Made it to PV

Well we made it down to Puerto Vallarta. The trip wasn't bad, although the 25kts of wind we had inside the sea whipped up a nice steep little chop that was pretty unpleasant. Unfortunately after two days of getting bashed around and moving around 6+ kts the wind died and we had to motor. We were able to maintain a speed of roughly 6kts motor sailing, however for the last 24 hours we were completely becalmed. It was painful, extreme heat and an uninsulated motor made for a testy last day.

Mystic did great, she totally took care of us and while it wasn't the most comfortable trip of my life, it wasn't too bad at all. In total it took us around 5 days to make PV. Once here we hung out on the boat a bit as well as made several trips to the beach. It is incredibly hot here, getting any kind of heavy lifting done is a real challenge. So far I really like the city, although the marina is expensive with literally no services. Also finding internet around here is a nightmare.

Todd left yesterday which means I have a ton of time on my hands. It was so great having him here and I really hope he comes back! Could not have asked for a better person to help get Mystic ready and delivered.

I have posted some photos to my Facebook and will add them to the website shortly.

Getting ready for Puerto Vallarta!

Well Mystic, Todd, Enzo and I made it up to San Carlos yesterday, (a whopping fifteen miles in the wrong direction) and had a day of rest today. Tomorrow we are planning on heading south to Puerto Vallarta. We heard this morning on the net that there was a storm rolling into the sea tomorrow, but all of our Grib files and weather information claims that there should only be 20-25 kts of wind, which means we will get there quick!

The boat is doing great, all of the systems are working nicely and she is finally tidy! I think I may have given Todd a heart attack when he stepped aboard in the dry yard and saw what a disaster she was. It took us two days to get her cleaned up! I am so excited to be heading off here in a few hours, I have to say that I am in desperate need of some trees... The desert is cool for a little while, but ultimately the dust and the dry air is not that pleasant. I think the wood on Mystic is also looking forward to a little humidity. When I bought her there was a small crack in the table, after seven months of sitting in a dry yard, that crack has grown. I am hoping that a little moisture will swell her wood a little bit and bring her back to normal.

I have been terrible about taking pictures thus far. That needs to change, and will change as soon as we get out of here, (so long as the weather isn't too bad.) I have also been playing with my go pro camera a little bit, and would love to start uploading videos, but the internet is incredibly slow down here. Hopefully I will be able to find some high speed internet in PV and get those out there. Until then you will just have to deal with my rants on the blog. Next time I write will (hopefully) be from Puerto Vallarta!! And warm weather!

Back on the Boat!

Well I said that I was going to keep up with the blog this year so here I go... I made it back down to Into the Mystic this evening after 25+ hours of driving. Todd, a good friend, drove down with me which was really great of him, without his help getting down here would have been a nightmare. I ended up driving my old pickup truck down to Guaymas and she ran great the whole way, I really love that truck.

When we climbed aboard I realized just how poorly I put the boat away last spring... In my hurry to get out of here I left her a disaster, then on top of that she sat in a dusty desert for seven months which didn't help anything. When we got here we hosed her off and unloaded the truck. As of right now everything we brought down along with the sails, dinghy, kayak and cushions are scattered around the deck. Unfortunately the drive took significantly longer than we expected which meant it was dusk when we arrived. Unloading the truck in the dark was not easy, but we did manage to get everything done and then grabbed some food. 

Tomorrow will be filled with cleaning, stowing supplies and getting the boat ready to be put back in the water, and hopefully we will head south to Puerto Vallarta no later than Wednesday. Wish us luck!

I have a departure date!

My last post was on September 20th, I was starting to get ready to head down to Mexico and Mystic, it is now November 12th and I haven't left yet... I do have a departure date though! I will be driving from Santa Cruz to Guaymas (over three days) leaving on Monday the 18th. With my departure looming I feel like I have 1000 things to do, but in reality everything is coming together pretty nicely.

I did end up finding a tiller pilot that should work. The idea of hand steering as much this year as I did last year was more than I could deal with, so I broke down and bought one. It may cramp the cockpit and will definitely be an eye sore, but with the light winds that we had last season I ended up motoring a lot, and the wind vane doesn't work when you're not sailing. 

