January 23, 2011

Docked

great sunsets but sometimes rolly anchorage...
We pulled into a slip this morning after a near collision (note to selves--rules of the road still apply, even when docking…) and an engine outage (fuel connector disconnected). It was a stressful start to a plan that was meant to make our lives easier.

No one will claim that La Cruz has an ideal anchorage. But, on a windy afternoon with a swell running, it rates somewhere around mediocre. This means that anything that needs to be done on the boat needs to happen by 1pm, because at pretty much at the stroke of 1:01pm the wind and chop come up and stays up until 4pm—which by coincidence perfectly matches the town’s siesta.
 If I hadn’t booked as many stories as possible into the next two months, and Evan wasn’t trying to finish a half-dozen boat projects, and Maia wasn’t trying to do school work and see friends (the past few days have included a pirate night, a sleepover, and a birthday party…) we’d make the anchorage work. But when we were all sitting on a bench in the town square the other day, waiting for:
a) the anchorage to calm down
b) the dentist to come back from siesta so we could book appointments
c) the grocery store to reopen after siesta so we could shop
d) the hair cutting place to reopen after siesta so Evan could get a trim
e) any café to open so we could actually enjoy our break
we realized that being at anchor wasn’t a very efficient place to be…

So here we are. At the dock. It’s 3pm and Maia is running feral with friends. Evan is doing Evan stuff. I’m working (when not blogging) and outside the breakwater I hear the wind and surf.
Savannah is the smaller cat across from us...
I sort of feel like I’ve gone all soft and wimpy—but knowing that we’re paying the discounted 50 cents a foot puddlejump rates is helping me deal with it…

4 comments:

Behan said...

Don't ding yourself any salty dog (cat?) points for heading into the dock. Those days in the marina in La Cruz before we jumped last year improved our sanity immeasurably. Seriously, I cannot imagine the additional stress level that would have resulted from adding dinghy commuting from the anchorage with everything that had to be done! So many good things besides sanely getting sh*t done came out of it, too. Morning walks. Evening painkillers or walks on the breakwall. A hope around the L of the dock to the comfort of friendship. Yeah... wouldn't trade for any salty dog(/cat) points, no way!

Behan said...

...that was supposed to be 'hop', not 'hope', but I kinda like the typo. :-) xxx B

karen said...

aah! I can't believe you're back there already! I was just reminiscing last night with Matt that just a year ago we were getting ready to head to Mexico (and I was following your blog as you went out before us!) There is part of me that thinks you will find the south pacific a nice rest from all the wildness of Mexico, and another part that wonders how you won't get bored since there certainly isn't the wildlife/festivals/insanity in the french-influenced SP as there is in Mexico. BUT, i'm excited to follow you as you cross and get your perspective (which i'm sure will be much more positive than mine! ha) are there a lot of kid boats in the PJ this year??

Diane, Evan, Maia and Charlie the cat said...

Karen!!
I was telling Behan how strange it was to be back here and how absent you all seemed...
No there are very few kid boats. Very few boats in general. It seems as though it will be a very small group jumping this year. we went to one seminar and over half the boats there weren't planning to make the trip this year. Sigh.
But we'll make it fun. I hope;)