and then all of a sudden we were in an oasis of date palms, lush vegetation and a river. What a change in vegetation. We asked about a path we saw and we told that the old monastery was that way, where the lookout was, so off we went, Barry and I and the couple from Decade Dance, Betty Lou and Dave from Indianapolis. We walked across an old cement and stone damn and then up to the church. The church was built by the Franscian monks in 1776 and it is still standing. If there was a hurricane in this region I know I would want to head here, the walls were 3 feet thick.

After visiting the monastery we strolled on down the road and I saw a fellow sitting making a fire outside this ornate fence, and of course, I wondered, what is going on. Making the mistake I made almost a year ago I encouraged everyone to wonder over. The fellow was cooking clams on a fire. The home was one of the big landowners in the area and as I discovered a little further along, yup once again we had been trespassing. There were no signs and no harm done and we interacted with the populus. This fellow didn't ask us in to view the grounds, though, just went in the gate and shut the door. This time it helped though because Dave had been a peace corp volunteer in the 60's in El Salavador so his Spanish was pretty good and there were no awkward moments of minunderstanding.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around visiting the shops and restaurants in town. There was a tienda that sold wonderful gringo supplies, like brown sugar, Kraft dinner, sharp cheddar cheese and a big container of nuts (that we are keeping for guests). It was a great trip and I even managed to find a few Christmas presents. When we got back I quickly wrapped them up and Betty Lou said she would mail them once they got to Indianapolis, YIPPEE!

We are in Santa Rosalia, we sailed down from Bahia San Fransciquito yesterday. That sail rated as one of the all time top sails. We had 15 to 20 knots of wind off the stern and 6 foot following seas. Cat´s-Paw IV romped her way through the 75 miles averaging about 6 knots. We just had the genoa up in the morning and then about 1500 hours the wind dropped and Barry agreed with my suggestion to put up the spinnaker and away we went, just flying down the waves, hitting 7.5 knots with ease, FANTASTIC. We even managed to take the spinnaker down just after dark and with genoa alone again surged on to Santa Rosalia. We found the entrance in the dark and put the hook down without any problems.

Our ham radio will still not send voice messages and we cannot receive or send e-mails. We are headed to La Paz and may be out of touch for 2 to 3 weeks, so please do not be concerned about where we are. Hopefully we will run into someone else that has e-mail access and I will be able to send off a message but who knows.

We are going to be here for a few days so if you want to send messages, send to my yahoo mail before Friday. Tomorrow we are planing a bus trip to a town about 1/2 hour away that has a lovely church. We are at a dock now and will charge up the batteries, which have been performing flawlessly, get water and load up on groceries before we head for La Paz.

We had fun in Bahia San Fransciquito. It was a great place to wait out the honking northerly, up to 40 knots. We climbed up a lighthouse that did not work and went exploring with our buddies from Decade Dance. There was an airstrip on an old lake bed and some palapas for tourists about 2 miles from where the boat was. On our expedition Barry put his hand down and got a quarter of his palm invested with cactus thorns. I had a go at getting them out 2 days ago and must have another go today. Some of them are quite deep and about a 1/4 inch long, so they are really in there.

Important update

Our ham radio is not transmitting. That means the scourge of the airwaves is SILENCED. We can hear stuff, ex. weather reports, net traffic, but we cannot send. We cannot send or recieve e-mail or let anyone know where we are until we get to a port where there is internet, so please don't worry if you don't hear from us, we are fine we just cannot let you know. VERY FRUSTRATING. We are attempting to fix the problem, racking our brains trying to figure out why. Once we have access to internet we will be able to contact some ham officianados that may be able to help us. At the moment we are still in Bahia San Fransciquito, I am e-mailing this from Decade Dance some people we just met who very kindly offered to send this message. There is a 40 knot northern blowing down the sea so we are just staying put in a wonderfully protected anchorage riding out the blow. Hope you all are well and we will send another message once we get to Santa Rosalia. Hasta Luego.

