Blog of the Sailing Vessel Raptor Dance

New Sandy Bridge PC

2011-01-30T16:54:00.002-05:00

Time to build a new PC! Check out our article on our website.

New "Cruising in Mexico" Section

2010-09-21T20:09:00.000-04:00

Hi Folks! Mary and I have just added a new section to the website: "Cruising in Mexico". Check it out! Click the menu item on the left or just click here!

Product Recommendations

2010-08-29T18:03:00.000-04:00

Mary and I have added a site with the products that we use and recommend. Follow this link to get there.

We will only be posting those items here that 1) we recommend and 2) we can refer get you a discount on through Amazon.com.

Where Have We Been? Check us out on Facebook!

2010-04-22T12:31:00.001-04:00

OK, so Mary and I aren't posting that frequently on our website anymore. It's because most of our activity these days is on Facebook! We will still post new interesting items here too, particularly the longer posts. But for more frequent updates - check us out on Facebook! See the links below.

Just make sure that you also send us an email or include information on who you are in the Facebook request as well, particularly if we're not really close friends, so we are reminded who you are and how we know you!

Find Bill on Facebook.

Find Mary on Facebook.

Happy Thanksgiving from Sunny Mexico

2009-11-26T12:58:00.005-05:00

So why aren't you all down here visiting?
Warmest wishes for a Happy Holiday Season from Mary Mack & Bill Finkelstein on Raptor Dance.

Picture taken in Tenacatita Bay, by our very good friends Karen & Bill on the Moody 44, Miela

Bill’s Tasty Multigrain Bread

2009-09-16T18:56:00.000-04:00

We love multigrain bread. Unfortunately, our favorite bread from our local artisan bakery at Whole Foods Market, Thot Brot, has over 6,000 mg of Sodium per loaf!

So we started to play around with a substitute recipe using the ingredients on the label and came up with this great tasting, low salt, no fat bread. It tastes great and is good for you too!

We make it in our Zojirushi BCC X20 bread machine on it's basic Wheat Bread setting. This is a 2 pound machine and this loaf weighs just over 2 pounds.

You could also make this machine by hand, but our bread machine does such a great job we let it do it's thing.

You really need to use a scale to measure most of the dry ingredients as volumetric measurement of flour is too imprecise.

If you don't create a perfect loaf, refer to the troubleshooting guide in your bread machine manual. Since we don't use salt, the ratio of wet ingredients, dry ingredients and yeast needs to be pretty precise.

To start, add to your bread machine:

6 T Unsweetened Apple Sauce (this substitutes for fat)

3 T Malt Extract (mainly for flavor)

1 ½ Cup Water

Next add the dry ingredients:

400 Grams Whole Wheat Flour

40 Grams Dark Rye Flour

40 Grams Millet Flour

40 Grams Flax Meal or Flax Flour

60 Grams Vital Wheat Gluten

1 T Lecithin

1/4 tsp Ascorbic Acid (the Gluten, Lecithin and Ascorbic Acid reinforce the structure of the bread)

½ tsp Salt (optional – controls yeast raise)

Then sprinkle over the top:

2 tsp Active Dry Yeast

Start up the machine and when the bread machine indicates it's time for add ins, add:

2 heaping T Caraway Seeds - lightly toasted

3 heaping T Flax Seeds - lightly toasted

3 heaping T Millet Seeds - lightly toasted

3 heaping T Sunflower Seeds - lightly toasted

We lightly toast the add in seeds in a dry skillet.

We like this bread in sandwiches or just toasted. Enjoy!

Barra de Navidad

2009-01-03T11:22:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone!

We arrived in Barra de Navidad New Years Eve and had a great celebration.

After checking in at the Marina and Hotel, we spent a little time at the pool and then went out with our friends Ed and Cornelia Gould from SV Acapella. Our first stop was the roof top bar at the Alondra hotel for a great view of the sunset. Then off to restaurant, Mexico Lindo. They have great Mexican food at very reasonable prices. Later we went to the hotel Disco but turned in early. The midnight fireworks woke us up - so we wished each other a Happy New Year and then promptly went back to sleep.

Our favorite Barra de Navidad restaurant was closed for New Years, but we did get there on Friday night. Profumo di Sole is run by a great young Italian couple and they make great food.

We'll work on taking more pictures and getting them up on the website soon!

We're back on our regular emails, but Internet is expensive here, so we're only on about 1 hour per day.

We want to wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year!

Warmest Regards,

Bill & Mary

Tenacatita

2008-12-30T13:12:00.000-05:00

Hi Folks!

We want to wish you all a very Happy New Year Tomorrow!

We had an uneventful passage around Cabo Corrientes on Saturday, had dinner and spent the night in Ipala.

Ipala is one of our favorite anchorages. Not because it's such a beautiful anchorage - which is is. And not because it's a great anchorage - it's pretty marginal. But because they have 3 beach Palapas and serve the best Lobsters in Mexico (at least that we've run across so far).

We each had a plate of Langostas con Mojo de Ajo (grilled lobster with Garlic). We each got 3 large lobsters halves - we think over a kilo total. Absolutely, fantastic! And only 240 pesos per plate (about $19 US).

OK, lobster is not on our diet. But remember - it's a lifestyle diet we're on, not a religion! We do stick to the diet most days - but when the opportunity presents itself for a truly wonderful meal - we have no qualms whatsoever and go for it!

Saturday night wasn't a great sleep night as our anchor chain was grinding away on some rocks on the bottom of Ipala bay. All the noise of the chain grinding on the bottom is transmitted up to our cabin in the forward section of the boat. Also, as the chain caught on the rocks it was pretty jerky. Oh bother.

The next morning (Sunday), we were up at first light (7 am) and continued on to Chamela.

Chamela was crowded with many Mexican Families in for the holiday weekend. We were thrilled as a few of the Palapas again had live music. It was much more lively than last year.

On Monday, we walked the beach and had lunch at Manualita's Restaurant. We stopped at the tortilla factory in town and bought a kilo of fresh corn tortillas for 10 pesos ($0.80 US).

Monday afternoon it blew about 25 knots in the anchorage from the South. So it was pretty lumpy until late in the afternoon when the wind died and was dead flat calm all night.

This morning, Tuesday, we were off again for Tenacatita. We motored in continued calm seas with only a few knots of land breeze and arrived at 1130AM.

Only about a dozen boats in here so far, down from the thirty or so here last year.

Tomorrow we head into Barra de Navidad for New Years.

That's the latest from Raptor Dance.

Warmest Regards,
Bill & Mary

We're on the go!

2008-12-27T10:21:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone!

We are enroute to one of our favorite anchorages, Ipala. We left Paradise Village at 7AM (Central) this morning to a beautiful sunrise.

As we are going to be on the go and anchoring out until New Years Eve - please use our Winlink address (the one this message is coming from) to reach us.

Remember if you use it:

1) Put the characters: //WK2K in the message subject. Winlink has a new Spam filter and you need to put that in the subject for your message to get through

2) Only send us messages you type - it's a very low speed radio link - no attachments, pictures, jokes, etc.

3) DO NOT REPLY to this message. Send us a new one. If you reply, you will likely send a copy of our message back to us. Bad news bears!
-----
We got our engine heat exchanger on Tuesday, the 23rd. "Teapot Tony" the Mechanic, put it in the morning of the 24th. We did a test run and the engine was working great again.

Later in the day we went to a lovely Christmas Eve dinner at the Vallarta Yacht Club and had a very relaxing 25th.

Sunday, we did all the important provisioning. First the Chocolate ladies at Xocodiva in downtown PV. We picked up 2 kilos of 70% dark (should last us a few weeks). Then for groceries, we went to Mega Commercial and Costco. Getting back to the boat, we stowed everything, got the boat ready to depart, made dinner, watched a few DVDs and turned in. This morning, off we went!

We left a bit later than we originally planned due to the engine problems, but we still intend to stop at Ipala and Chamela before arriving in Barra de Navidad on New Years Eve. We'll continue on to many of our other favorite places: Santiago Bay and Tenacatita at the end of January.

Happy Holidays to you all!
Bill & Mary
SV Raptor Dance
20 34 N
105 28 W

Veggie Raptor Chili Wins in Puerto Vallarta!

2008-12-23T19:01:00.009-05:00

Our Team - Jamie, Linda, Mary, Bill, & Ed

Our low-fat vegan chili won the 9th Annual Cruisers Chili Cook Off in Puerto Vallarta on December 6, 2008, our 4th win in a row!

We really never thought we had a chance this year. After 3 consecutive wins out of 3 total entries, we decided to go Vegan! Who would have thought a Vegan recipe could compete against the other all meat entrants, but we did! Why, because it tastes so darned fantastic!

The recipe was invented by executive chefs Bill & Mary with assistance in the prep and serving by sous chefs Ed, Linda, & Jamie.

Here are our prior 3 wins with the links to the 2 that are available online.

"Raptor Red" Chili - Vallarta Yacht Club Chili Cookoff - December 2007
"Raptor Red, Top of the Food Chain" Chili - Sailfest, Zihuatanejo Chili Cookoff - February 2007
Queen Anne's Revenge Chili - Vallarta Yacht Club Chili Cookoff - December 2006

We have reduced this recipe to a more manageable size for you all, rather than the amount we made for the Chili Cook Off (5+ Gallons). We have given approximate amounts as there is no exact recipe – judge by sight, tasting along the way. We didn't follow anyone else's recipe but created this between us. This should make just over a gallon of Chili.

With the vegetables (corn, carrots, onions, garlic), plantains and beans judge by sight what ratio looks best – the finished product should have a pleasing appearance as well as taste.

When you are all done the flavor component contributors are: the green sauce and limes for brightness; the plantain, garlic and onion, for sweetness; and the chilies, por su puesto (of course), for heat.

The basic outline is:

1. Cook the beans separately,
2. Mix the green sauce ahead or while the vegetables are cooking,
3. Sauté the base vegetable group,
4. Add the tomatoes,
5. Add the beans, more vegetables and seasonings and cook to blend the flavors,
6. Taste and add the green sauce,
7. Taste and add plantain,
8. Taste and adjust balance and seasoning as necessary.

Green sauce: This is a good sauce on it's own too.

• Tomatillos - 2 cups+ rough cut
• Cilantro - 1 bunch remove any tough stems
• Garlic - 1 clove
• Jalapeño – 1 rough cut

Process tomatillos in a blender, add the remaining ingredients and blend. Taste. If the tomatillos are older, you may need to add some lime juice.

Beans:

• black beans - 2 cups dry (makes 2 quarts)
• dried pasilla pepper - 1

Soak he beans overnight - 4 to 8 hours in cold water.
Remove the seeds from the pasilla pepper and lightly toast in a dry pan.

Cook the pepper and beans, in sufficient water in a pressure cooker 10 minutes on second ring or simmer on top of the stove in a regular pot, checking for doneness, for up to an hour.
Be careful not to overcook the beans so they do not fall apart in the chili.

Before draining the beans, taste the cooking water. It should have a nice flavor. If it is, save some to add at any point that you need water or need to thin the chili.

