October 22, 08

It has been quite a while since I wrote in my journal. I decided I better take some time today to get caught up. I will recap as close as I can remember.
October 22, 08 we headed back to Salt Lake. We stopped on the way and stayed at Karen’s. That was fun. She provided us with a wonderfully soft bed and then a great breakfast. What luxury! Much better than a hotel and friendlier too.
Somehow I lost a day here. I thought we left Ensenada on the 22nd but that means we should have arrived in SLC on the 23rd. If that is the case then we must have slept all day because it seems that the first real thing we did was to attend Sadie’s play on the 25th. That doesn’t make sense but neither does anything else. I did attend Sadie’s play on Saturday the 25th though. I am sure of that.
After the play Amy went home and I took Lexie and Anna to our home for the night. We expected Amy to have the baby on Monday but the baby had other ideas. Little Elijah Joseph Colbert was born on Sunday the 26th of October. Amy had quite a time of it but he arrived safe and just as cute as any baby could possibly be. And he is so cuddly. Mother and baby are fine now.
Sunday we had a family dinner at our house but Steve and Amy were busy and couldn’t make it. Humm. I guess they had a good excuse. Tyler and Tiffany didn’t make it either. They got a very late start and they could see that it was going to be a lot of driving for the short time they could stay. But they made up for it the next day by meeting me for lunch. Wendy and Tony and Nick came that night and I had all four of Steve and Amy’s girls. That was about it for Sunday dinner.
After lunch on Monday, Tiffany and I went to visit little Elijah and his mom at the hospital. I learned that Amy was coming home early so when we left the hospital I went grocery shopping and found some items to prepare a meal for them when they got home. After that I went home.
On Tuesday Oct 28, I had lunch with Carol and then she came to my house to give me a perm and a haircut. She is really good at it. She has given me some of the best perms I have ever had. This haircut is a real change though. I told her I wanted it really short. She believed me and cut it really really short. It will be much easier to take care of in the wind. I will get used to it after a while. In fact it is so much easier to take care of, that I am adjusting quickly.
Wednesday I spent the day with Shanna. We went up to the Chicken Inn for dinner. Then we stopped at the cemetery to see where Connie was buried. (Shanna lost her siste, Connie, a few weeks ago.)
Thursday I took the car in to get the guidance system repaired and to get the tires checked and rotated. I also got the oil changed and all that stuff while I was there. Then On Friday, Wendy went with Jim and me to the credit unions. We got her name on our accounts. This is so that she can handle our bills while we are gone. Friday was also Halloween so we had to hurry home to pass out treats. I really enjoy seeing the trick or treaters come around in their costumes. This year one teen age boy came around dressed as a Genie. He had a bare midriff and a purple bra on. It was so funny! I had to laugh. I gave him a whole handful of treats just because he was so funny.
There are several other people I wish I would have had time to visit while I was in SLC but I just ran out of time. Sorry!
Saturday I spent the day copying recipes. I wanted to take all the little scraps of paper I collected recipes on and put them all on cards. I typed the recipes into the computer then printed them on card paper and cut the paper up into recipe cards. Now instead of a pile of paper, I have a pile of cards. I also took Lexie to get her scriptures because she will be baptized this month. I wish I could be there for that but there is no way I can do it. Lexie said it was OK. She wishes I could be there but she understands. I try to buy all the grand kids scriptures when they are baptized. This is something I started later and I am not sure the older grand kids got in on it. I would still buy them if the kids would just tell me they didn’t get scriptures. I don’t remember which kids I bought them for and which ones I did not. I know Ty and Tiff’s kids are getting scriptures from their other grandmother so I have tried to buy them scripture totes. I wonder if I have missed anyone on that. If so, please let me know and I will try to “catch up”.
Sunday is church of course. Then on Monday my brothers and sisters got together for lunch at the Sizzler. I spent the time in between trying to get my recipes copied and using the printer to get other things copied that I have been missing on the boat, (family pictures and a stores list etc.). We don’t have room for the printer on the boat so I have to get all my printing done while I am in SLC. I also had to go shopping for beets and other things that I can’t buy in Ensenada. I know they won’t last forever but I though that it would be easier to get along without them if I had them for a while and knew when I was going to run out rather than just being surprised by not having so many things that I was use to using.
On Tuesday we voted, then we started to pack for our trip back to the boat. By this time I already had the car pretty well full but we still had quite a few things we really needed on the boat. After rearranging things several times I took things out of the boxes and placed them in the trunk one item at a time to save space. They still did not all fit so I put things back into their boxes and Jim bought me a car top carrier which we packed as full as we could get it.
