Woke at 0700 after 8.5hrs sleep. The sun is shining and Dewey is making coffee. I feel goddamn fantastic! Elpie makes a call home to talk to Ed who’s struggling to change his tickets to Malaysia to the right name - he’d given Eddie as his first name. I hope he can get it changed, the booking agent want him to cancel and re-book, but he’d only get 25% of the money back from cancelling and likely the next flight would be 4x more expensive.
A few navigation sounds in the harbour prompted a discussion of what they mean. One long - intention to leave the dock, 3 short - reversing out, 5 short - what the fuck are you doing!
We went over to see Anders’ boat. He has an incredibly well built ex-ocean racer. An engine room you could host a party in, with a workbench on one side and a comprehensive electric board on the other. 1200Ah of AGM batteries paired with 4 circuits of solar. Incredible engineering on both the keel stepped mast and the rudder post (which is thicker than the proverbial baby, never mind it’s arm.) Tanks for water and diesel in the centre of the boat, under the saloon. Talking of the saloon, there’s 6ft 7in of head clearance all the way through and it’s bright and airy due to the side windows. It’s a blade rudder and bolt on keel, the only trade offs on an otherwise bombproof boat. Anders rigged a system using spare halyards, that allows the enormous 135% Genoa to be tacked without tangling the sheets on hatches or the 8-person liferaft. A modification that was added after nearly losing the liferaft after catching said sheets as the power in the sail snapped the webbing attaching the raft to the deck.
Anders showing us the engine room
Quest's electrical panel
Quest's workbench (very jealous)
The Purrrrkins
Anders is a force of nature, incredibly knowledgeable about his boat, and the diesel engine in particular. Always with a story to tell or a description of the boat systems. He’s talking to a few bands to see if they want to tour by sailboat, such a cool idea and he has the boat to do it. He has great stickers with a Sasquatch with his face. A perfect match for his wild beard and hair.
Anders onboard
Anders scaling the mast, as he would to reef
The star of the show for me though, was Mookie. Such a gentle giant that loves a cuddle. Always reaching out to touch someone with a gentle paw if he’s not being cuddled. Always interested in what’s happening and follows the group around, afraid of missing out. He looks like a very big golden Labrador but is a crazy cross of larger breeds. Very quiet too, unlike some of the other dogs in the anchorage. I came back to Lintika smelling of dog and covered in his white hair.
Mookie and Brady
Mookie resting
Anders and Mookie wave us off
At 1055 we headed off anchor and out into the bay for some fresher water and to get some breeze in the hottest part of the day. Elpie did the engine checks (WOBBLE) and found an errant bolt that was lost in yesterday’s water pump replacement. As Brady says, “the bilge provides”.
Elpie welcomes us back
She then took Lintika off anchor and out into the bay. I’m so proud of her gaining the confidence in all this, and am staying out of the way to give her space to learn. She motored all the way to our destination, and with encouragement from Brady to ‘take it slow and breath’ got us back on anchor.
Our destination - it's not quite Isabel
Despite the noise at this anchorage, I love the part of Mexico we’ve explored. The nature, the colour and sounds. The friendliness of the people, the mezcal, the fact the equivalent of our common seagull is the pelican!
Brady had been defrosting the last of the Mahi we bought on Day 1 for lunch. He turned on the Magma (bbq on the pushpit) and prepped the goodness.
Brady cooks Mahi.
Lunch was awesome, more fish tacos, and Brady had magicked up some salsa from very unexpected remaining ingredients in the galley. The rest of the afternoon was taken by swimming and relaxing in the sun. Then we headed back under sail, genoa only, averaging a very stately 3knots. The very epitome of slow travel, and we had nowhere better to be than bobbing around on the ocean in the sun. We anchored back in the marina area and plotted dinner at Presidio Cocina de Mexico
Elpie and I walked to dinner to get a 25min walk in and to see a bit of the city. Brady, Jim and Dewey took a cab. The walk was interesting. The marina area here is, lets say, rustic. As we passed the seafront we were treated to a glorious sunset along the sea wall.
Then we were into run down houses and gated communities, clearly areas that were run down. This started to give way to signs of gentrification and then we literally crossed a street and entered the old town, well paved, brightly lit, with streets that had a Mexican-flavoured Mediterranean style. The streets we walked down had nice bars and bistros, with live music in some and offering a range of food styles. We initially walked past the Presidio Cocina de Mexico as the entrance is tucked in between two other buildings. As you enter you are welcomed into a large courtyard, shaded by tall trees enclosed with walls that are a mix of white/cream plaster and playful ‘revealed wall’ sections made with pieces of what almost look like broken ceramic pipes. Sadly I didn’t take too many photos - Elpie and I will have to come back as we have another few days here once we leave to boat tomorrow.
The food was excellent, really flavourful and delicious. Shrimps featured heavily as the local delicacy and I added roasted cauliflower to the starters, and had some incredible tuna Takati for the main course. There was a good selection of Mezcál cocktails to choose from as well. I tried the Chico Drink, the Sangre Taurina and, wanting to sample the Mezcál directly, a couple of shots of a nice repasado. The waiter seemed to think this a bit odd and served it with some soda water on the side. I may be missing a cultural trick here.
After dinner we decided most folk were ready to head back to the boat and we’d pick up some beers to have there. We walked a little to find somewhere to buy the beers and actually passed our hotel for the week. It’s in a vibrant little square with live music playing, street vendors around and a distinctly higher proportion of gringos than other places we’ve been this week. We got a beer each and watched a Mexican metal band with a very good lead guitarist who was very into the whole hair flicking thing.
After that we got a taxi, one of the flatbed types with the cage on the back. Brady got them to stop at a shop for beer. I went in and got a couple of cases (way more than we needed - the Mezcál may have influenced me) and we headed back to Tika - a little wobbly getting in - and then on to Lintika. We lasted a couple of beers, Dewey playing guitar for a while which was beautiful but were still in bed by 2330. Well past the cruiser’s bedtime of 2000.