Chili:

• chopped onions - 4 cups, +1/2 cup reserved for garnish
• diced carrots - 2 cups, +1 cup reserved
• diced celery - 1 cup
• garlic, whole cloves - 10-20, +10 coarse chopped reserved
• tomatoes - 2 16oz cans chopped or whole tomatoes chopped
• tomato paste - 1 can
• cumin - 1+ teaspoon
• coriander - 1+ teaspoon
• jalapeños - 2+ as desired
• poblanos - 2+ as desired
• dried pasilla - 1+ as desired, seeds removed
• chipotle powder - 3/4-1 tablespoon or more. This is another thing to judge by taste. Add more as needed rather than too much to start with.
• árbol chilies - as many as necessary to bring it to the heat level that you want
• corn - 2 cups
• very ripe (black) plantains - 3 diced

The Process:

• Cook the black beans and make the green sauce as described above.
• In a pot that will hold at least 6 quarts, Sauté the onion, carrots and celery in a small amount of water (just enough water to keep the vegetables from sticking in the beginning).
• During the cooking process if your batch gets too thick, thin with bean cooking liquid or water.
• When this softens add the whole garlic cloves.
• Cook to soften the garlic.
• Remove seeds from pasilla, toast the pasilla lightly in a dry pan.
• Now either puree in a blender with some of the tomatoes or chop.
• Add pasillas and the additional tomatoes, diced carrots and corn.
• Sauté the tomato paste until a rust color in a pan with a little water, add to the vegetables.
• Now add the beans, jalapeños, poblanos, reserved chopped garlic, coriander, pasilla, cumin and chipotle.
• Simmer to blend the seasonings and cook the carrots – about 20 minutes
• Taste for balance and heat. Add additional seasonings as needed.
• Add the green sauce.
• Taste. You may be happy with it right here and just need to balance the flavors. Or continue and add the chopped plantain.
• Taste and adjust for heat and acidity. Add lime juice to make the taste brighter.
• Serve with your choice of toppings, we like chopped raw white onions and chopped jalapeños.

Raptor Dance Update - Since Summer Started

2008-12-20T17:49:00.014-05:00

Greetings and Happy Holidays to everyone.
(See all our pictures at http://raptordance.com)

Yes, it has been a long time since we posted an update. We are fine and frisky. We just got caught up in the local action when we returned to Mexico.

We had a great time being back in California for the summer. One of the best times was with Mary's family in Pennsylvania for a celebration party for her parents with a big crowd of friends and family, mainly coming from different parts of the east coast. We children wanted to give this party while they could still kick up their heels and have a ball. There was eating and drinking, music and dancing, and laughing and hugging. Mom and Dad loved it.

We also purchased an elliptical trainer and set it up in our garage gym, this helped us get in better shape. We still watch Food Network on the Tivo while exercising as motivation – but the recipes have lost a lot of their appeal due to our new diet.

In July, we went in for checkups and Bill's Dr. wanted him to increase his medication for blood pressure and cholesterol. That was the last straw! He did a lot of research and as a result we switch to a new lifestyle diet. As a result of that diet, he's now off all medications. Since we returned home from Mexico in late May, Bill lost 30 pounds and Mary 20. From our peak weight on July 1, 2005, Bill is down a total of 70 pounds and Mary's off 55. You can see Bill's "before" picture here: http://raptordance.com/Jul05/pages/DSCN0019_edited-1.html

If you are interested in our diet, it's no added fat, sweetener, salt Vegan (just because it is a healthier diet). If you are interested in the details, you can find out more at http://www.webmd.com/diet/ornish-diet-what-it-is and http://www.drmcdougall.com/free.html

Note, this is a lifestyle diet, not a religion. We are free to eat whatever we want, just not every day.

Another most interesting time during the summer was an adventurous caving excursion at California Caverns. http://www.caverntours.com/CalifRt.htm Looking for the most exciting time, we took the Middle Earth Tour. It is the most extensive and extreme caving experience available to non pros. http://www.caverntours.com/CCMiddleEarth.htm

It certainly was an experience. In that moment some spots were "not fun". That would be sliding through the dark (headlights only) tunnel being able to propel ourselves only by our elbows. It was so narrow and low that we had to be on our bellies in the wet mud for too long of a passage. It was interesting and beautiful in spots. That made up somewhat for the drop into cold muddy water and the caked on mud. We went in looking dorky with the overalls, kneepads, gloves helmets and headlights, and just came out as a complete muddy mess…not a spa treatment.

Ah, the things we do for fun. I might recommend the walking tour. That is unless you really like squeezing through a passage too small for an inflated basket ball! It's a good thing we lost most of our weight by then.

Another highlight was Bill's surprise birthday party. That is a long story on it's own. I'll just say it is not an easy thing to pull off when the person is present during preparation time. Luckily Bill was focused on other things, so he misread the splattered cake icing as a failed attempt to make something else and missed the smell of chocolate cake when he exited the shower (open windows helped).

The cake was in the shape of a duck which was a bit hit. As many of you know Bill grew up on a farm with a pet duck, named Ritz Quackers. Bill thinks the duck imprinted on him. Mary thinks Bill imprinted on the duck!

Mary's series of lame excuses for strange culinary behavior had Bill thinking that Mary might be getting Alzheimer's! Fortunately, it was a ploy.

A fun time was had by all!

Over the summer Bill handled his chores as Treasurer for the Vallarta Yacht Club remotely via the Internet. Bill is also the entire Information Technology Department for the Yacht Club, including Webmaster, see: http://vallartayachtclub.org He also did a number of websites for other folks, including one for Mary's Jewelry endeavor, see: http://marymackdesigns.com For the complete list of websites see: http://williamfinkelstein.com/

Before we knew it the summer was over and we were on our way to Puerto Vallarta in the Jeep (loaded). The first stop was southern California to visit with Bill's family and continue his BD celebration. From there we had a smooth journey and arrived well rested on the third day (one night in Nogales AZ and one in Navajoa in Sonora, Mexico). It's about 1,600 miles from LA to PV.

Since we got here, we've been involved in the usual social whirlwind, twice a week Spanish Class and a pile of boat chores, more on those later.

December 3, 4, 5 was the Banderas Bay Blast (no pictures of us, but see: http://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/lectronicday.lasso?date=2008-12-08&dayid=2040 ).

This fun event featured a cruisers rally from our home Marina, to Marina La Cruz – about 7 nautical miles away. We spent the first night at La Cruz Marina, where the Marina provided free slips to the participants.

This is a new marina and the work is still in progress but the slips are in as well as the very nice shower facilities, restaurant and Sky Bar. The view from the Sky Bar is great, looking out over the breakwater to the water. This evening it was also used for a perverted game of dodge ball, Instead of avoiding the ball, the aim was to catch the water filled balloons (that's Bill waiting to try to catch the Balloon). Very tough. But everyone was in great spirits and willing to give it a try. Few, very few succeeded. After everyone dried off we had a fun party at the local cruisers' hangout: Philo's Bar.

The 4th featured an upwind race to Punta de Mita. Upwind on our boat is fine as long as you don't have to tack too much… Guess what we did – oh, bother. Our friend Linda (Leendah) joined us for this mucho tacking leg.

At Punta de Mita, we anchored out and took a panga (Mexican 27 foot fiberglass launch) ashore for the party at "Margarita's Restaurant". The panga ride was especially important going back to the boat. The swell was up. We would have had a difficult time getting out in our dingy. We would have been, at least, drenched.

The final day, the 5th, featured a Spinnaker run and another party (are you detecting a theme here?) at the Vallarta Yacht Club. Our friends Pat & Bob from Berkeley were staying in PV and they had an interesting bus ride to Punta de Mita to join us for this leg.

December 6th was the 9th annual charity Chili Cookoff here at the Vallarta Yacht Club. We thought we would retire undefeated after our last two wins here and the one at Sail Fest in Zihuatanejo, but we got seduced into entering again. With our new diet, we devised a batch of Very Low Fat, Salt, unsweetened Vegan Chili.

We figured we didn't have a chance. After all, Vegetarian Chili is an oxymoron! Real chili has only meat, chilies and a few vegetables (onions, carrots, celery, tomatoes, etc). But we won 1st place in the Cruisers Division yet again! That's 4 for 4 for team Raptor!

We'll post the recipe soon (after we figure out what we did!). A lot of people thought our secret ingredient was Mangos, but in reality it was very ripe (i.e. very black) Plantains.

Reader warning – Geeky boat content follows:

Dear Raptor Dance had an early encounter with bees in June after we left and a second close encounter not long before we arrived in October. Bees like to make hives inside boat masts. We thought our mast was safe because we have internal halyards rattling around inside the mast. They entered the openings low in the mast, below the internal halyards, and flew down into the bilge. From there they came up through a grate into the saloon. Luckily a dock mate and our boat minder saw the swam and alerted us. We had hired a boat minder for while we were away. That was good. He was able to bring in a "Bee Man" and cleaners to rid us of our new friends. The October encounter didn't result in a hive, just a swarm around the top of the mast.

Next year we're going to try the preventative technique of moth balls inside the mast.

After we got to PV on October 29th we had a lot of boat chores to do this year. The first was thing was cleaning and gathering any bees that escaped detection. We were worried that we would need to wash everything inside the boat but no insecticide needed to be used inside. We also thought we would find bees scattered throughout the boat but there was only a handful mainly at the base of the mast and some bee mummies inside lockers (the cleaners did a great job).

All summer we had run one of our Air Conditioners in "dehumidify" mode. Basically, it came on once every 8 hours and ran for an hour to remove the moisture from the air. We did this in past years and it worked great. This year it did too, but when we got here we noticed that we had a lot of marine growth in the raw water system and that particular unit seem to have lost it's mojo (it wasn't cooling as well as it used to).

After a visit from the local refrigeration guy who put more gas in our system – it's efficiency was back to normal… But only for a month. Turns out our air handler had a medium gas leak. So we ordered a new one and had it flown in and installed.

The marine growth was ultimately solved with a muriatic acid soak. We then discovered a great trick. We get 3 inch pool chlorine tablets at the local PV Home Depot, divide them in quarters and put a chunk into the raw water strainer every 7 to 10 days. Since we started doing that, no growth!

During normal engine service, we discovered a heat exchanger leak and we started losing coolant overboard (your exhaust water turns green!). A marine engine's heat exchanger is basically like a car radiator. Except instead of dumping the excess engine heat to the air, it transfers it into sea water that's pumped through it. The whole assembly is about 18 inches long and 4 inches in diameter. It's not too hard to change, but once it leaks it's impossible to fix.

Oh bother. At this moment we are waiting for the new heat exchange to be flown in to fix that. Hopefully we can get it installed before Christmas so we can leave for our cruise down to Manzanillo. We had expected to be in Chamela for Christmas. Right now it is anyone's guess where we will be. We will be fine wherever we are.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!
Happy Hanukkah!
And a Happy New Year!

End of the 2007-2008 Season

2008-05-05T21:28:00.012-04:00

When you last heard from us it was February and we were anchored in Tenacatita on our way north to Puerto Vallarta.

After a couple of days catching up with sailing friends who were in Tenacatita we left for Chamela. What a great trip that was! We saw whales, dolphins, turtles and lots of feeding birds and fish. Unfortunately I did not have any of our hand lines out to catch any of those fish. The truth is that we had not been catching many fish which lead to less fishing. In fact we sold our (like new) fishing polls and gear when we were in Barra. Our friends, who are much better fisherman catch way more fish than they can use – so we've still been enjoying frequent, fresh, free seafood! Real fisherman have a variety of techniques that they use, including kites on helium balloons to keep the bail lightly on the surface. Who knew!

Chamela was very quiet at this time. There were only a dozen boats in the anchorage. It seems that Barra was the favorite place to be for cruisers this season. Some mornings there would be as many as 70 boats sign in on the Barra morning net. We were on a roll so the next morning at first light we raised anchor and headed to Ipala.

Many people don't bother going into Ipala because it is a small cove which is partly taken up with the local fishing pangas and a few fishing pens and the town is small, very small. BUT, we have had the best lobster dinners there. We like it. In fact, as we pulled in I think our mouths were already watering for some yummy lobster. We invited the other couple of boats to go with us and we headed to shore.

