The Hard Life in Mexico Isn't All Bad

We are back in the water after four days in the boatyard. It feels good to be floating again. Every night when the Coromuels blew the boat would shudder and I had visions of us falling over.

Living in the boatyard wasn't so bad thanks to our freshwater-flush head and huge holding tank. Some people actually climb down the ladder in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom! During the day we collected wash water in the sinks and drained it at night when we were sure no one was under the drains.

We now have two coats of black bottom paint (with extra coats in all the important places), new flax in the stuffing box, freshly waxed topsides and most importantly a new cutless bearing (yup, that is spelled correctly - it's a brand name).  Unfortunately the cutless bearing we had bought in the US turned out to be the wrong size so we had to buy one here for twice the cost.

While the boat was being hauled out there was a lot of excitement on where to place the slings because the stickers were hard to see. Mike had the brilliant idea to stick blue painters tape where it can easily be seen from all angles making it easier for the yard crew. This is something we'll do before getting to the yard next time.

So, what does all this fun cost in Mexico? About 14,000 pesos in yard bills and another 8,000 for antifouling paint. In dollars that is around $1,700. Here is the breakdown. I'm curious how that compares to US prices? Would love to hear your comments!

• $750 haul out / put in, all labor and consumables (same price if we had done the labor ourselves)
• $120 new cutless bearing
• $200 to build tool to pull cutless bearing without having to pull the shaft
• $45 new propeller key (ours was falling apart - good thing we found it now)
• $600 for 3 gallons of antifouling paint 

Curious about all of our cruising costs? Check out our Dinero page!

Marking the sling location

Pretty barnacles

Pressure washing

Keeping cool

Ice cream man

Removing the Cutless Bearing

Packing the stuffing box (where the propeller shaft enters the boat)

Wax-paper on slings so our new paint-job doesn't rub off when we get lifted back in the water

Safety First! :-)

Lunch at the beach bar next door with view of Camille in the travel lift

Renting a car in Mexico

La Paz, Mexico

Once in a while we rent a car for a day to go grocery shopping and run errands. If there is a lot of running around to do it is just so much more convenient than riding the bus and taking a taxi back with loads of groceries.

We start by reserving the car online via Priceline. There is no need to pre-pay or give them a credit card. All they want is a name. When I first saw that we could rent a car here for $5 per day I couldn't believe it. Well, don't believe it. That price does not include insurance and basic liability is mandatory in Mexico ( I believe in the US liability insurance is included in the rate quoted online).

We then call the rental office and ask them to come pick us up. If the only rate-quote available online is the airport location we call the location nearest to us and ask them to move our reservation to them. When we get to the office we pay with a Visa card because Visa will cover* the CDW (Collision Damage Waiver) insurance in case of an accident (be aware that they will put a hold on your credit card for several thousand dollars when you decline CDW).

Here in La Paz we WERE renting from Fox. Last year they picked us up and drove us back to the marina. No more free rides! So we walked to every major car rental place in La Paz and asked them for their insurance prices and whether they gave free rides. The prices** below are for basic, mandatory liability insurance. To learn more about car insurance on rental cars in Mexico take a look at this great article by the SFGate.

After checking Priceline here are the total prices I would be paying for an economy car today in La Paz (not including taxes). If there are better deals please let me know!

BEWARE: After renting from Fox we noticed that they give all quotes in US dollars. Before charging our credit card they used  THEIR OWN exchange rate to convert to pesos as all charges have to post in the local currency. By doing this they are making a few extra dollars on every purchase and we ended up paying even more.


Thrifty
$5 car + $12 insurance = $17
Free rides

Alamo
$8 car + $11 insurance = $19
Free rides

Fox
$5 car + $15 insurance = $20
No rides

Budget
$10 car + $20 insurance = $30
Free rides

Hertz
$9 (I was told all online prices include insurance - I doubt it!)
Free rides

Avis
$20 car + $28 insurance = $ 48
Free rides

* I am not guaranteeing anything. Please check with Visa yourself.

** These are merely prices I was given when I walked into the rental car office in La Paz. Please double check before renting! No guarantees here! 

I bet you've never seen that before!

La Paz, Mexico

We're back from spending the last two weeks in the national park islands near La Paz - where there is no internet...

We snorkeled, swam, kayaked, watched wildlife and paddle-boarded.