We just packed and unpacked all day Wednesday and part of the day Thursday. We were planning on picking up Jan and Gary about 11:00 a.m. on Thursday. We wanted to leave around 11:00 so that we could spend a little time in St. George and leave there around 8:00 p.m.
Picking them up took some time because we had to repack again to get everything in. But with Gary’s help we made it! We drove from SLC to St. George where we stopped and saw Rick’s home. He has done some really nice things with it. He has a high cinderblock fence all around the back yard and a palm tree in the front. He has a system for misting the patio in hot weather which I really liked. It works for vegetables in the store. It should work for people in the sun too I think. His home really has a lot of “curb appeal”. I tried to decide why it has so much curb appeal and I guess it is just the way he put it all together.
We went to dinner with Karen and Rick that evening in St George. Gary and Jan knew this wonderful Chinese Restaurant called, “The Mandarin”, (I think). I had heard about it from one of my patient’s in Bountiful. They have one there too. It gets really great reviews and now I understand why. The food was the best Chinese food I have ever had. Except for one New Year ’s Eve when Janet and Katy cooked Chinese food and we were invited. That was really good too. I think that was the first time I had ever tasted Chinese food.
We left St. George just as we planned. The hang up came when we arrived in San Diego around 2:00 a.m. instead of 8:00 a.m. Now this was a problem because we didn’t want to try to go through Tijuana during the night. We didn’t want to risk running right into the cops and robbers game that the drug pushers and the police might be playing. We just felt safer going through there in broad daylight. Besides that we wanted Gary and Jan to see the coast line on the way down.
We decided to go get something to eat. That took about 45 minutes. Then we sat in the car. We tried to sleep but none of us really slept. Jan at least had her eyes closed for some of the time. I think she came closer than the rest of us did but if she actually slept it was not for long.
Friday morning finally came and we headed for the border. I was glad that we got to go down the coast in the daytime because it is really pretty. We arrived at the marina and unloaded a good portion of the things we had brought. We were all really tired. Jan and Gary slept for about 10 or 20 minutes. Jim and I couldn’t sleep. After that we took Jan and Gary over to arrange for a room in the hotel across the street. Then we went over to “Alfonso’s Pizza” which is a cruiser hang out a few blocks from the marina. We ate, pizza at a table on the sidewalk, then because we didn’t want to waste any time we decided to walk along the water over to the fish market. We looked at all the fish and I kinda wanted to find some halibut, (my favorite). I didn’t see any but later on Gary said he had seen some. Then we decided to take a boat ride around the bay. That was really neat because the pilot took us out to see the ferry that was lodged in the entrance of the marina. The seals live there and many of them were laying in the sun. Some of them complained rather loudly at our intrusion. You could hear their barks echoing through the abandoned ferry. We went quite close to the ones that were sunbathing and Gary got some pictures. I will try to attach some of them.
Next we walked through the Cultural center which is across the street from the marina. Jim and I have never been there before but people have told us we should take the time to go and see what it is. There was a bar (a cantina not a metal bar) on the main floor which really surprised me. The walls were inlaid with tiles and the floors were too. Many of the ceilings were painted. And so were some of the walls. It was really interesting. They mostly showed the history of the area. They especially showed all the missions in California and Baja California from former years.
We left because we were all so tired we could hardly put one foot in front of the other. It was around 4:00 in the afternoon when we went back to our boat and Jan and Gary went to their hotel room. Jim laid down and went right to sleep but I stayed up a while and put a few things away. When I felt like I could sleep too, I laid down and we slept right through the night and woke up the next morning.
We got up Saturday and met Jan and Gary for breakfast. We had heard on the “cruisers net” that Alfonso’s had doubled the price of their breakfasts so we decided not to go there this morning. One of the cruisers had suggested another spot. We decided to try that. This place also had tables on the sidewalk. The tables on the sidewalk were important because we have a dog and most places don’t want us to take her inside. While we waited for our breakfast to arrive, a band of musicians, dressed in traditional Spanish attire, serenaded us with a song about the morning. That was fun.
I knew the little vegetable store where I bought those great vegetables a few weeks ago was on the same street. I wanted to walk up and find the store and get some more cucumbers. Everybody agreed and we walked a few blocks up the street but could not find it.
Next we went to La Bufadora, a major tourist attraction. Jan got her picture taken on the painted burrow and we spent a lot of time shopping. Of course that is one of the reasons we went there in the first place. Gary thought Jan was lost but she was just shopping. Then we stopped and ate lunch at Habana Banana. Jim and I have come to depend on Habana Banana for a good lunch. When we got back to Ensenada we stopped at Wal-Mart to go grocery shopping for the last time before we lost the car. We finished unloading the car and putting things away. Then we began preparing to take the boat out the next morning.