My plans have solidified slightly since my last post. I will be spending Christmas in Puerto Vallarta with my mom, and then my friend Daniel is coming to PV in early January. Around the beginning of February I am going to head south again and see where I end up. The first leg of my trip from Guaymas to PV will be roughly 500 miles, and take me a little over a week (I will make a few stops along the way, after all this is supposed to be fun.) Ok its time to get back to work, heading to West Marine to pick up the autopilot. 

Well its the 20th of September 2013 and I am starting to prepare to head back down to Mexico. Last year I really didn't blog at all, so I will try and do better this year. If you haven't heard I was in the Sea of Cortez last year with a bunch of great people, I had a wonderful time and most importantly Mystic did great. All of the time spent getting her ready for our trip really paid off, now we are starting to prepare for round two.

I was pretty happy with her layout last season, and won't be changing too much, I would really like to have an autopilot, but I don't think that there is room in the cockpit for one. I am still doing some research but it doesn't look good at the moment. Other than that the only improvements that need to be made when I return to Mexico are varnish and paint. I am a little nervous to see what the hot Mexican summer has done to her but I am sure my imagination is making it far worse than the reality.

The plan for this winter is to refit in Guaymas (where she is being stored) and then head south. I don't think I will be spending too much time in the Sea of Cortez this year, shifty winds and steep chop made the sailing less than ideal. I will leave Guaymas, head south to Mazatlan and the Puerto Vallarta. I am planning on spending Christmas in Puerto Vallarta and then heading south again. I have heard great things about Barra de Navidad as well as Zihuatenejo. There is a chance I will make it as far south as the southern border but I am not sure yet.

The real question is what will I do next spring. Right now my two options are to haul her out down in Mexico/Central America and continue with my commuter cruising routine, or bring her north and go back to school. While I love the lifestyle that I am living now, I am mildly nervous about my future, (do I really want to be teaching sailing for the next forty years...) Thats still six months away though, so for right now I am just stoked to be getting back to my boat.

I look forward to actually maintaining this blog this year and I hope you all enjoy hearing about my travels

It sure has been awhile

I realized I haven't updated this blog in a realllllllly long time. Unfortunately there isn't a whole ton to say at this point. Mystic and I are in Santa Cruz, and other than day sailing and a trip to Monterey we haven't gone anywhere significant lately. Right now I am replacing one of her fuel filters with a better fuel/water separator, so she is dock bound until I am able to get a part in from the east coast. 

Plans for this summer include all of her bright work, oiling the teak, nonskidding the decks, and polishing chrome, then either this september or next it'll be time to head south. I still need to move my main sheet and add a dodger. I know people give me a hard time about demanding a dodger, but for all of you out there I just wanted to offer that you could beat into weather for awhile and see how you like it. Personally I consider myself a gentleman, and as they say, a gentleman never sails to weather, (and as I say, if I am gonna sail to weather, you better freakin believe I am going to have a dodger to hide behind.

Back in December I sailed to Monterey as I mentioned with my friend Alex. He had recently returned from Australia where he had brought his 44 ft steel cutter to sell. He is back in Mexico working on his Cape Dory 30 Moondance for a pacific crossing. I really wanted to join him, but I really need this year to get Mystic all tuned up to head our on my own. Hopefully he heads back to Mexico for his next boat and I will be able to meet up with him there. In the mean time I am going to fly down to La Paz and hang out with him for a week before he takes off.

Anyways this rambles and doesn't say much, but I just wanted put something up here. Ill try and update people more frequently on the goings on of Mystic, but who knows, I have never been very good at this blogging business. 

Home in Santa Cruz

Well we finally made it back to Santa Cruz after a rough 140 mile trip from Morro Bay, around Point Sur. The wind was directly on our nose and the seas continually were breaking over the deck, meaning that we were cold, wet and tired for the entire 26 hours of the trip. I had some awesome crew with me though, even when some of them got seasick they didn't complain at all. I do have to say that pulling into the Santa Cruz Harbor after that trip was probably the best landfall I have ever made.