While sitting on the beach on Isla San Francisco we saw a fish that looked like he was poking his head into the water with his tail sticking up. When we went to investigate we found that a moray eel had tried to eat a fish much larger than his head and must have choked on his meal.

manta ray

manta ray

trigger fish ceviche!

How Does One Week Turn Into Three?

La Paz, Mexico

We had planned on being in Mazatlan for one week. It took us three to get out of there and we finally made it to La Paz a couple of days ago. So what took so long?

When we arrived in Mazatlan our Yanmar had logged just over 1,000 hours; and since there is a Yanmar service center in Mazatlan we decided to have them help us with our 1,000 hour service. We believe that our engine is one of our biggest safety features and it needs to be treated with lots of TLC. So far "the beast" (our engine's serial number ends in 666) has treated us with nothing but respect in return. Knock on fiberglass.

A mechanic came by to remove our heat exchanger, fuel injectors and various other things to be serviced. Turns out we had some pitting in the heat exchanger and it would need to be sent to a machine shop to get welded. This was supposed to take a couple of days. After one entire week(!) and many inquiries of progress we were finally told that the heat exchanger won't take the weld and we would need a new part - and it would take at least 10 days to get the new part! This being Mexico there is no guarantee for that and 10 days is probably being overly confident as things tend to get held up in customs.

So rather than wait for the new heat exchanger to come to Mexico we took action. We ordered the part to be overnighted to the Yanmar dealer in Los Angeles and booked a flight for Mike to fly to LAX the very next day.

Since his trip coincided with the weekend, Mike had some spare time and was able to do some other shopping for us as well - such as Trader Joes's, REI and West Marine. Best of all, Mike's cousin Randy was headed to Cabo by van and was able to bring everything down for us (including a new battery), rather than Mike carrying it back on the plane. How about that for serendipity?!

If the machine shop had been successful we would have looked at a bill of about $700. Here are the numbers for what really happened. At least now we have a brand new part and lots of goodies from the US.

Air travel (using some air-miles): $270
Yanmar parts in LA (new heat exchanger, gaskets, misc): $1,300
Overnight shipping from east coast: $70
Rental car (three days): $85
Gas (for rental car): $46
Bill from Yanmar dealer in Mazatlan: $450
Boat moorage for two extra weeks beyond planned: $260
Total: $2,381

Of course there were other expenses like food and shopping but I'm not including those in this total. If you're interested in this month's total expenses take a look at our monthly expenses.

Our fourth crossing of the Sea of Cortez was a breeze. Literally. We even got to sail some in the south-westerly winds that appeared as forecast on our favorite weather website stormsurfing (check it out - this site has much higher resolution wind forecasts than other free weather sites).

Arriving in Bahia Balandra (10 miles from La Paz) after our crossing this was what we were greeted by: Sunrise to the east and a full moon setting to the west. Beautiful!

Sunset over the Baja peninsula

The ice-cream man in Bahia Balandra makes in-water deliveries

We're currently in a slip for just a few days to replenish food and fuel

Mission in La Paz (founded 1720, built 1861)

Goodies from the US

iPad on Board

Sailing the Sea of Cortez

NOTE: This article was also published on the Women and Cruising website as well as being one of the 12 most popular articles of 2012. Women and Cruising is an excellent source for the cruising woman - whether out cruising or still in the planning stages. 

The iPad was one of he best purchases we made before leaving the US. We bought it at the last minute after realizing that buying new chart cards for our rather outdated chart-plotter could become quite expensive in the long run. The iPad 3/4G comes with an "assisted GPS" (the basic WiFi version does not have a GPS receiver) and while in the Apple store we talked to several of the geniuses about what exactly assisted GPS is. They all agreed that I had to be within reach of cell towers for it to work. I didn't agree then and I can now say that the GPS works just fine well over 100 miles from shore and gets a fix in mere seconds.  

Our boat's chart plotter came with one chart card that covers Cape Flattery to Mazatlan. While Cape Flattery is amazingly beautiful I doubt we will ever take this boat that far north (we sailed past boats on Puget Sound and love the Pacific North West - in summer). However, in one month of cruising we had already gone past the southern border of the chart card. Not to mention that the card is from 2004 and I just cannot justify buying new cards every year or two to get important chart updates.