Hopes dashed! They did not have any lobster but we did have a great Huachinango (whole red snapper), a good time and made new friends. As long as boats anchor in a reasonable fashion (not anchoring right in the middle) there is room for at least 6 boats inside. More can anchor a little further out but it is not quite as protected.

We left early the next morning and enjoyed the beautiful sunrise as we rounded Cabo Corrientes. The wind was blowing 20 knots but as soon as we rounded we were in flat seas and virtually no wind. We still had whales breaching around us as we crossed the bay. By early afternoon we were back and tied up in paradise Marina. We feel like we have so many homes now. It felt just like coming home when we pulled in, as it does when we go to Barra or back to Santa Rosa.

This year the weather was much cooler. I often needed a light wrap in the evening. Right now it is perfect weather for me but a little warm for Bill. It's in the 80's during the day and high 70's in the evening. We received reports that in March there were days of fog in the Barra area. That was a first. We have never seen fog. Plus there was a serious red tide around the same time. It's only now in May that the temperatures are approaching normal. It will be interesting to see what the weather is like in the Sea of Cortez this year.

Here in Nuevo Vallarta we saw, for a day or two at the end of April, what looks like lots of soap suds piling up on the beach. The locals say this is caused by warm and cold water meeting. Actually we think it is the protein by-product of the red tide organisms dying out at sea. Not a normal occurrence around here.

It was good being back in Paradise. We were able to visit and celebrate my birthday with Cindy and Scott on SV Beach House, a Switch 51' catamaran. Then we were able to spend time and celebrate my birthday with Linda of condo fame and our friends, Carl, Yvette, Joel and Kyle from SV Liberty before they made the "puddle jump" to the Marquesas and South Pacific. What!? Yes. We do believe in the two party system. And Liberty has arrived and is already enjoying the islands. It was good getting reconnected with our buddies here.

Then family, my brother Joe, his wife Ginny, son Rob with his wife Sue, plus their children Andrea and Eric arrived in style on a cruise ship. It was our good fortune that they had a long shore time. We were able do a bit of exploring in Puerto Vallarta with them and show them what life is like in Nuevo Vallarta.

Later that evening, we went to the Puerto Vallarta Botanical Gardens for their members' appreciation dinner, we had a great time with food, drink and fantastic fireworks right overhead. The Botanical Gardens is a great non-profit that also supports the local school system. We also visited the gardens again later with our friends Scott and Cindy.

On February 19th the new board was elected for the Vallarta Yacht Club. Bill had agreed and was elected Treasurer. The committee knew they were getting a good man but never did they expect what was coming. Every day, except during the Banderas Bay Regatta and a few odd days, Bill has spent in the yacht club and on the computer either there or on the boat totally revising the club. He has gone through all the documents, files, accounts, accounting systems and procedures, computing systems, ISP relationships, WiFi and bank accounts since it's inception. He has revised procedures, simplifying and improving them; implemented a budget (something new); instituted cash controls; done a complete audit; changed banks; changed web hosting providers and totally redid the website.

He has been working with the managers and staff every step of the way so they know how to follow through. You know Bill, he has totally redone the yacht club website and continues to improve it. Enough said…the list would go on and on. This did limit our activities greatly but Bill really enjoyed doing it. It makes me think that maybe he would enjoy getting back into business (comment from Bill: "NOT!"). You can see the results of the website rebuild at http://vallartayachtclub.org

While Bill was spending time at the yacht club, I used some of that time to take over the boat and spread out all the pearls, gems and jewelry making paraphernalia. I love the creative aspect, designing pieces that are unique. The logistics of taking a piece in my imagination to its end is sometimes a challenge but always fun. They all become one of a kind pieces. I have also been able to help other women with jewelry problems and teach techniques.

In between all that we had some boating fun. Vallarta Race Week in Banderas Bay was a little different this year. It was composed of The San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race, The Mexorc Race, The Governor's Cup and The Banderas Bay Regatta (BBR). There was a lot going on!

We hosted 2 boats from the San Diego to PV Race, Holua and Beowulf, both from the California Yacht Club in Marina del Rey. This amounted to greeting them with buckets of beer, tequila and anything else we could think of and helping them in any way we could. The finish line was at Punta Mita at the north end of the bay. That gave us a little notice of the approximate time they would arrive. Plus we (and anyone) could track the boats on their route down the coast on-line. Only one boat did not show up on-line…something about their transponder not working. We were lucky. Our boats arrived during daylight.

Mexorc was mainly Mexican boats. The BBR overlapped the Mexorc races. Each one of these events had evening activities planned. There was no lack of sailors, family and friends enjoying the music, food, drink and sailing stories.

We had planned to race Raptor Dance and our friends Lani and June (our ringers) came down to enjoy and help us. But we do need 7 or even 8 crew to race. The two of us are fine cruising but racing is a different animal. Actions need to happen fast and sometimes in tight quarters. Finding additional crew was difficult. There are fewer sail boats and fewer sailors in Paradise. Many of the slips are filled with powerboats or by commuter cruisers. A friend of a friend on Huma Huma, a catamaran, was also having the same difficulty. If we had the courage to wait until two days before the race, we would have had crew. Some sailing friends, who would be crew, arrived at the last minute. Before that time came though we had decided to crew on Huma Huma with the plan that if anything broke (or whatever) on Huma Huma, we would continue on Raptor Dance. We were already registered.

It was interesting and quite different racing on a catamaran. The feel is totally different. Instead of healing (leaning) the cat runs along flat. It doesn't give the same sense of speed even though we were going 20+ knots at times – about 2 1/2 times our normal speed on Raptor Dance. It actually made us love our boat all the more, no offense to Huma Huma. Tacking may be easier on this Cat but preparing and popping the spinnaker is a breeze on ours. The boat did very well. The majority of the crew were experienced racers and all were captains. You should have seen those "meetings"! We came in first in our class. It was a great team effort. A few of the crew may be on our boat next year. We'll plan further ahead for next year.

While Lani and June were here, we took time for a road trip! We ventured inland to the little towns of San Sebastian de Oeste and Mascota. Until the last year, these towns were only reachable over a dirt road. You also had to ford a river. Recently a new bridge was built and the paved road was finished. Now you can drive all the way from Puerto Vallarta to Guadalajara on this new mountain road. It's very scenic and the villages are still pretty much untouched. This is a major historic silver mining area and there is a lot of history here.

It's now early May and Bill is pretty much finished with all the projects at the yacht club. We are completing a few boat chores to do in preparation for the summer. We are again leaving the boat in Paradise Marina, the safest place in case of any storms. Banderas Bay has never had a hurricane.

We did take time out on Saturday to do another Canopy Tour. So far, we've counted at least 5 different Canopy Tour operators here in Banderas Bay. Each has it's own character. This one, Canopy La Vista, is not as long, fast or exciting as El Eden or Los Veranos, but it has great views of Banderas Bay – hence the name. It also uses a different pulley technology. With their system, you use a glove with a thick pad to both steer and brake – very interesting and quite different. It actually has a number of advantages in that you are more stable around the vertical axis with this system so you have more opportunity to look around.

Particularly noticeable during the canopy tour is how dry it currently is. We're just at the end of the dry season. The mountains in particular are as dry and brown as California. In June the summer rains start again. When they do, look out! It's normal here to get many inches of rain per hour during a summer thunder storm. When we arrived back in October, the last storm of the season dropped 2 inches of rain in half an hour. Don, the weather guru, calls Puerto Vallarta in Summer "web foot city" and for good reason.

Thursday, we will begin our drive north to Santa Rosa, plant some tomatoes and drink some good Sonoma County wine.

We hope you all are well and enjoying this Spring. We love hearing from you.

On the Mexican Riviera

2008-02-06T17:35:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone!

We raised anchor at the Las Hadas anchorage at 930 AM this morning, starting our journey back up to Puerto Vallarta, with planned stops in Tenacatita, Chamela and Ipala.

This was our Southern most destination this year.

On our way South, we stopped at Bahia de Chamela for Christmas. We had a lovely time again with very few cruisers and mostly local families. Only 3 boats were anchored in the bay on Christmas day. Festivities were more subdued than last year as the economy in Mexico, as in the US is in a bit of a slump. No live Mariachi bands this year, just recorded music.

Coming down from PV to Chamela, we were a little concerned as our speed was about 3/4 knot slower than expected. We thought it might be due to an adverse current, which it partially was, but when I (Bill) dove in the boat I saw that the bottom was quite dirty and needed cleaning.

Before we left Puerto Vallarta, we asked Guillermo the Diver clean bottom, but this time, his sons did it - he's breaking them into the business. His kids only cleaned the first 3 feet down! The keel, especially the bottom, looked like a forest!

I started cleaning, free diving. One hour into it, I felt a Jellyfish sting on my arm. Ouch! I knocked off for the day. The next day I continued with my thin 1 MM dive skin on. No more problems. The third day, I continued working on the bottom with SCUBA and got the keel, the bottom of the keep and prop clean, the way we like them!

Interestingly, we just had the bottom done in October, but the water down here is so warm that the sea life grows really fast! Even with new bottom paint.

After a few days in Chamela of work and play, we continued on to Tenacatita Bay.

This is another lovely anchorage that's a favorite of many of the cruisers here in Mexico. Some folks stay for months!

Chris and Heather Stockard of SV Legacy ( http://legacysailing.com ) had just left to head South to Central America with their two Portuguese Water Dogs, Kira and Minnow. Chris and Heather as you may remember, served as "Mayor" and "First Lady" of Tenacatita for the last two years, organizing the daily swim to the beach, Bocci Ball, Dominoes, Volleyball and the weekly dingy raft up/cocktail party. With the loss of leadership, the anchorage was very mellow and quiet.

It wasn't until after we left that things got organized again. We're heading back today to Tenacatita, so we'll report on how it is. At it's peak, a few years ago, some called it "Camp Tenacatita" because of it's activities and organization. Hopefully, it remains mellower than that.

On New Years eve, we pulled into Isla Navidad Marina, where we stayed until Feb 2nd. We had a delightful stay re-exploring one of our favorite areas. A new Italian Restaurant, "Profumo di Sole", opened up run by a delightful couple from Bolonia, Italy. The Pasta is all made in the restaurant and everything is fantastic! The prices are also quite reasonable, especially considering the quality.

They have prosciutto on the menu, but we couldn't have it the first few times we visited since their slicer was broken. Mary, Carl (from SV Liberty) and I spent a couple of hours one afternoon fixing it, so we could enjoy their lovely appetizer with great local melon!.

The start of the month of January seemed to drag slowly by as we didn't get into the rhythm and we didn't have enough friends in town to socialize with. The end of the month flew by however as more and more people arrived. The second week of January was the low with only a dozen boats in the Marina and Lagoon. By the end of the month, there were over 60. I think we'll come down a touch later next year.

Back in Puerto Vallarta in December, Mary took and passed her amateur radio Extra Class License exam and also the test to become a Volunteer Examiner. In January, Dean of Emily B, Mary and I held a ham exam aboard Emily B in the Barra Lagoon. 5 folks showed up and 4 passed their exams. A very successful session. We think this was the first session held afloat in the Barra Lagoon. "The French Baker" catered the continental breakfast we had available for everyone.

On Feb 2nd, we left Barra to visit the Manzanillo area. We spent a night in Santiago Bay, having dinner with our friends Patti and Frosty from SV Angelfish; a night anchored in Ensenada Carrizal and two nights in the Las Hadas anchorage.

In Las Hadas, we visited Stan and MJ formerly of the Valiant 40, Sol Mate, who sold their boat and bought a "fixer upper" near the town of Santiago. Gosh, they've already done a lot, but have a ways to go on their lovely home.

As I type this, we're just off the coast about a mile, about halfway between Manzanillo and Tenacatita...

Later, we dropped anchor this afternoon in Tenacatita at 2:30 PM CST.