We are in Bahia San Franscisquito, on the west side of the Baha, about 75 miles north of Santa Rosalia. We made a safe, uneventful night passage from San Carlos. It was rather unusual in that it rained for a lot of the passage. Last year we had maybe 10 minutes of rain in 6 months and it rained continuously for 10 hours, very weird. Maybe not though, we were not in the Sea of Cortez at this time last year so perhaps this is par for the course.

We managed to sail for about 9 hours of the 22 hour passage so that was nice. We did 3 hour shifts so wec each slept for about 6 hours in total. The trick is to be able to go to sleep when your shift is over, just let go and fall asleep. Our radar is still inoperable, we have been unable to repair it after cutting the wires in preparation to taking down the mast. There is one wire that is just a hair's width, that Barry thinks is the one which the radar signal passes through which we think is not working. We may have to restring whole new cable which is not impossible but will be very tricky to try and attach to the electrical bus. Anyway the long and short of that thought was that we did not have radar on the way over and there was an island that we were in danger of hitting. Barry plotted it's position and at about 0300 said that we should pass 3 miles south of it. The wind vane was steering and I was reading by headlamp, when I decided to check to see if anything was around and there was the island, appearing out of the gloom. It was just the faintest of shadows in the dark against the horizon, it gave me a bit of a start, even though I knew it should be there. I had scary thoughts about how a person could easily just run into something like that in the middle of the night if they were not vigilant.
This morning after making some yummy eggs and coffee (with Baileys of course, I broke down and bought some more after that disaster with the bottle in our luggage)I took over the helm and as we approached the coast I saw water spouts. Two or three whales were feeding in the general area we had to pass by. They would surface and then go down to feed for about 5 -7 minutes so you would not have a clue where they were going to surface. They got quite close to the boat and I just thought, "Do you know how much money people pay to see this?" It was a little worrisome though, after hearing horror stories of whales bashing into boats and breaking them in two. These must have been boat broken whales ( kind of like house broken puppies), or friendly, or just plain hungry because they ignored us, crossed either under us or 30 feet in front and they were gone. Whew!!
We have anchored in a lovely little spot and there is supposed to be a couple of good blows in the next few days so we should get some exploring done. Hopefully the rain will stop and the sun will come out and we can go ashore.

Aren't the new batteries on the floor pretty, a dark red colour, the latest fashion in batteries. They were manufactured in Nov. 07, so they are new, new, new. Apparently you put the water in under the white covers, (just in case you were wondering Steve).

So, alot of things have happened since the last time I blogged. Monday rolled around and guess what, they didn't have the type of batteries we needed in the local store. TWO WEEKS, that would be a Mexican 2 weeks, which probably would stretch out to a month, so we took things into our own hands and went out and rented a car. The typical Lange style, charge straight ahead, no research, just go, oh well we did hear on the cruisers net in the morning that they did have batteries in Nogales so off we went. We headed out on Monday afternoon and got in Nogales on the U.S. border about closing time. We found the address for the store we needed that evening and actually had no trouble finding the store the next day. TOO EASY, they did not have the batteries we needed, so off we went to Tucson. Again no research, no phone calls, just went on faith. Someone up there was looking after us. At a gas station in Tucson got a hold of one place and no batteries there, but he told us about another guy and when we called him he had some. OH JOY.!! He even had the four that we needed. I did a happy dance right there in the parking lot, Barry on the other hand waited until the guy had them in the cart in the store and then a small grin broke through on his features. WE DID IT.

We turned right around in that little rental car, whose headlights now pointed quite a bit higher due to the 300 pounds of batteries in the trunk, and drove back to San Carlos. The roads were actually really good. A separate double laned highway two lanes in both directions, certainly better that the road to Yellowknife and at times it seemed like there were about as many people, pretty desolate stretch of road. The shoulders were almost non-existant though and I kept busy with my dictionary interpreting the signs "drive carefully, dangerous shoulders", "dangerous curves ahead", "reduce your speed", etc, etc. The only thing is, it is a major route into the U.S. so there were lots of trucks on it. At one point the Mexicans were searching all the trucks, that is when I realized what a major route this was, the trucks were lined up on the road for almost 2 kilometers.