After finally getting home, I managed to get a permanent slip for "Into the Mystic!" Usually getting a slip in the lower harbor in Santa Cruz takes between 10-20 years, I managed to do it in two days. Into the Mystic only draws 4 feet, (she only goes down four feet under the water,) so that meant that we were able to go in a slip that no one else would fit in. It also may help that I work at the harbor, but either way, I have a sweet spot to keep the boat while I am in Santa Cruz!

Unfortunately the exhaust flange that was connected to the manifold broke again, I guess the guy in Morro Bay didn't do a great job. I was able to replace the elbow and reattach it but it was pretty ghetto, so I have to get a new flange and fix it the right way.

Thats about it for me, I am about to start varnishing, which will be a summer long project, but she will look awesome when I finally get her all shiny!

The Trip North

Well I left San Diego a week ago, headed to Santa Cruz. I made it back, however the boat has not yet. She is sitting in Morro Bay, after some repairs, ready to make the last push to Santa Cruz.

I wish I could say that the trip from San Diego to Morro Bay was uneventful, but we ran into a couple of problems. The most serious of which happened as soon as we left Santa Catalina on the second night. We were motoring north along the coast of Catalina heading to Ventura harbor when I went below to get a couple hours of sleep. All of a sudden I heard a noise and sat up and saw that the floorboards were underwater, (the boat was taking on serious water.) So we turned around, I flipped on the bilge pump, handed Chris the manual pump and went to check thru-hulls etc. Unfortunately, the electric bilge pump failed, there was a crack in the manual pump and we were still taking on water. I had a hand pump for the dinghy and had to use that to get the leak under control. Its funny how everything seems to fail at the exact moment that you need it.

After our little night of excitement things did calm down. We rounded Conception with no issues, (Point Conception is the sketchiest part of the trip up the coast.) As we pulled into Morro Bay however, the engine exhaust pipe shattered, pumping water into the bilge (the reason we were taking on water the first time was due to a crack in the exhaust system that I had just PAID someone to replace in SD.) I shut her down and we managed to grab a nearby mooring ball. The Morro Bay Yacht Club was very welcoming and I found someone to weld my broken exhaust elbow.

I had to get back to Santa Cruz to work, but I am heading down at the end of the week to finally get her up here. Below is a picture of our first landfall in Catalina.

Max's first Money Pit

I have never really blogged before, but I thought that buying a boat was a bloggable event, so here I go. I flew down to San Diego about a week ago where I bought a boat. I picked her up from the marina she was in, single handed her up to a boat yard and watched as she was pulled out of the water. Over the past week I have had her buffed, painted, poked and prodded and eventually renamed. 

Now she is sitting in the water, looking better than I expected, waiting for our trip up the coast. We are just waiting on a part from the local Volvo engine dealer, and as soon as we get that installed, we are outta here.

 Since I have been down here I have learned a couple of things. Boats are damn expensive. Don't say you coulda told me that, I knew what I was getting into, but shit man, knowing and experiencing are very different things. 

If anyone ever needs to buy a boat, sell a boat, ask a question about a boat and you are in California, call yachtfinders, ask for Clark, he is awesome, seriously he made me feel more welcome than I could have ever imagined. I got to go race with him on a Soverel 33 and we destroyed the start. We did a pin end port start and gassed the entire fleet. If you don't sail, all you need to know is that we finished a good four to five minutes in front of everyone else. 

There is a crazy woman from Santa Cruz, I think she wants to have my babies. Not only does she have a daughter my age, but she enjoys fist fights, drinking to excess, and sleeping with everyone that comes through the boat yard. All of the yard guys warned me to lock my boat up every time I stepped off it unless I wanted to find her in my bed... 

In other news Jon, my skipper from Santa Cruz, has a son down here who has been awesome. He has totally been taking care of me, tomorrow we are going sailing on his boat. Really awesome guy, its been a lot of fun hanging out with him. 

I suppose thats about all I have for now, later