That's the news from Raptor Dance!

Warmest Regards,
Bill & Mary

Santiago Bay

2008-02-05T20:05:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note to let you all know that we're having such a fun time down here that we've fallen a little behind posting our pictures and stories.

We'll try to catch up soon.

In highlight (details later):

We had a great Christmas in Chamela, then moved on to Tenacatita Bay.

On New Years eve, we pulled into the Isla Navidad Marina, next the the Wyndham Grand Bay Hotel (winner of a number of award for "The Best Resort in Mexico").

A month of helping the local school, socializing, dining and just sitting by the pool ensued.

We spent the month of January there and left yesterday Feb 2 to anchor out.

We're now in Santiago Bay near Manzanillo and are planning to move later this morning to anchor in Ensenada Carazal just around the corner.

You can keep an eye on our current location on our website (Last 90D link).

We'll be on this, our winlink address for the next two weeks until we get back to Paradise Village. Just remember, no replies or forwards!

Warmest Wishes to all for a happy and healthy new year!

Bill & Mary

Escape from Paradise

2007-12-24T10:33:00.000-05:00

We did it.

We actually cast off our lines and headed out at 4AM yesterday, Dec 23rd. Leaving our home slip in Paradise Village until our planned return on Feb 15th.

We rounded Cabo Corrientes at 9 am with light wind and lumpy seas and motored all the way down to Bahia de Chamela. The seas continued lumpy, with 6-8 foot swells, mainly from behind. Their period was pretty short, so we could only make about 6 knots.

Further dampening our spirits, it was overcast with a light fog, so visibility was only about 4 miles. Cool too, courtesy of a "Pineapple Express": high level clouds that blow up from the Intertropical Convergence Zone, the ICTZ. So we were sitting there grumbling all day in light jackets. Granted in was still in the 60s and low 70s, but hey, this is Mexico, not Canada!

We arrived in Chamela just after dark and anchored 350 yards offshore in 25 feet of water (at low tide). This morning in Chamela, the clouds have parted and are making their exit. It's warming up too, in the 70s already at 830 AM (CST).

Chamela is on of our favorite anchorages, especially for Christmas Day. Hundreds of Mexican families descend on the bay for the week, with their kids, grandparents... sisters and their cousins, who they recon up by dozens, and their aunts (with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan)...

Many of the palapa restaurants on the beach have Mariachis. Cart vendors are on the beach too selling everything from beach toys, we especially like the cocodrilo (inflatable crocodile) to elote (corn on the cob on a stick).

Right now, there are only 4 boats in this anchorage that could easily hold 50 or more.

We find it hard to understand why most of our cruising friends try to get to a port with a major gathering of boaters to go to a Christmas potluck with other (mostly) Canadians and Americans - when they could experience this fantastic cultural fiesta!

You can see our pictures from past years (2004 and 2006) on our website at http://raptordance.com

You can also get our current position and our track for the last 90 days on our site too, click on the "Position" and "Last 90d" links on the menu bar just below our homepage pictures to pull these up.

We're away from the Internet until we get to our next port (Barra de Navidad), just after New Years - so our Winlink or Sailmail addresses are the best way to reach us for the next week or so.

I'm sending this from my Winlink address which is slow speed radio email so PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE AND SEND OUR MESSAGE BACK TO US. Either send us a new message or delete the text of our message in your reply.

We love hearing from you all, so don't hesitate to drop us a note, but just send us what you personally type. No photos, other attachments and no forwards please!

Warmest Regards and Happy Holidays!
Bill and Mary

Happy Holidays!

2007-12-20T21:52:00.001-05:00

We have had a good year, complete with family visits, sailing, traveling to new areas, gardening and nesting at home and meeting many new and old friends.

We wish you all the best that the Holidays can be.

May the New Year bring all you wish for.

Since we got back to Puerto Vallarta we've been busy with boat projects and the social scene. We did have a chance to do a land trip which we shared with you.

Having a car in Mexico has made it a lot easier to get around. Just last Sunday, we took the car to a lovely village "La Disembocada" and hiked up the Rio Mascota a few miles to a natural hot springs. Very relaxing!

We getting ready to head off this weekend to spend the 25th anchored out in Chamela Bay.

We'll continue to share our more interesting adventures with you via our Friends and Family list.

Warmest Regards,
Bill & Mary

Raptor Red Chili - Version 2.0 - The Winner in Paradise

2007-12-03T18:18:00.000-05:00

This recipe won at the December 1, 2007 Charity Chili Cook Off at the Vallarta Yacht Club in Nuevo Vallarta, Nayarit, Mexico.

So far, we've entered three Chili Cook Offs in the last year and won all three!

This recipe is an update of our winner from Zihuatanejo (see that recipe). We lightened the chili up a bit and adapted to the greater volume (5 gal) needed for this competition.

This recipe is fairly complex and should be prepared at least a day ahead to allow the flavors to blend. It freezes and reheats well. Serve with a dollop of Toasted Cumin Crema (recipe below).

You will need to do a lot of tasting as you go along to get the best results.

The pot is important. It should be big enough to hold the whole batch. The pot should also have a thick bottom to spread the heat so the chili doesn't burn.

We don't have a big pot on board, so we used one supplied by the Yacht Club. That pot was non-reactive stainless steel (it's important to not use uncoated aluminum). It had a capacity of nearly 6 gallons, but it was thin metal and had a warped bottom and would not heat properly on the stove. We mitigated the issue by heating the whole put in the oven at just over 325° F, stirring at least every hour.

On the day of the contest, we put the pot over 3 concrete blocks and used Sterno to keep it hot - then stirring every few minutes while we dished out the samples.

The following makes approximately 5 gallons of Chili.

-----

Preparation:

The Meat:

The meat is very important. You want a flavorful cut of beef with some connective tissue. We prefer skirt steak or flank steak. We used 7.5+ Kilos (about 16 pounds) of un-marinated Arrachara, Mexican skirt steak.

Cut the meat into cubes (do not use ground meat). For meal or side dish sized servings, cut into 1/2 inch cubes. For competition sized (tiny) servings, cut into 3/8 inch cubes. Season the beef with salt and pepper.

The Chili Molé (gravy):

We selected a variety of dried and fresh chilies at the local market. If you're not familiar with the chilies, you should taste a sliver of each (after toasting and rehydration of the dried ones) to help you balance the flavor. You may need to use more or less of each based on their size and flavor.

A good guide to identifying chilies can be found on the web at http://www.chillisgalore.co.uk/pages/varietys1.html

You can also substitute canned chipotlés in adobo sauce for the dried. Just skip the soaking and skinning step and include the adobo with the chipotlés in the blender, more chipotlés will yield a smokier product.

Dried Chilies (possibly more of each if small, buy extras):
4 Chipotlé
6 Ancho
8 Pasilla
5 Cascabel
8 New Mexican
6 Guajillo

Remove the seeds and stems from the dried chilies. Then toast the dried chilies (except the chipotlés) in a dry pan until fragrant, be careful not to burn.

Pour boiling water over the toasted chilies and allow to rehydrate 30 minutes.

Scrape the meat off the skin of the chipotlés and cascabeles (or any other thick skinned chilies) and put in a blender. Do not use their skins. Thin skin chilies can be added directly to the blender.

Add water to the blender to cover. Taste the chili soaking water and use it if not bitter. Blend until smooth.

Strain through a sieve to produce around 2 liters of a very thick sauce.

The Aromatics:

8 Poblano chilies, seeded and diced
10 Jalapeño chilies, seeded and diced
9 Large Red and/or White Onions, finely diced
1 1/2 cup of chopped garlic

Other Ingredients:

* Olive Oil
6 bottles of dark beer, we used Indio
1 bottle red wine (750ml)
3 Oz Mexican Hot Chocolate (they come in pucks about an oz. each) chopped
8 14 1/2 oz cans of chopped tomatoes
2 6 oz can of tomato paste
8 14 1/2 cans of black beans, drained and rinsed
8 Tbsp ground cumin (or more to taste)
3 Tbsp ground arbol chilies (more for hotter chili)
6 Tbsp ground ancho chilies
6 Tbsp ground pasilla chilies

Ingredients to balance taste and consistency:

* Beef Broth (we used concentrated bullion and added the equivalent of 1 liter without the liquid)
* Fresh lime juice (we added the juice of 6 large limes)
* Salt and pepper
* Additional ground chilies (or your favorite chili powder)
* Hot Sauce or Salsa
* Thickener as needed - we used 1 part corn starch to 2 parts water. You could also use Masa or even crushed tortilla chips.

-----

Cooking:

Add approximately 1 Tsp Olive Oil in your frying pan (we had 2 pans going at the same time) and brown the beef in small batches.

Do not crowd the pan. You want to brown the beef not steam it, do not burn the beef. When the surface of the beef cubes has a deep brown color, Add the batch of beef to your pot.

Between batches, deglaze the frying pan with some of the beer, reduce slightly and add to the pot.

When all the beef is done, sweat the aromatics in batches. For each batch add 1 Tsp of olive oil to the pan and season each with salt. Add each to the pot when done.

Sweat the fresh chilies, sweat 3 or 4 minutes until fragrant (be careful of the fumes).

Sweat the onions 4 to 6 minutes until translucent.

Sweat the garlic for 1 minute.

Add a little olive oil to your empty fry pan and add the can of tomato paste. Cook, stirring frequently until the paste takes on a rust color (1 to 2 minutes). Add to the pot, use beer to get all the tomato paste out of the pan and add to the pot.

Now add the chili molé, chocolate, chopped tomatoes, remaining beer, wine, ground cumin, other ground chilies and black beans to the pot.

Note - REAL Chili does not have beans in it! You can omit them and have a heartier chili. We added them to extend the recipe for the contest and because we like the taste.

If cooking on a stove top, bring the pot up to a gentle simmer, uncovered. Stir frequently to prevent burning and to blend completely. Simmer at least 3 hours until the meat is tender, but still has a little bite to it.

If you cook the chili in a covered pot in a 325°F oven (as we did), it will need to cook at least 4 to 6 hours. Stir at least hourly. The liquid will not reduce as much in the covered pot in the oven as it does uncovered on the stove top, so you will need to use a thickener.

During the cooking, you should taste the chili and add the following ingredients if needed:

* Beef Broth - if needed to reduce thickness
* Thickener - if using corn starch you must bring the chili back to a boil to activate the thickener
* Sweetener (maple syrup, honey or Agave nectar) - if needed to balance the flavor
* Additional chili powder or cayenne to increase flavor and/or heat
* Salt and pepper - to taste
* Hot Sauce or Salsa to increase heat
* Fresh lime juice - at the end of cooking as needed to increase the brightness of the chili

When plating, add a dollop of Toasted Cumin Crema to each serving.

-----

Toasted Cumin Crema (also prepare a day ahead to meld flavors):

1 Tbsp cumin seeds
1 Cup Mexican crema or creme fraiche
* salt and pepper to taste

Place the cumin seeds in a dry sauté or fry pan over medium heat. Toast until lightly golden brown and fragrant, do not burn.

Place in a small bowl, stir in the crema and season with salt and pepper to taste. To dispense, put in a squeeze bottle with a big enough nozzle to not clog with the seeds.

Using Wireless Internet - WiFi - While Cruising - Update

2007-11-27T11:44:00.005-05:00

Summary of Current Recommendations:
October 20, 2009 (scroll down for earlier postings)

Technology continues to advance. We now recommend the ALFA AWUS050NH is an updated 500 MW model which supports all the WiFi protocols 802.11 a/b/g/n. This can give you a much faster and longer range connection for those hotspots that support the newer "n" protocol or the dual band "a" and "n" protocols. It's available for around $70 US at http://netgate.com

If you are staying in one particular country for a while, and they have reasonably good 3G cell phone coverage (surprise! the coverage is much better in Mexico than in the US!), you might also consider a cellular modem. These can run a good high speed connection (often faster than WiFi), at anchorages and miles offshore. You can get a pay-as-you-go monthly plan (with no cancellation fees) for about $50US/ Month (plus or minus) in many countries. The adapter itself hooks up via USB (I recommend USB over PC Card) and costs between $100 and $200 US.

