M/Y Mary Ann

Fools Day. A good day for Captain Mary Ann to make her report. We sit at anchor in front of the fishing village of Zihuatanejo. John has gone to town in the small dinghy—the one with wheels—to transact some business at an internet café. I know that he took the wheeled transport thinking that it is much more cool looking. It is. And I’m sure he first considered the fact that his “coolness” would not have to be put at risk. There is a dock ashore.

April 2, 2003 0900

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I mean, how much bad luck can one boat have? You will all be relieved to know that we have finally managed to land the small tender through the surf and get it back out to sea with only minor difficulty. The new technique of just running her at some little speed straight at the beach worked well except that she stopped with quite a lurch. The wheels are locked down and come just below the propeller so no damage to the prop.

Isabel and I hang on our anchor at sea . . . abandoned. John flew off yesterday leaving us with multiple instructions on how to handle emergency situations should any arise. Captain John is very knowledgeable about emergency situations. I have great confidence in his assertion that no problem will be new to us. “Everything that could possibly go wrong on this boat had already gone wrong,” he told us. “So deal with it. I’ll be back at four o’clock on Monday. Take the wheeled dinghy to shore and meet me at Rick’s Bar.”

Returned from Los Angeles with the new plotter monitor, having shipped the old one back to the factory in Virginia for warranty credit. Forgot to take my temporary import license paperwork so had a little problem with the Aduana (Customs) dude, but he finally saw the light of day and let me off with a duty of US$74.00. They weren’t unreasonable to deal with at all and I would not have had a problem if I had followed the rules and done the paperwork.

Boy, is it ever getting hot down here! Mary Ann said that she was told that it was 100 degrees the other day, and it feels like it. The water temperature is up to 83 degrees as well and is as blue and pretty as you can imagine out on the ocean. The wx has been very benign for our entire trip and we are hopeful that the remainder across the Gulf of Tehuantepec and the Papagallos will be equally kind. The boat is running well for the most part. Minor exceptions include that the wind speed and boat speed measuring devices have quit again. Not critical by any means, but useful devices to have.

Bad news. Yesterday I spent the usual innumerable hours at the fuel dock squeezing in every gallon I could manage, but when I was done I had only taken 2025 gallons. So if I started with 400 gallons I must now be carrying only 2500 galloons or so. That would reduce my range at ten knots to about 1000 miles assuming an average 24 gph, just a hair greater than the distance between gas stations on the next leg. Since September of 2001 we have run 466 hours and burned 11,229 gallons for an overall average consumption of 24 gph.

John has just left to return the two air conditioning men to shore. I feel that I should write something concerning the purpose and function of air conditioners. I thought the purpose of our air conditioner was to circulate cooled air throughout the boat so that the temperature inside of the boat would be lower than the temperature outside of the boat. John seems to believe that the purpose of the air conditioner is to cool down all of the air that surrounds most immediately the outside of the boat.

Water temperature is now 82 degrees. Mary Ann even jumped in last night as it was hot. I arose in the middle of the night and moved outside to the boat deck to sleep on the padded benches in my shorts with no covering. Not the most peaceful place to sleep with the music blaring from the local party boats, but we made a little noise ourselves before going to bed as we played a home made CD I bought from a taxi driver for 50 pesos. We were sitting out, all the lights on, music blasting as loud as I could crank it, drinking whiskey and dancing under the stars.