We got back in the dark and Barry loaded the batteries into the dinghy and then in a 25 knot wind we motored them to the boat. I was pretty wet by the time we got to the boat. ( I guess I should have started that paragrap with "It was a dark and stormy night") Barry loaded them on the boat and lifted them down into the bowels of the boat. Then he had no problem what so ever hooking them up and then we had light. I actually had three lights on at the same time, what luxury. Wow, it was great. What a relief. I am still shaking my head with amazement at what luck we had to get the batteries and have them fit and have them work just like that. The whole trip was worth just over a boat buck so all is good.

We are going to head out tomorrow, not sure exactly where we are going to go. I want to head northwest and see the west side of the Baja again for awhile before we head south again. If you want to send us some e-mail for the next while send it to

ve8bl@winlink.org

Hopefully that should work just fine

We were off the grid for the last week. We left San Carlos last Sat. and spent 4 days at one anchorage about 15 miles north and then went another 15 miles north and found another good spot. We were just getting used to the boat again and I cleaned and oiled the cap rail so it looks good. We were having a hard time keeping a charge in the batteries, so that meant that once it got dark we couldn't turn on any lights and had to make dinner using our head lamps and then read or cross stitch with the head lamps. We finally figured out that the batteries just weren't doing what they were supposed to, no matter how much we ran the generator and how much we ran the engine, no juice in them after a couple of hours.

SO we headed back to San Carlos to see if what we can do about them. Barry headed right to the marine store once we got to the dock and lo and behold they are getting a shipment of the type of batteries we need on Monday so some of our problems may be solved. Barry says the only problem is that they are 3 inches higher than they were, what were they thinking. YUCK!! How are we going to make them fit into the space that we have (big sigh).

We managed to fit in some beachcombing and I went snorkeling while we were out there, it was good to relax and enjoy the environment again.

YIPPEE! We are in the water. The mast was put back on without a hitch and we managed to get the stays reattached without too much problem. We haven't got the hole where the mast goes in recaulked yet but that is on our to do list.

Yesterday we got a real surprise and her a voice from our other life on the VHF radio. Our buddy George Diveky from Yellowknife was in town. He is down here looking to buy a boat, what a lovely chance to show off Cat's-Paw IV to another Yellowknifer. He took us out for supper and then he came aboard and spent the night floating his way into dreamland. He had brought his Sat. phone with him and we were able to chat with Janet in Yellowknife for a few minutes.

I wanted to share some of the mast stepping pictures with you. It was a real experience, one I hope not to have to repeat any time soon. We are planning on leaving the anchorage on Sat. and will head north in the Sea of Cortez for awhile and then head on south. It is great to be back on the water.

Believe it or not that is me under all that covering. One side has the first coat on, red and the other side has the anit-fouling paint on. Barry says that the light blue strip above the paint is actually 6 inch masking tape, the yard boys use 1 inch tape, they are that good!!! Good thing I put that covering on, it looks like I paint in the same manner that I eat, I end up with it all over me!

We put on two coats of bottom paint today, so it acutally felt like we are getting somewhere. First we washed and scrubbed the whole bottom, then we wiped it off with fibreglass cleaner. Then the first coat was a barrier coat, a 2 part epoxy paint, we waited 3 hours and then added the first coat of anti-fouling paint. We will add another coat of anti-fouling tomorrow and that will be that. Out paint job does not look as good as the yard guys but as Barry says it will pass the 10 foot test. Hopefully the new paint will help keep the barnacles away. It worked well on another level the almost lethal fumes kept the bugs away all day, they would come within 10 feet of the boat and fall out of the sky.

The plan is to get the mast restepped on Tues. and if there is time we will be put in the water on Tues, the tides may not be right. Otherwise we are hoping to be in the water by Wed. for sure. Hasta Luego.

l

Well we did it. We managed to get all the halyards strung and this morning we put the sheaves (the pulleys at the top of the mast that the ropes go around) back in and it all seems to work. The main halyard which was very hard to pull last year seems to be working quite nicely although we do not have a sail attached to it yet so I guess it is a BIT early to tell!