If you do move to another country and you get an unlocked USB adapter, you can just buy a plan in your new country and swap SIM cards. SIM cards are unique to the carrier.

Interestingly ALFA is claiming that my prior recommendation, the AWUS036H, now is rated at 1000 MW (which is 1 watt). Others have tested this and say they only improved the output around 7%. In any case the increase from 500 MW to 1000 MW in my opinion is diminishing returns and not worth the bother. Remember too that your power is only half the puzzle, you have to have the receiver sensitivity to hear the WiFi access point. It doesn't help if the access point can hear you, but you can't hear them!

Also, Vista SP 2 and Windows 7 appear to now have built in drivers for the Alfa models which work fine. You no longer have to worry about downloading special drivers.

Note, Netgate no longer appears to carry the AWUS036H model. I now recommend the one above instead

We are also playing around with client bridges and found that the Ubiquiti NanoStation models seem to overcome many of the earlier drawbacks of this technology. You still need to be at least a "geek in training" (but at least not an "alpha geek") to get it working, however. They come with a standard directional antenna - which works best in marinas and not on the hook.

We have ours hooked up to the Power over Ethernet Injector, on to an Ethernet hub and then our multiple computers are connected to the hub.

January 1, 2009 (scroll down for earlier postings)

We have update our current recommendation to the ALFA AWUS036H. It sells at Netgate for $54.95. See http://www.netgate.com

Netgate also has 7db and 9db RP-SMA antennas for under $20.

You may also want to pick up a USB extension cable if you don't already have one.

This unit has higher power and greater range than our prior Engenius pick. It also has an Apple MacIntosh driver.

December 20, 2007 update (scroll down for earlier postings)

Engenius EUB 362-EXT High power USB adapter, available as a kit with a high gain antenna from Netgate. See: http://www.netgate.com

We suggest the "Standard RV Kit PLUS" if you already have a USB extension cable or the "Extended RV Kit PLUS" if you don't.

Be sure to download the updated drivers - see below.

As we continue cruising, helping folks, experimenting and the as technology evolves - our recommendations evolve.

After our last articles were published in the SSCA bulletin and Latitude 38, we were contacted by Bill Hallett of Netgate and who sent us a case of EUB-362 EXTs with their 7 db high gain omni-directional antenna. These units have been working great for the cruisers down here in Mexico.

We're now thinking that this unit, plus an additional antenna or two, such as a directional antenna for use in radio packed marinas, would eliminate the need for a separate unit (such as the Hawkings) for such purposes. Directional antennas are available from Netgate and other sources.

You can even make one yourself if you're feeling adventurous. You can Google "making WiFi antenna" for a great list of all kinds of antennas made from discarded Pringle's and soup cans, a Wok Spider (that's the large screened spoon used to fish out tempura) and other odds and ends.
Some of the more interesting ones are:

Using a recycled tin can http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html
Using a Wok Skimmer (Spider) http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/usbscoop.jpg

The Microsoft Vista Operating System is proving to be a bit of a challenge. If you have an EUB-362 and Vista, you will need the Vista driver at: http://www.netgate.com/info/NUB362/EUB_1_5_0_102.zip and there are instructions at: http://www.engeniustech.com/datacom/products/resources.aspx?faq=8&ID=154

Also, there is a new driver for windows XP. You can download it at:
http://www.netgate.com/info/NUB362/EUB862_362_XPV21.zip

If you're using the server (64bit) version of Vista, or Windows 98/ME, you'll need to go to the Engenius website to download those drivers:
http://www.engeniustech.com/datacom/products/resources.aspx?id=154&cat=6

April 21, 2007 update

Since we went cruising, we've seen all kinds of WiFi set ups on board cruising boats. We help fix many of them.

In my opinion, some people have been seduced into spending a lot more money on equipment that they're not able to keep running once they're away from the geek who set it up for them.

My recommendation is to keep things very simple. We now have and use both of the following (we also have our original HWU54D which still works fine. We're keeping it for backup. This model is no longer manufactured).

The Hawking Technologies, $60, HWU8DD see http://www.hawkingtech.com/ It comes with a 6 foot USB cable. I recommend getting a 10 foot extension cable, putting it in a zip lock baggie and put it on top of your cabin or better yet, on top of your boom. If it's windy, put a soft SCUBA weight (or something similar) in the baggie to keep it from blowing around. Also, take the unit in when you're not using it and over night to keep it out of the dew.

If you're going to be at anchor a lot, consider the Netgate's: $200, EUB-362-EXT Marine Kit http://www.netgate.com/product_info.php?cPath=26_42&products_id=328 this comes with a higher power (200mw) USB adapter, USB Cable, Coax Cable and an omni-directional external marine antenna. With this set up, you can run the antenna outside and keep the adapter down below out of the elements. You can mount the antenna permanently if you want, but we just run ours up a halyard when we're at anchor. We used this set up when we were anchored in Tenacatita and we could occasionally hit an open access point in La Manzanita about 4 miles away.

We found the combination of the two adapters works best in the variety of circumstances we've seen. We have yet to find a place where a permanent installation with a client bridge works and either the Hawking or Netgate doesn't. In San Diego, for instance, there were too many access points around Shelter Island for the omni-directional Netgate setup to work. We saw over 40 access points online, half were on WiFi channel 6! We had to use the Hawking and aim it at the access point we were using to have any success at all. At anchor away from it all, however, where we're swinging around, the Netgate works great and the Hawking is troublesome as it won't stay aimed in the right direction.

By the way, I don't own stock or have any interest in any of the companies mentioned.

One attractive option that has seduced some is a unit called a client bridge. This unit would let you network all the computers on your boat, either via Ethernet or WiFi. So if you have more than one computer, you could use them all at the same time and ideally share files and peripherals (like printers and scanners). My advise is that unless you're a geek, forget it!

I've seen quite a few boats with permanent installations with Ethernet client bridges that just plain don't work in the real world of cruising. Remember that you will be moving from place to place. You will need to be able to connect to a wide range of shore WiFi access points - all set up differently! This also means a dealing with a wide range of methods used to control access.

Most client bridges have problems with some or all of the access control methods, some also just plain don't play well with strange access points. Remember that every time you change locations, you will probably have to reconfigure the unit to roam to the new service provider's access point(s). There are a few totally open and free access points, but not enough to rely on. I would go so far to say that of all the client bridge installations I've seen, most don't work (anecdotal evidence only)!

Some examples of the wide range of access control methods:

The Vallarta Yacht Club in Paradise Village Nuevo Vallarta uses the MAC address of the WiFi adapter as it's access control method (this is the hardware address unique to every WiFi adapter made. The easiest way to get it right is to look at the printed sticker on the adapter - folks who try to look it up on the computer often give the club the wrong address!. This same approach is used by Rick's Bar in Zihuatanejo.
At the Isla Navidad Marina in Barra de Navidad, you get a "ticket" with a secret code at the concierge desk at the Grand Bay Hotel. These tickets are good for a specific time frame like 1 hour, 24 hours, or a full month - from the time you first connect. This requires that you go through a curious logon process with your computer. Similar techniques were used at Marina Palmyra in La Paz last time we visited.
Other locations use secret encryption keys that you need to set in your WiFi adapter's configuration.

I strongly recommend avoiding the investment in a boat wide Internet access Ethernet client bridge and other complex gear - unless you're geek enough to thoroughly understand it, reconfigure it, figure out how to connect to strange access points and generally keep it running. This gear can also cost quite a lot. I've seen installations cost well over $1,000.

Original Posting
October 10, 2005

Wireless Internet "WiFi" - is becoming available in more and more marinas and anchorages, worldwide. WiFi adapters are now also a standard feature in many computers.

WiFi can be used not just for email and web surfing, but also for very inexpensive telephone service, using a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) service like Skype http://www.skype.com (which we love and highly recommend).

In many of the Marinas we've been in, the service is free. In most, though, you'll need to sign up for the service or pay on a daily basis. We're currently cruising the Pacific Northwest and up here a company, Broad Band Express http://www.bbxpress.net/ has wired many of the marinas and anchorages. So it made sense for us to sign up for their annual plan.

Hawking HWU54DThe biggest challenge to successfully using the service has been getting good reception. WiFi uses radio communications at 2.4 gigahertz, which is quite finicky. We've had little luck using the WiFi adapters built into our PCs, so we've found a good solution in a combination WiFi adapter and antenna from Hawking Technology http://www.hawkingtech.com/ their HWU54D. This unit attaches to your PC via a serial USB cable, which also supplies it's power.

We bought ours online at http://www.ecost.com for $50 US.

There are also WiFi antennas on the market that you could try, but there are a couple of issues with external antennas:

1. Most computers have no antenna jack to connect the antenna to, and

2. The cable loss at WiFi frequencies (2.4 Giga Hertz) is so high that the cable loses a lot of power.

You could also buy a marine grade external antenna and a high power PC Card, but this costs a lot more money (well over $100 US).

All our PCs have a built-in WiFi adapter. We don't use the built-ins when we using the Hawking HWU54D.

It's easy to disable the built-in adapter. Just right click on "My Network Neighborhood" (in Windows XP), select properties. All your network adapters will pop up in a window. Right click on the built-in adapter and select "Disable". When the adapter is disabled, this menu will allow you to "Enable" it - for when you take your laptop to a hotspot.

When we use the HWU54D, we run in with a 10 foot USB extension cable and put it on top of our boom. I use a high tech enclosure to weather proof it.... A zip lock baggie ;-}

I use another baggie and twist tie to weather proof the connection between the two USB cables.

If you need more than 16 feet USB cable length, You'll need to buy an "Active" USB extension cable. These amplify the USB signal and will let you cascade cables to extend a greater distance.

Hawking HWU8DDRecently, Hawking has announced a new unit, the HWU8DD. It looks interesting and I'll have to give it a try. It's listed for around $60 US.

This unit uses a small dish, and is advertised as having an 8 decibel gain vs. the HWU54D's 6 decibel gain, which should yield slightly better performance.

Keep in mind, however that generally the more gain an antenna provides, the more "directional" it is. That means that you must aim the antenna at the access point you are trying to hit to maximize your performance. It also means that if you are swinging at anchor, your signal may drop out if the swing is enough to aim your antenna away from the access point.

One particularly blustery day, that happened to us in Gorge Harbour on Cortez Island in British Columbia.

Copper Canyon - Barranca del Cobre

2007-11-03T12:39:00.004-05:00

Hi Everyone!

We got safely back to Raptor Dance on Oct 13th and We've been swept up in boat maintenance and the social life here since. So we're just getting to our much delayed report on Copper Canyon. Accompanying pictures are on our website at http://raptordance.com

The Copper Canyon (Spanish: Barranca del Cobre) is a group of canyons consisting of 6 distinct canyons in the Sierra Tarahumara in the southwestern part of the state of Chihuahua in Mexico.

The overall canyon system is about 6 times larger and half again deeper than the Grand Canyon. Copper Canyon also straddles the continental divide, so the rivers flow out to either the Pacific (Sea of Cortez) or Atlantic.