Cape Flattery, Summer 2011

When we arrived in Ensenada we realized that our marina was too new to shown up on our chart-plotter. Luckily I had downloaded the latest charts onto my iPhone and we were able to come into port using it for guidance - though we quickly determined that the iPhone screen is too small to be used on a daily basis.

I have heard a lot of complaints about inaccurate charts around Mexico. Maybe we haven't been to enough places, but so far we have found the charts to be about as accurate as expected. This country doesn't have nearly the amount of money to put into charting as the US does. Of course, being hydrographers, we give anything that wasn't charted within the last 10 years a very wide berth! And night sailing close to shore is out of the question almost anywhere. 

The iPad makes route planning a breeze. We like to sit together in the cockpit with a cruising guide and the iPad to plan our upcoming journey. Later we transfer the waypoints to the chart-plotter on the binnacle. This way the autopilot can track our course and we can kick back and keep watches from a more comfortable seat behind the dodger (which is where I initially wrote this post on the iPad while Mike was snoozing happily until his watch started).

iPad Navionics app being used to navigate into Ensenada Blanca, Baja Sur, Mexico. The track showing us on shore is a dinghy trip to the resort to use their free wifi. 

Since the iPad has a 10 hour battery it can make it through almost an entire night of watches without having to be recharged. When the battery does run out there is no need to run the generator or inverter. We simply use the same 12 volt plug we use for the iPhones and use the electricity we make with our solar panels.

Taken April 2012 in Bahia de los Muertos, Mexico

We have a waterproof cover for the iPad so we can keep it at the binnacle while underway. Even in direct sunlight the screen is easy to see if the brightness is turned all the way up; though at night it can still be a bit bright even all the way turned down.

Turns out the iPad has many other great uses. Not to mention all the obvious ones like endless games, Facebook, internet research, dictionary, translator, email, etc...

Boat Log

We tried keeping a hand-written log of maintenance items, trips, fuel usage,etc but soon realized that after spending months trying to convert everything we had to digital we were once again using paper! We tried several of the boat log apps available for the iPad but none had everything we wanted. Finally we realized that all we needed was a calendar. We now use the calendar app and the best part is that we can search entries. So if Mike needs to know how many times we have ran the Honda generator I simply search for Honda. From there we can figure out when it's time to change the oil. By noting our location daily, I can cross-reference the dates with our digital photos.

Weather Updates

Aside from simply using weather websites we really like the Weather 4D HD app. For $2 we get all the weather updates we can handle in a really pretty display.

We haven't tried this yet but we have an app that will listen to the HF radio weather fax signal and then display the weather fax on the iPad. How cool is that?!

To Do List

We use the reminders app because, like the calendar app, it can work over the "cloud" and update the other iDevices. So, if I'm out and about with only my iPhone I can update our calendar or shopping or to do list and the other iPhone and the iPad will get the same update. It's all rather brilliant! We like to take the iPhones to shore in the dinghy because they are lighter and easier to protect from getting wet than the laptop or iPad.

Movies and Music

I like to watch movies on my night watches. Since we like to stand two long night watches it helps make the time go by and keep me awake. I can only contemplate life for so long.  When on WiFi or near cell towers we can also watch Netflix. Oh, and if you want to know how to listen to Pandora from Mexico send me an email ;)

Internet

Here in Mexico WiFi isn't always easy to access but you can buy Internet access by the day or month and by how much data you want. No need for a multi year plan. If you just email and do daily light surfing a month of Internet can be about $20. We have a chip for the iPad and a USB stick for the laptop and have been able to get Internet over 10 miles offshore. Great for getting weather updates!

By the way, if you buy an iPad outside of the US I hear (this is not confirmed) that it will not be unlocked like the US version, meaning if you buy it in Mexico it will only work with a Mexican carrier.

Phone Calls

Really cheap/free calls via Skype or Google Voice. Why did I ever pay for a cellular plan???

UPDATE (May 23, 2012): After nearly dragging anchor onto a rock we tried to use the iPhone/iPad as an anchor alarm. The problem is that it has to be left on (screen lit) all night and connected to power. It also seems to shut itself down after some hours which turns off the anchor alarm. I'm not a fan of having to run out into the cockpit every time we get a false alarm on the chartplotter so we now use our handheld GPS with anchor alarm. We record our track and set the audible alarm. Works great and  there is no need to get out of bed!