Jim hired a man to clean the barnacles off the bottom of the boat again. This makes the boat sail better because the bottom is smooth. He also had the zincs replaced even though he decided afterwards that it probably wasn’t necessary. The diver had told him they needed replacing and Jim said OK but bring me the ones you take off. When he brought them up, Jim could see that they really were not as bad as the diver had said they were. But Jim paid the diver “under the table” so that Jerry did not get a cut of his money.
We were excited to get the boat out for the first time. Jim and Gary worked outside. Jan and I worked inside. Everything had to be put in a place where it would not fall if the boat tipped. When we had done all we could for the night we took Jan and Gary back to their hotel and we went to bed.
Sunday morning, the 9th of November, we got up to a rainey day. The weather report was not great. It was wet and windy. Jim decided that it was not a good day to take the boat out for the first time. We were disappointed but also a little relieved. Taking the boat out is a big step in getting ready to go. But we wanted to do it while Jan and Gary were here to help. They had to leave on Monday to get back to their horses and their hay business.
Instead of going out Gary and Jim decided to work on getting some of the things done that were waiting for attention. Jan and I tried to play some games in the cockpit. The men had the floor torn out of the boat so there wasn’t much room there. But playing games in the wind was not a good Idea so Jan and I went for a walk. We decided to go to the fish market and get some halibut for dinner. We walked along the edge of the bay and past several shops and booths where the “natives” were selling souvenirs. The venders were not as aggressive as they had been at La Bufadora. That was a welcome change. We stopped and bought a few souvenirs and then went on to the fish market where we found the halibut and bought 4 kilograms. I had no idea how much I was getting but I hoped that a kilogram was enough to feed a hungry man. It was! In fact I have enough left for another meal. I think 3 kilograms would have been plenty.
While we were gone the men hooked up the salt water plumbing. They fixed the line to the salt water foot pump in the kitchen. They fixed the salt water wash down pump that runs to the cockpit and they ran the salt water to the water maker and to cool the engine. When we got back to the boat Jim and Gary were finishing up. Later we ate halibut for dinner. Everyone ate their fill, but I thought it was a little dry. I made a mental note to get on the internet and see if I could figure out what makes fish dry when you cook it. Maybe I cooked it too much. I don’t know, but we ate it and enjoyed each other’s company. That is what really counts.
While we ate, Jim told us that the valves we had bought in SLC which were ½ inch were a different ½ inch than the hose was. They just would not work! In order to hook things up they had taken a valve off of the system in another place because it looked like it was not being used. But when they took it off the hose, water spurted out. Jim tried to hold his finger over it to stop the water but the pressure built up until it spurted everywhere. He couldn’t reach the switch to turn off the pressure pump while he was controlling the water flow. He finally had to just let the water spurt around while he got to the pump switch to turn it off.
Gary and Jan decided they would leave a little later in the day if we could get the boat out on Monday morning. We were grateful for that, and when Monday morning arrived we checked the weather and Jim said he thought it would be all right. We called Cris (he wanted to go out with us) and prepared to leave the dock.
We learned that during the night a sail boat had limped into the marina with a mast that had broken off in the wind. Two other boats had washed ashore down by La Bufadora. We were glad we had waited and not gone out the day before.
Monday , November 10, 08 we slowly made our way out of the marina and into the bay for the first time. The marina was fairly smooth but when we got it out into the bay, the water was still fairly rough from the storm that had just passed. There were swells between 8 and 12 feet tall. The boat went up and down and up and down and up and down. We hoisted the sails and learned that the mizzen sail is really necessary if you hope to control the boat. Our mizzen sail is not in good condition but we hoisted it anyway. We needed it to balance the boat and make it hold its course!
We sailed for a few hours. The boat bobbed up and down. Everyone got a little sea sick except Jan and Cris. We had all taken seasick pills except Cris and Jim. The captain up chucked and so did the dog. (We won’t mention the captain by name.) He said this was the first time in his life that he has had any seasickness at all. We finally returned to the marina. I was really ready to go back to the slip. This time we parked with the bow in. We had been parked stern first before. This put all our neighbors on the other side of us. This is going to take a while to get used to. I look out the window and all the neighbors have changed places. Even the entrance to the boat is in a different place. Humm. This feels funny.
Tuesday, November 11, 08
Today I mostly took it easy. I spent most of the day on my journal. Now I am caught up. The weather is getting warmer, but it is down to 64 in the cabin this evening. I guess this is winter in Mexico. I think it is time to move south. Today I have had a problem getting on the internet. I have locked myself out of my credit union account. I have accomplished nothing except working on my journal. I think I miss Jan and Gary. It was fun to have them here for a while. We got an email from Rick telling us that they arrived in St. George safely. That is good. I hope they didn’t have too much trouble getting through Tijuana.