The canyon system is transversed by the Chihuahua al Pacífico railroad, known by the nickname "Chepe". It is both an important transportation system for locals as well as tourists. The train runs from Topolobampo on the Sea of Cortez to Chihuahua. The train took 90 years to build because of the extremely rugged terrain, which also results in great sightseeing from the train. see http://www.chepe.com.mx/ing_html/index.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chepe

We started our visit at the Hotel Posada del Hidalgo, a beautiful restored colonial mansion, built in 1890 by the Mayor of the town. Part of the original structure was the original home of Don Diego de la Vega, origin of the Zorro legend and the hotel has a fun appearance by El Zorro at the bar's happy hour with musicians. see http://www.hotelposadadelhidalgo.com/

Since we were traveling on our own and not in a group, we got to know the hotel staff pretty well and had a great time joking around with them during our visit. We had a great time and highly recommend the hotel.

The hotel also had some of the best food we had during the trip, especially the Huevos Rancheros at breakfast and they langostinas (crayfish) and shrimp at dinner.

After a two nights stay (Oct 3 & 4) we caught the train to Creel - 8 hours up the line. The train goes very slow as the engineer has to keep an eye out for rocks, cattle and other stuff on the tracks. The scenery was every bit as fantastic as advertised.

At Creel we stayed at the Sierra Lodge just outside of town. Early October (Oct 5) is just before the start of the high season and we were the only guests in the 22 room lodge.

Sierra Lodge is very rustic with no electricity - only kerosene lamps. Great hiking in the area - we did a great 4 mile round trip hike to Cuzarare Falls. The food in the lodge was very tasty.

We recommend the Sierra Lodge particularly for the hiking. It's at 7,000 feet and we didn't have any problems at that altitude. later at Posada Barranca, we were at 8,000 feet and noticed a quite a difference.

That night we were treated to a great light show as a thunderstorm passed through dropping probably an inch or two of rain.

The next morning, our guide for the next 3 days, Pedro picked us up in his Chevy Sierra to take us down to the silver mining town of Batopilas at the bottom of the canyon. The trip took 7 hours: 75 km on paved roads and the last 65 km on dirt roads. At the end of the rainy season there were lots of rocks on the road and near washouts. The prior nights rain also fortunately kept the dust down. It was an exciting trip. The last 40 km we rode on top of the Sierra in seats welded to a strong framework with full harness/seat belts to keep us on board - it was breathtaking and exciting. The scenery was fantastic.

Batopilas was founded by the Spanish in 1632, but the road was only finished to in 1977. Before that the only way in and out was via burro or hiking. Still it was a very interesting town. It was the second town in Mexico (after Mexico City) to be wired for electricity due to its mining wealth. Today the town is quieter, with the economy based primarily on agriculture, tourism and some residual mining.

We spent 2 nights (Oct 6 & 7) in the Riverside Lodge, a beautifully restored silver barons town residence. It took up a rambling city block in downtown Batopilas. The town itself is only about 3 blocks wide but over 1 mile long, alongside the Batopilas river at the bottom of Batopilas Canyon. Our room was very comfortable, but quite funky with the main entrance through the bath.

We toured the town on our day in Batopilas and hiked the 4 miles to the Satevo mission, now in the process of restoration. Pedro picked us up in the Sierra at the mission and we rode back to town, touring the castle-like home that Alexander Robey Shepherd, the last governor of Washington, D.C., built after leaving the United States in 1875. It stands across the river from the center of the village and has long been in ruins. A new small hotel building is almost complete in the midst of the ruins.

The food we had in Batopilas was basic rustic. OK, not fantastic. An area specialty is a preserved dried meat - Machaca - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machaca. We didn't find it as flavorful as many of the dishes we enjoyed throughout Mexico.

The two restaurants we experienced in Batopilas were Dona Micas and Restaurant Carolinas. Dona Micas has no sign but it's just across a small plaza from Carolinas. Dona serves a dish of the day. When we visited she served a nice Chicken Mole. Carolinas as a more extensive menu with Machaca specialties as well as a selection of other dishes.

After breakfast on Oct 8th Pedro picked us up at the Lodge to head back up to Creel. We gave a lift to a Tarahumara friend of Pedros who rode most of the way back on top of the Sierra. We rode inside. In contrast to the ride down, the ride up was quite dusty and we were glad to be in the car.

On our way back we were delayed about an hour as the bridge across the Batopilas River was blocked about 15 KM up from Batopilas by a fellow who had too much tequila and drove his truck into the side of the bridge. We worked with some other folks who were also stuck to push the truck over enough to get by. We heard that an Army truck got there a few hours later and towed the truck off the bridge.

Once back up the canyon, we toured another village and a Tarahumara cave home. Once our eyes got used to the dark, it was quite interesting with a number of room areas with furniture a kitchen area with ladies cooking. A very rustic way to live.

That night (Oct 8) we stayed at the Best Western Lodge in Creel. We walked around the town and would suggest giving it a pass - if we were to do the trip over, we'd go directly from Batopilas to our next stop, the Hotel Mirador at Posada Barranca.

We took the train from Creel, a few stops down the line to Posada Barranca, but you could just as well take the road this short distance. You would miss the Divisidero stop on this part of the trip, but we stopped there on the train on the way up. It's fantastic with a great overlook of the canyon so you should plan on stopping there sometime on your trip.

Divisidero also has a number of very interesting Tarahumara craft and food stalls.

We highly recommend the Hotel Mirador see: http://mirador.mexicoscoppercanyon.com/. It's perched right on the edge of a spectacular part of the canyon. The balcony of our room was right on the edge with a fantastic view. As the sunlight changes throughout the day the colors in the canyon morph through a series of fantastic colors. The hotel faces the South East and the sunrise over the canyon was truly majestic (It was still daylight savings time, so sunrise wasn't too early).

That afternoon, Oct 10th, we caught the train to head back down to El Fuerte. The Canyon was just as amazing heading down, with different views as we were headed in the opposite direction and the afternoon light dramatized the colors of the canyon.

We again stayed in the Posada Hidalgo hotel for the next two nights before heading down to Mazatlan for the night (Oct 12th) then back to Raptor Dance in Paradise Village, Nuevo Vallarta.

We especially want to thank Sue Stilwell, the owner of S & S Tours who arranged our independent tour of the canyon. Reservations are vital in this area as accommodations and guides are limited and often booked in advance by tour groups. We also needed to make sure that we had a safe place to leave our car while we were off on this side trip. We recommend her services. See: http://www.ss-tours.com

On the Road Again!

2007-10-01T19:37:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone -

Just want to give you all a quick update. We're on our way back to Raptor Dance.

We left our vacation home in Sonoma County on the 24th - visited Bill's Dad and Brother in Northridge, CA for a few days, then cousins Helene and Frank in San Diego.

We just checked into the Holiday Inn Express in Nogales, AZ for the night and will cross the border into Mexico tomorrow morning.

After stopping at the checkpoint at KM 21 to get the Import Permit for our car, we'll continue on down to San Carlos for the night.

Then on Wednesday the 3rd we'll drive to Los Moches to start our tour of Copper Canyon. We'll leave the car at the Hotel Posada Hidalgo and continue on by train on the 5th.

The Itinerary for this trip is:

Oct. 3, 4— El Fuerte
Oct. 5— Creel
Oct. 6, 7— Batopilas (the remote town at the bottom of Copper Canyon)
Oct. 8— Creel
Oct. 9— Hotel Mirador on the Rim
Oct. 10, 11— El Fuerte

On Oct. 12 We'll Depart El Fuerte for Mazatlan for the night then arriving in Puerto Vallarta on the 13th.

We'll prepare the boat on the 14th and haul in PV on the 15th to get our bottom painted.

We'll update you all as soon as the dust settles in PV - post pictures and stories.

I don't think we'll have much connectivity between now and our arrival in PV - so you may not be able to reach us during this period.

We arrange our trip through S&S Tours and so far they've done a fine job. We'll give you a full review after.

You can see pictures and info on where we're going on their website at http://www.ss-tours.com/copperc.html

Hope you all have a great October!

Warmest Regards,
Bill & Mary

Tips for Getting Ready to Ha-Ha, 2007 - Cruising to Mexico and Beyond

2007-09-19T17:53:00.000-04:00

There have been a lot of changes in Mexico in the last three years, so an update to our article in Latitude 38 in 2006 is in order.

We've been actively cruising on our Valiant 50, Raptor Dance, since we headed out the Golden Gate and turned left in Sept 2004. We'd like to share with you some of our more offbeat observations and recommendations on from the Ha-Ha's XI and XIII We would like to stress that these are our opinions, based on what we've learned along the way. Your mileage may vary!

Whether your just doing the Ha-Ha as a vacation experience or as the start of long term cruising, we hope you find this information useful. You can find more information about some of these topics on the links in the article or on our website at http://raptordance.com.

There's lots of information out there on how to prepare for the Baja Ha-Ha and your escape to the cruising life . One of the best is Latitude 38's own "First Timer's Guide To Mexico" - available online at the Baja Ha-Ha website: http://www.baja-Ha-Ha.com/Guide/index.html.

What's New: Provisioning in Mexico is even easier!
Many of the Super Mercados have a much greater range of ingredients than before. We've even found previously hard to find ingredients such as high quality Washington State Apples, good quality lamb, Balsamic vinegar, Asian sesame oil and chop sticks. US products and brands are available, but may be a tad more expensive. Some markets such as Commercial, Soriana and
Gigante have displays of goods from Costco!

Crackers, other than the basic saltines and Ritz, are still very expensive if you can find them at all. US cereal brands are available, but pricey.

Provisioning is a challenge up in the Sea of Cortez, so be sure to stock up in La Paz or Mazatlan before heading up.

Don't overlook the local markets! You'll find both weekly markets, such as the Tuesday market in Jarretaderas (near Nuevo Vallarta) to the huge public markets open daily in Mazatlan, La Paz and other cities these offer interesting and sometimes exotic foods at low prices.

Great wine is still hard to find, so bring it with you, enjoy the "drinkable" Mexican or Chilean wines – they're still much better than $2 you-know-who or better yet, enjoy the beer and margaritas!

Entering Mexico
In 2006, only frozen Beef was confiscated in Cabo. In 2004 chicken and fresh eggs were also taken. This mainly only happened to boats who pulled into the Marina – sometimes just to get fuel. To be safe, all beef should be gone from your freezer before arriving in Cabo. We don't have any reports of food being confiscated in Ensenada - but enforcement varies widely in Mexico.

Mexican Charts are way off
Both paper and electronic charts of Mexico are unreliable. They're generally at least 1 to 3 miles off - except in busy harbors, where they're pretty accurate. We recommend relying on the wisdom in Raines Cruising Guides or the Cunningham Guides to the Sea of Cortez. Charlie's Charts are a good supplement to the above, but a little dated.

What is pretty good and free of charge is Google Earth! http://earth.google.com. We often download and print a chart of a new anchorage with the lat/lon grid turned on for a spot-on aerial chart of the area. Google Earth is so good, you can use it to plot the narrow channel into the Lagoon at Barra de Navidad. We posted the Google Earth channel boundaries, course in and anchorage boundaries for the Barra Lagoon from SV Legacy on our website at: http://raptordance.com/KMZ/BarraLagoonWaypoints.kmz See their website at http://www.legacysailing.com/local_knowledge/tenacatita_and_barra.htm for other waypoints and a writeup on the area. All the usual disclaimers apply, not for navigation - if you run aground it's your own fault, etc...

Maps of Mexico are also improving. In mid-September 2007, Google added free street maps for 54 countries, among them Mexico! http://maps.google.com

"Boat Cards" are a great idea!
When you meet all your new friends on the Ha-Ha and later while cruising, you will want to exchange contact information. You'll make so many new friends that you'll wish everyone put their pictures on their cards rather than a picture of their boat!

A few weeks after meeting a bunch of new friends, the pictures are extremely valuable in remembering who's who.

