May 3-7, 2010
We were up at 4:30am to try to make some miles further east before the trade winds really kick up around 8:30 -9:00am. It was still dark and we were treated to an amazing lightening show just south of the Island with bolts streaking across the sky and down to the water. The winds were blowing around 16 – 18 knots out of the east but some of that was created by the storm moving by us. I placed the coordinates into the Chartplotter GPS to mark our waypoints and we headed out. Mike went below to start the water maker and the Ice maker…..two things that we run only when underway as they draw a lot of power. With the seas a bit spirited in those winds, he came up after getting both appliances running, looking a bit green. A few minutes of deep breathing, followed by a quick nap in the cockpit and he was fine. We entered the entrance to the harbor at Salinas and were met by the sight of at least 40 – 50 sailboats. We suspect that the rumors we heard about Salinas being more cruiser friendly were correct. We caught up with 5 other boats we have crossed paths with before. S/V Sanctuary, S/V Just Imagine, S/V Cativa, S/V Leahona, and S/V Nauti- Nauti. We walked around town near the marina to do some exploring on foot and stopped by to talk to a few of our friends. Still no Wifi available in the harbor. Drakes Bar and Grill has Wifi available and is located just outside of Marina de Salinas, their burgers are some of the best ever and so we were able to make a couple of skype calls and we signed our boat name on their wall and recognized many of the signatures of those who had come before us. The harbor was calm and so we spent much of our time on boat maintenance projects. Michael took our non-functional spare alternator that was one of our great e-bay finds (Buyer Beware) into the alternator shop here to see if they could get the parts to repair it. He has also spent quite a few hours dismantling and reassembling our windlass, which is the device that we use to pull up the anchor. It is slipping and we have had to pull the anchor up by hand which is rough on the ole back. Michael has isolated the problem, unfortunately our windlass is also no longer in production and so we have had to order spare parts from Scotland to be sent to us in the USVI hopefully in about a week or so. We also decided it was also time to invest in a new length of main line for the headsail. Michael had noticed some chaffing and had cut off part of it already but when we did rerun the line we found that the old line was brittle and nearly worn through in a critical location. It probably would have broken at the next haul of the mainsail. (Whew!) There is a small marine store here in Salinas and we have put a number of miles on our bicycles riding around between there, the alternator shop and the grocery store. We reprovisioned with some of the harder to find items that we enjoy on the boat along with cases of beer and soda. All this we were able to tie onto the back of the bicycles or carry in backpacks and the basket I keep on the front of mine. On more than one occasion we looked like a couple of pack mules as we made our way back to the marina with our supplies. I purchased and installed the zipper on our Cockpit Sunshade but had to get some help from the sail repair shop to fix the zipper on the dodger as the material was too heavy for my machine to handle.
Living the Dream 