We had 4 of the internal halyards in yesterday and we were working on the last one and it would not come through so one final yank and the stupid tracer line broke and we had to start all over and restring the tracer line. It was another 2 hours of work but it was just as well because once we were done the line seemed very free and worked very well. There was some whopping and hollering going on once we had completed the last one let me tell you. Whew, that was a very frustrating, expensive lesson on the quality of line to use for your tracers!!!

I hope this conveys the reason why we chose to have the boatyard guys grind off the old paint, what a horrible job!

Today we headed to the marine store and bought bottom paint. The guys are working on the bottom again and will fill the blisters tomorrow and hopefully we will be able to start painting on Sat. We may actually be able to put the boat in the water on Monday or Tuesday. That will be 2 weeks since we arrived and about what I figured. Maybe I should just say we should be in the water before the end of the next week and then I won't get my hopes up and be disappointed if we don't manage it before then. Yesterday a couple asked us if we wanted to go to the grocery store with them and their car so we hopped in and bought tons of groceries. That was very kind of them.

Getting a haircut Mexican style, on the ground in the boatyard, where anyone can walk by and gawk.

There is something wrong with this picture!!!

We have made some progress on rectifying the mess we left ourselves with. Barry was hauled up the mast on Friday and the structure they had was not tall enough to get him up to the top. He did reach one line that was coming out the top, but it was not connected to anything at the bottom. We did the only other thing we could do and took the mast down. It came down without a hitch yesterday, and we have been slaving and swearing away trying to get lines but in it.

The structure to enable you to work on your mast was not QUITE tall enough.

In order to get a line strung you have to put a long steel wire up or down the mast, from one end to the other and then get it to come out the top, or out of the teeny tiny holes that the halyards go through. We are still talking to one another and Hallelujah we got all 5 internal tracer lines in place today. NOW we have to attach the halyards, which are the ropes that haul the sails up and down the mast, to the tracer lines and get them to feed through the mast. We are crossing our fingers that we should be able to manage this feat.

Today the boat was moved in the grubby work area and they are sanding the hull and getting it ready for us to paint. They are also repairing the blisters that we popped last spring, they are holes that go through the gelcoat, most are about 1/2 inch in diameter, some an inch. The guy in the yard wanted us to strip the whole boat and have it all redone but that could take up to 3 to 4 months so we declined. Hopefully we won't be sorry.

We did manage to get some recreation time in, we attended a going away party for the girl that looked after out boat all summer, it was a pirate party so plenty of arrrhhhh's were heard. A sword fight broke out at one point over the booty so it was fun. Our buddies Pat and Carole had us over for dinner and dice the other night so although it seems like we are slaving away we are managing to have fun. More friends are showing up everyday and soon our buddy boat people from last year will be here (Sandi and Steve) so it will be wonderful to see them again.

We are safe and sound in San Carlos, MX. We had a good flight to Tucson and then caught the bus to San Carlos despite having to wait 25 minutes for a cab to get to the bus station. I was basically starting to panic but I should have remembered that it was a Mexican bus we were taking and it left 20 minutes late. Our buddies from Espiritu, Pat and Carole, very kindly picked us up from the bus station and drove us to the boat after a lovely dinner which featured out first Mexican margarita!!

It was basically a great trip except I bought some duty free Baileys when we passed through Calgary. I had it in my hand and the salesclerk said that I had to pack it in my luggage, I couldn't carry it on. I was going to give it back and she said she had bubble wrap so I reconsidered and stuck it in our luggage. Duty free after all. WRONG!! The bottle broke and we had very sweet sticky luggage. It actually dripped on all the bags and I have some lovely brown stains on some of my shirts, as well as sticky stuff all over the front of our floater jackets.

It was wonderful to see the boat again. It looked pretty good, a bit grimy, but not nearly as dirty as I had expected and best of all there are not bugs inside, bonus. We have a fairly large problem to deal with though. We took all our lines off the boat. We put in replacement lines to the top of the mast to enable us to just pull the original lines through when we returned. WELL, we chose the wrong type of replacement line and the line is disintegrating, it falls apart in your hands when you try to pull on it. We have no way of getting up to the top our mast to pull the lines through. I think the lines inside the mast may still be good but that is not a guarantee. The work yard where the boat is has a large standing structure for working on masts so the boat will have to be moved over there and we can hoist someone up to see if we can manage to get the lines back where they belong, or we will have to take the mast down, fun, fun, fun.