Boat cards are like business cards and should supply information about you, your boat and contact info, We suggest including your picture, name(s), boat name, boat type, email addresses (Sailmail, Winlink, etc.), mailing address, cell/sat phone, and any other information you'd like to share that fits on the card.

You can print your cards yourself on your computer printer using business card paper from an office supply store or you can use a commercial printer. We've found that some of the Internet printing companies do a really great job at a fairly low cost. We use Vistaprint they have great service, low prices, high quality and rapid turn around.

Buy an appetizer/potluck cookbook and use it!
You will be going to a lot of cruisers potlucks in Mexico. Your first will likely be during the Ha-ha at Turtle Bay.

After awhile, you will get very tired of the same old contributions. Come on folks, bring something more than chips and dip or a bag of carrots!

It's not very hard to make very tasty finger foods or even entrees! Fresh ingredients are very little trouble to find and use in Mexico – so let your tastes run wild!

Enjoy the Local Culture
You are in a fascinating country with a rich family oriented culture full of great traditions, music, dance and interesting quirks. Lot's of cruisers never get away from the cruisers' culture (yes, we have one) to sample what our great host country has in store. It will also help you learn Spanish.

Look around, enjoy what the locals enjoy! For example, on a local Puerto Vallarta bus last year we saw a poster (in Spanish) for a match at the local Lucha Libre school gymnasium. We went, it was so much fun, we took some other cruisers to a larger match later in the season – everyone had a fantastic time.

Radios are your lifeline
Marine VHF and SSB are the primary means of communicating in Mexico and beyond. Make sure your radios work and you know how to use them. Check them out completely before you leave!

If you have a Uniden VHF, see the August 2007 issue of Latitude for information. You'll probably have to send it in to be updated to not have problems in Mexico or elsewhere in the world. Most Uniden VHF radios are not set up to function outside the US. Send me an email if you want more information.

Marine SSB is highly recommended
Yes, you can do the Ha-Ha and cruise with just a Marine VHF radio, but in Mexico and the South Pacific, Marine SSB and Ham Radio are the only way you can keep in touch with the cruisers' radio networks. These nets are a valuable source of weather and current destination information. You can also use them to keep in touch with the many new friends you will make along the way.

Marine VHF is uses radio frequencies that only work over the "line of sight" between the antennas at each end of the conversation, so it's rare that it will work over more than about 20 miles for a mast head antenna, 5 miles or so for handhelds.

Marine SSB uses radio frequencies that can, on the lower frequencies, refract a little around the curvature of the earth and, on the higher frequencies, bounce off the ionosphere. So you can reliably communicate over distances of hundreds or thousands of miles. If you pick the right frequency for the time of day, season, weather on the Sun, and a few other factors. Fortunately, there's a computer program that's available for free that figures this all out for you (ICEPAC – see below).

ICOM makes the most reliable Marine SSB radios. We have the 710RT, they're stable and rock solid. The newer ICOM-802 model has had some problems but they're fixed on new radios – check with your supplier to make sure. If you have an older ICOM-802, make sure you don't have the "clipping" problem that would require sending the radio back to ICOM for updating. You can also refer to the Technical Note from ICOM which includes a contact phone number and email address for questions.

Test the radio by setting up a contact with another boat or one of the radio nets and making sure your audio quality is up to snuff. Don't just talk to someone nearby, try making a contact at least a few hundred miles away.

In addition to the radio, you will need a Marine Pleasure Vessel license. These are available from your government (here in the US, the FCC) for a small fee. No test is required.

We highly recommend also getting an Amateur Radio (Ham) license. This requires study, but almost anyone with the determination to get one can learn what's needed. There are many courses that can tutor you through the whole process. Morse code is no longer required so getting your license is much easier than in the past.

Marine and Ham can both use the same equipment. Marine Radios are allowed to be sold that can transmit and receive on the Ham bands – but not vice versa. Both Marine and Ham use Single Sideband (SSB) transmission in the radio High Frequency (HF) range – between 2 and 30 Megahertz – the difference is in the particular frequency ranges (bands) assigned to each service. Cruisers jargon is a bit sloppy however: SSB is usually used to refer just to Marine HF SSB communication.

Wireless Internet (WiFi) is almost everywhere
We've even hit an open access point in the from La Manzanilla in the Tenacatita anchorage. The regular adapter on your computer just won't cut it though for access from your boat. You'll need a better WiFi adapter or antenna of some sort.

Our recommendation is to keep things very simple. Remember, you'll be in Mexico and unless you run across a cruising computer geek, you'll need to do your own tech support. See our article on
Using WiFi While Cruising" for more details.

Sailmail and/or Winlink are the way to go for email.
Wireless Internet is now found in many places in the world, but not everywhere and not at sea. If you need to keep in touch with your family or work, you may need a satellite phone. For those of us who are full time cruisers, Sailmail (http://www.sailmail.com) and Winlink (http://www.winlink.org) provide reliable, low cost text only email.

These services also let you file position reports so your family and friends can see where you are. This is especially nice on long passages. See my writeup on "Position Reporting and how we do it" for more info.

Sailmail is a non-profit operation, it's annual fee of $250 goes to support the station network. For this fee, you can send and receive 90 minutes of email per week. This is enough for most folks to keep in touch with work, friends and family. You will need a standard pleasure vessel ("PL") Marine license from the FCC (or your country's government if not the US).

Winlink, on the other hand, uses amateur (Ham) radio, so you will need a Ham radio "General" class license or above.

We highly recommend the SCS PTC-II Pro or USB radio modems. Lower cost units just aren't as reliable or fast. The optional extra Pactor III Permit is recommended if you have more than a couple of emails a day. Pactor III increases the effective speed of the radio link.

Also, make sure your modem can and you've got the cables to have your radio modem command your radio to change frequencies. You will do a lot of frequency changes on your radio, it's much more convenient to be able to drive everything from your PC.

Jim Corenman's Airmail program is available for free and supports both email services, see http://www.airmail2000.com. Be sure to also download and install the free propagation program "ICEPAC". This is the magic program that helps you figure out the best frequency to use. It integrates seamlessly into Airmail and is very easy to use. You must make sure that your computer clock is set properly and your location is also entered correctly – the later is real easy if you have a GPS hooked up to your computer.

Make sure you get everything hooked up and try sending and receiving email before you leave. This is very important as forgotten parts are hard to come in Mexico.

Also, check to see if you have interference when transmitting email in your other systems. If you do – either solve the problem before you leave or learn to live with it. It's not uncommon for your transmissions to light the pilot lights on your power panel on some or all of the "off" circuit breaker, cause your autopilot to do strange things (ours "snake wakes") or even crash your PC.

We once spent 2 days exploring radio stores in La Paz looking for parts to help another cruiser out. When transmitting on some radio frequencies their radio caused their computer keyboard and mouse to act like a chimpanzee was trying to write Shakespeare. We ultimately gave up trying to find the ferrite filters to put on their keyboard and mouse cable in Mexico. They just avoided the problematic frequencies until they could get and install the filters.

Cell and Satellite Phones
Cellular coverage is surprisingly good in Mexico. Coming down on the Ha-ha XIII we found we had coverage with AT&T (Cingular) in Turtle Bay and Bahia Santa Maria. On New Years Day 2007, the new cell tower in Tenacatita came online, so it's getting even harder to escape.

However, unless you do your homework and get the right cellular rate plan, the per minutes prices can be pretty horrendous.

The different cell phone providers keep altering what plans they offer, so you'll need to check. If you have Verizon, look into their "North America Choice" plan. If you have AT&T Cingular, you may be able to get their "North America" plan. These plans let you use your US base minutes to, from, and in Canada and Mexico with no long distance or roaming charges.

If you're not able to get such a rate plan, consider getting a "Prepaid" phone in Mexico They're readily available.

Warning! If you have an iPhone - make sure you turn off it's data features. There are no good data plans available in Mexico and folks have racked up huge bills without warning, since the iPhone love to chat with the servers back home to see if you have any mail or other messages.

Our Iridium Satellite phone is often less expensive per minute than roaming with a cell phone. We found a store that sells prepaid Iridium time for $1/minute. Also, you have 1 year to use the minutes and if you renew, unused minutes roll over. You can also use your Iridium for email and data, but very slowly – it runs much slower than dialup, only 2400 bits per second (dialup typically runs up to 56,000 bits per second).

On the other hand, you might just do without a cell phone all together (don't forget you're cruising!) and use Skype when you have Internet connectivity.

Spares
It's likely that parts for your boat and boat systems will be hard to get in Mexico You can get parts for some brands pretty easily e.g. Mercury outboards, Yanmar Diesels. Others, like our Westerbeke engine and Nissan outboard are much more difficult. We'd recommend taking lots of spares – particularly consumables like oil filters, fuel filters, belts, raw water impellers, etc. Motor oil is readily available so that's not a problem.

Bottom paint is twice the price, so bring enough along if you're going to repaint in Mexico

Spares can be shipped into Mexico with a bit of effort. When you're in San Diego, stop in and open an account at the Ha-ha sponsors: Downwind Marine and West Marine. Many of the San Diego chandleries can have parts walked across the boarder and put on in-country transit to get it to you. Downwind can also sometimes find other cruisers who will bring parts to you on their way South.

In conclusion:
The Ha-ha is a great way to meet your fellow cruisers and have a fun time heading down to Mexico. Mexico is a blast! We hope to see you down here.

Both our "Next Food Network Star" Videos are online!

2007-07-29T16:56:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone!

Mary decided to go for it too! Check out her video.

We both had a blast shooting these videos.

We both now have videos posted. The links are:

Mary's Audition Video for the Food Network Show: "Next Food Network Star"

The Miso Salmon Recipe from Mary's Video

The Edamame Puree Recipe from Mary's Video

Bill's Audition Video for the Food Network Show: "Next Food Network Star"

The Tagine Recipe from Bill's Video

Warmest Regards to all,

Mary & Bill

Next Food Network Star?

2007-07-22T17:35:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

Most of you know that we love to cook and really enjoy great food.

Lots of our friends commented that we should write a cookbook or
have a cooking show. So we decided that I (Bill) should submit an audition
tape to Food Network for their next season "Next Food Network Star"
program.

We thought you might get a kick our of this 3 minutes video, so We'd like to share it with you.

The video is at:
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?
fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=13771412
Note - If you're a MySpace user, We'd appreciate a ThumbsUp rating ;-}

You can also find the recipe on our website at http://raptordance.com
(see the Recipe link in top of the left column - then look for
"Tagine", it's currently recipe 13).

Let us know what you all think!

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Soda Club

2007-06-25T16:14:00.000-04:00

One of the really great items that we've been using aboard Raptor Dance since we set off on our cruise is a gadget from a company called "Soda Club".

This unit is about the size of coffee maker and makes really tasty soft drinks (see picture below). One CO2 canister holds enough gas to carbonate about 110 liters of soda. You make up a liter batch of seltzer at a time and then add the flavoring of your choice.

They sell the flavors at their website, you can mix your own or obtain syrup elsewhere.

It's a really cost effective way to make soda, mixers and saves enormously on storage space.

We bought from the 6 extra carbonators so we don't run out as they can't ship the gas bottles to Mexico. We also stocked up on their Diet Cola, Diet Tonic, Diet Ginger Ale and Diet Lemon/Lime Soda. Their Tonic is much tastier than any we've found in Mexico.

To check out their products, click the link/graphic below (note they do give us a small referral fee if you buy their goodies after following our link).

Also, until October 15th they're running some specials for online orders:
Save $30 on any new soda maker package when you use promotion code FIZZYFALL and
Use promotion code CHEAPGAS to save $15 off any 110-liter spare, licensed carbonators.