We are finding it very hot here and are drinking a lot of water and having siestas in the afternoon. Hope all is well with everyone back in Canada. we miss you all.

We are in Sidney, BC, set to take the plane tomorrow morning to Tucson, AZ. Then on Tues. we will take a bus to San Carlos in Mexico and reaquaint ourselves with Cat's-Paw IV. It will be very nice to get back aboard, although we will have alot of work to get it ready to put it back in the water.

The last few days in Winderemere were very busy, my Mom arrived and we had a wonderful visit, we managed to get some four generation shots. Then Barry showed up (the car made it) and he spent a day visiting with Trish, Graeme and Quinn. Quinn did not crawl or get a tooth before I left and I miss his bouncy enthusiaism. Trish was working very hard on getting her knee back in working order and I am sure she still is.

We stopped in Vancouver and saw some sailing buddies from Mexico, Phil and Trudi on Williwaw. They had Williwaw shipped up from Mexico on Dockside and enjoyed her over the summer. One of the great joys I had from traveling was meeting wonderful people and it was so nice to extend our acquaintance by visiting them in their home.

Quinn checking out a ring his great grandma made, good taste buddy.

Once we reached Vancouver Island we raced around buying boat parts. We visited with Barry's Mom and both of his sisters. One night I sorted all our clothing out in Sherran's living room. We emptied all our suitcases and packed away all of our work clothes and our cool weather duds to take to our storage area, then I packed our cruising gear and all our boat stuff and managed to close the bags. We are in a hotel about 10 minutes from the airport tonight so we do not have any excuse for missing the flight.

Oh, I have been working on a tropical fish cross stitch for Quinn all summer. I bought the kit in Calgary in early June and have been working very hard. I basically became obsessed with getting it done. I cross stitched from Calgary to Winnipeg to Cape Breton to Yellowknife to Windermere. I stitched in the car, on the bus, on the plane, on the ferry, on a sailboat, in bed, in front of the TV, and while I waited for appointments. Trish and I visited a framer last week and picked out a frame and I put the last stitch in about a week ago. I felt pretty good about getting in finished. Yippee!!!

We had an outing to the hot springs today. Quinn had a great time as did the rest of us. It is such a relaxing place to go. There were lots of little kids there and watching the toddlers play in the shallow end was entertaining. Trish went in the really hot pool and did her knee exercises, it is coming along but she has to work at making her quads work and stretching out her hamstring.

Quinn is almost crawling. He has been getting up on his hands and knees but just has not figured out how to move forward yet. It won't be long now. He is also cutting some teeth and I wonder if he will either crawl or get a tooth before I leave on Tuesday morning. Barry supposedly left Fort Simpson today and is headed south. He should be here sometime on Monday.

It was a beautiful day yesterday and we went and played in the leaves. The leaves here are huge compared to the ones up north. It was not hard to accumulate a large pile and then almost cover Quinn in them. We also finished digging up Trish's garden, harvesting the rest of the carrots, beets and onions. We had picked the peppers the other day and made a batch of green salsa. It was pretty tasty, it had 10 home grown jalapenos in it and I was pretty scared to taste the concoction, but it was very tasty and not too hot at all.

Last Tuesday we went to see Trish's doctor in Cranbrook. He was not happy with the amount of swelling that was still in her knee and he told her she should still be on her crutches until she could walk without a limp. That was not happy news and Trish was very grumpy for the rest of the day. She has been attempting to remember to use her crutches in the house but she is not very good at it and she is getting tired of Graeme and I getting after her for walking around too much. I keep threatening to take a video of her so that she can see how she is walking.

We did a developmental questionnaire for Quinn, at six months, the other day. He is doing everything a normal bouncing baby boy should be doing and believe me he does love to bounce. He is rolling all over the floor now and he demonstrated his turning techinique on the furniture the other day, pushing off with his feet and swiveling his body on his back to get out of the corner, Trish and I were fascinated.

Barry, in the mean time, is still working North of 60. Here he is checking out the Merv Hardie Ferry with Michel Lafrance, the Regional Superintendent of the Department of Transportation, Government of the Northwest Territories, (he must be taking the picture) which crosses the mighty Mackenzie River. Everyone that drives to Yellowknife has to go across the Mackenzie River which drains the eighth largest freshwater lake in the world, Great Slave Lake. The Mackenzie moves the water past the Arctic Circle and deposits it into the Arctic Ocean. For the past number of years there has been a movement afoot in Yellowknife to put a bridge across the Mackenzie, it is going to be built right where the red bouy is in the background of the picture ( I can't pick it out, but it is probably there). Barry says they started surveying last week and they will start bringing in materials this winter and the bridge is scheduled to be finished in 2010. There was a big dump of snow the previous week in Hay River and Yellowknife but it has all but disappeared here. Barry's last day of work in Fort Simpson, where he is currently stationed, will be Oct. 18. On the 19 he will fly to Yellowknife to get his hip checked out again and then return to Fort Simpson and start making his way south. I am hoping he will be here on Oct 21 or 22. It will be interesting to see if the doctor in Yellowknife thinks he is a candidate for a new hip.

Well I know you have all been wondering about "the car". Greame and Trish bought a 65 mustang and Graeme is in the process of restoring it. He is at the stage where the car has been completely stripped and he has straightened the frame, now he is working on the body panels. The watchamadoeys are finished and the thingamjiggers are perfect, that is about as far as my car smarts takes me.

Graeme is also a surfer, (being a cool Aussie dude, of course he is into surfing). Trish got him an Indo board for his birthday. The board is a snazzy oval shaped piece of plywood that you put a roller underneath and you practise your balance on it. Greame is quite amazing to watch on it, that has been our entertainment for the last few days. Quinn is going to get some yams tonight for his Thanksgiving dinner, Trish and I are pretty excited about that!! The turkey is smelling, the pumpkin pie is ready and we have garden potatoes for mashing. Life is good!

Graeme is currently trying to decide what colour to make his car. He wants to know what you think? Please e-mail me at ann_lange@yahoo.com to register your vote for a black or a red mustang. THIS IS IMPORTANT, he really wants to know.

Trish and I have been indulging in recovery from surgery using the Grey's Anatomy method. The fellow renting the downstairs suite owns season 1, 2 and 3 of Grey's Anatomy, a TV show about interns in a hospital. We have just completed season 3 after a marathon week of uninterrupted shows, no commercial, no breaks. It was great, I guess! Trish managed to sit still and put her leg up most of the time, so that is a REALLY GOOD thing. There were days when I had cried so much from watching all sorts of wonderful actors loose their limbs, their lives and their lovers that I had a headache. Graeme seemed quite disgusted some days to find us sniffling away when he walked in for lunch.

Graeme cut his head with a pipe at work today and when he came home, I had immediate worries about thrombosis and shock and the possibility that we might have to amputate his head if the cut became infected and became septic!! Oh my, oh my, oh my, way too many hours watching that doctor stuff. In all seriousness, he had a huge bump with a cut on his forehead and Trish bandaged it up and we made him lie down and put his feet up and he put ice on the bump until the colour returned to his face, he looked a big green when he came in. He complained that the mixed veggies that Trish had been using for her knee weren't the right shape for his head and we thought that the remainder of the ice cream might do the trick. He could just lick off the drips as the ice cream melted down his face.

Trish's knee is coming along. She is able to walk around without crutches, she says she feels like Uncle Bruce when she is walking. We went into town today and bought groceries for Thanksgiving. That was her first foray into town since the accident and she seemed to handle it quite well, although she did say tonight that she needed to put her leg up and rest.

Why don't they have medium sized turkeys, we had a choice between a $10.00 turkey or a $30.00 turkey, what we would have liked was a $20.00 turkey, but there was no such animal in the freezer we were checking out. Do you think they don't grow medium ones??? Hope you all find just the size of turkey that you are looking for and enjoy the process of getting it ready and sharing it with other people.