The ultimate boating accessory! No more lugging, storing and recycling store-bought cans and bottles. Make fresh seltzer and soda with Soda-Club’s compact soda maker and concentrated sodamix. 27 flavors – regular, diet, caffeine-free, mixers.

What we're doing on our summer vacation...

2007-06-24T13:15:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

It's been a while since our last message. Gosh it's almost July already!

Since our maintenance chores kept us from heading to the Sea of Cortez until it was too late in the season, we flew back to our "vacation home" on May 2nd. Since then, we've been busy with home chores and catching up with family and friends back here in the states. Fun, but not as exciting as cruising in Mexico - so we won't bore you with the details.

We are planning to head back to Mexico, late September/early October and visit Copper Canyon on our way back to Nuevo Vallarta where Raptor Dance is parked for the summer.

We'll share with you anything super interesting that we do over the summer, otherwise we'll give you inbox a rest ;-}

We'd love to hear from you and possibly visit during the summer. Drop us a line at our raptordance.com emails when you have a moment and let us know what you're up to!

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Latest News and Updated Pictures from Raptor Dance

2007-04-21T18:23:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

We just finished uploading the latest batch of pictures to our website at http://raptordance.com

We posted some great pictures from the Lucha Libre match we attended and also a short (1 minute 32 second) video of some of the highlights.

Also posted are new sailing shots of Raptor Dance.

Additionally, we have updated our writeup on "Using WiFi while Cruising". A recent article in the Latitude 38 suggested a solution that we've seen is far too complex for the average non-computer geek cruiser, so we posted an update to our original article (from Oct 2004). We share our recent experiences helping cruisers afloat connect to the Internet from their boats.

We also added a really neat feature, Clustrmaps (yes, no "e"). Clustrmaps shows you where our website visitors are from. Check it out and let me know what you think!

News update - we're still working out the problems with our Transmission and Prop. We've missed our cut off date for going to the Sea of Cortez this year - so we'll be returning to Sonoma California late on May 2nd. More later.

Warmest Regards to all,
Bill and Mary

Puerto Vallarta, March 2007

2007-04-05T15:11:00.000-04:00

Hi All,

March was a great month. We had family and friends visit, did lots of other stuff and had an exciting time during the Banderas Bay Regatta.

The month of March started with a Ham Exam at the Vallarta Yacht club. Bill was looking for something to stick his nose into and found it. I have my General ham licenses and Bill had his Advanced (He was first licensed in November, 1963). Bill decided to test for the Extra (which gives him a few extra radio bands, but more important: bragging rights) and Volunteer Examiner - allowing him to hold Ham exam sessions (a team of 3 VEs is needed, so he'll need two others to hold a session). Naturally he aced both in short order.

One of the side benefits of visitors is that they can bring "stuff", like the replacement Soda Club machine, Shaft Shark line cutter, rebuild kits for our Autoprop Propeller and Rix SCUBA compressor and Snyder's Sourdough Hard Pretzels. That was very handy as shipping parts into Mexico is usually a problem and we can't find great pretzels down here yet!

We were happy to be having visitors from home. In the past, that four letter word beginning with W has interfered. That changed when our cousin Frank from San Diego retired last year. Now cousin Helene and her husband Frank were finally able to get their schedule coordinated to come to Puerto Vallarta.

PV is an easy place to fly into. Raptor Dance is docked at Paradise Marina in Nuevo Vallarta see: http://www.paradisevillagemarina.com/

The Marina is part of the 5 start Paradise Village Resort http://www.paradisevillage.com/

We have the marina, yacht club, hotel and condos right here with all the amenities: pools, restaurants, shopping center, etc.

Puerto Vallarta is just a short hop away as are a host of other small Mexican towns and attractions. Ah, don't let me forget beautiful Banderas Bay for sailing, whale watching, fishing and salt water immersion of one type or another.

You have the idea. It is an ideal place to have visitors. Once Helene and Frank arrived and we ascertained how active they wanted to be, we were ready to rumba. Actually we did not rumba but we did salsa at a Cuban club in downtown PV.

We started with a nice little trip into the mangroves to Fajita Republic for dinner. The food is quite nice and it's an interesting dingy ride up the estuary. We tied up to a tree on their beach and had a nice dinner.

The next morning we went back into the mangroves in a little steam engine driven boat, The African Queen. It was similar to the boat in the movie but a bit smaller. This was a crocodile seeking jaunt and was plenty successful. There were small Crocs, about 6 feet long, larger Crocs on the mangrove banks and in the water, and the Big Guy whose head was easily 2 feet wide and length unknown (our guess over 17 feet)...very big. He came right up to the boat looking for a bit of chicken. There was no hand feeding!

That evening we headed up to Las Carmelitas http://lascarmelitas.com/

This restaurant has a great view of all of Puerto Vallarta. The food is not as good as past years, but the view is still fantastic.

The biggest challenge of the place is getting back! It's off the beaten track, up a few kilometers up a dirt road. You need to take a taxi to get there - the problem is that taxis don't just hang around waiting for return fares. Folks from the area typically have their original taxi come back 2 hours later to pick them up.

We, however, came from Paradise Village which is over the state line in Nayarit (Puerto Vallarta is in Jalisco). Nayarit taxis are not allowed to pick up fares in Jalisco - thus the quandary - our taxi was not permitted to come back to pick us up! Fortunately half our group got in a cab that was dropping off a new party of late diners. Unfortunately, the rest of us had to wait an hour for another cab, with frequent requests to the restaurant staff to call another cab. With the frustration of having multiple cabs coming by - returning to pick up their earlier fares.

Our general recommendation is to skip Las Carmelitas and go to Le Kliff http://www.lekliff.com/ instead. Le Kliff has both a fantastic view and food and is easy to get to and back - either by bus or taxi!

We had no trouble filling the rest of Helen and Frank's time with sailing, flying through the trees on zip lines at the Los Veranos Canopy Tour (http://www.canopytours-vallarta.com/ ), eating well, exploring PV, and just relaxing at the pool and beach. We were all happy but the time flew by too quickly.

We were in the zone now. Friends Lani and June arrived March 17th, just in time for the Banderas Bay Regatta with extra days to spare. I admit, we did some of the same things...visited favorite dinning spots like Calamari Adventura (The Frisky Squid) and Le Kliff and went on the Los Veranos Canopy Tour. Why do we all love that? I guess it's the thrill and feels like being a little kid again. Yippee! Oh yes, I had a close encounter with a friendly python too. Hmmm.

Our sailing week started with the Pirates for Pupils Spinnaker Run. It is a benefit for local school children which takes paying passengers on the boat, north to Punta Mita. There we all go in to shore for lunch, dressed in pirate gear of course. By 2PM the wind is up and we sail back to the marina with spinnakers flying. It was a great day on the water and a great sail. It was also the first time Lani and June were actually sailing on our boat. All the other times we were sitting still in the marina or both traveling on our own boats.

Also joining us on the Spinnaker Run was our very good friend Jan Brewer (aka Queenie) and a couple from a power boat who came along for the charity event. We thought they were a bit quiet and shy until they told us later that they had never been on a sailboat flying a spinnaker and they were totally in awe!

We'll cover more about the Regatta in our next posting.

After the Regatta, it was back to boat chores... The rebuild kit for the Autoprop was a lifesaver (see: http://www.ab-marine.com/ ). We had Guillermo The Diver pull the prop and found one of the three blades was very loose with the seal shredded and the ball bearings about to fall out.

It took Bill and two friends: John Jones of Jonco Marine Repair and John Prentice of Prentice Marine Services the better part of a day to disassemble the prop, clean it up and reassemble it with the new bearings and other parts. Guillermo then put the prop back on this morning and she works like a champ.

Guillermo also mounted the "Shaft Shark" line cutter we had Lani and June bring down in case we have future run ins with long liners.

That's the latest from Raptor Dance!

Be sure and write us back and let us know how you all are doing! Just please send us a new message instead of "replying" to this one!

Warmest Regards to All,
Mary and Bill

Barra de Navidad to Puerto Vallarta - February 2007

2007-04-03T17:47:00.000-04:00

Hi All,

We've been busy, but now we have a chance to catch up with everyone...

We hope you are all well and enjoying Spring weather. Speaking of the weather, it was a relief when we returned to Barra Navidad in mid-February. It almost felt cool in the high 80's. Zihuatanejo was probably 10 degrees hotter plus greater humidity.

It was so hot that some of our Scharffen Berger Chocolate bloomed (horrors)! Fortunately, it's still tasty! The most affected bars we melt down and make almond bark!

The first order of business once back in Barra de Navidad was getting the boat cleaned and taking care of whatever boat part has demanded attention. This time it was an oil leak that needed to be tracked down and remedied. It was the hoses to the remote oil filter. We removed the remote oil filter assembly until we could get new hoses in Puerto Vallarta.

Then there was the engine raw water pump that needed to be replaced as it was leaking salt water from the shaft seal. We had a spare pump and had the old one rebuilt in Puerto Vallarta.

Also Bill replaced the shredded genset impeller. And what is going on with the bow thruster? (Too many barnacles). Bill had his hands full. Luckily we had the spare parts needed and Bill made pretty quick work of it... only 4 days.

The highlights for the time in Barra was my birthday party and the trip to Colima that Bill arranged for me. We hired Memo (Español for Bill), a Mexican tour guide to give us a private tour of Colima and the surroundings.

Colima was a lovely surprise. Even though it is an old city, it is modern looking with clean wide streets, lovely gardens, several universities, museums and a performance art center. It's very prosperous.

We also visited the ongoing archeological site in Colima and went as close to the volcano as we could. The volcano was not blowing off any steam that particular day.

In our travels to and from we visited banana, avacado, mango, coconut, papaya and coffee plantations; salt flats; a brick factory; coffee mill and the lovely country side.

We stopped at the town of Comala, just North of Colima, between it and the volcanos. Comala is known for the uniform color of the town's buildings. They were all painted the same, white top half, red bottom half and orange interior walls. Recently the locals decided they wanted to show some individuality. So now some of the buildings have either blue, green or pink bottom halves. The top half of every building is still white.

The town's other uniqueness is a series of restaurants that serve Botanas (small plates of food), for free, when you order a drink. The waiters keep bringing new items until you ask them to stop. Mariachis are everywhere, both inside and out. It was a popular place, tasty, a nice lunch and it was very inexpensive.

My birthday party was much more fun than I anticipated. It was good to have a fine group a friends to help celebrate. Bill set up the party at "Restaurant Mary's" (Hmmm, I like that name). It's a palapa in the Barra de Navidad Lagoon with great food. They even added balloons and silly hats. You can see in the pictures on our website that no one minded being silly.

You do need to be mindful of the ambush with that fizzy tequila drink. I'm not sure what the ingredients are but they slam it on the table and it just start foaming away. It took me by surprise.

We also tried out the newest restaurant in Barra, Sambuca. Most just call it "the tree house restaurant" because it is located by a landmark major tree and gives the impression that it is a tree house with several levels. It has a limited menu but each item is excellent. Highly recommended.

We found the fish market which supplies the local restaurants also along the Barra Lagoon. So when we left we had a nice supply (3 kilos) of giant shrimp. Yum! They became Thai green curry and coconut shrimp, shrimp diablo and paella. Yum again. No, (thank heavens) we are not gaining weight with all this talk of food.

Our time was up in Barra and it was time to head north. We passed over Tenacatita and went directly to Chamela which we like better. I love being out on the water, moving, traveling to a new destination, wondering what we might see this time. Once there, we alerted Yonish the Polish dude who is a partner in Manuelitos Palapa, that we were up for perogi. He knew we were coming back so he was ready with his ingredients. He had a busy morning. The next day he served a perogi lunch to about 20 cruisers.
Yum. Oink. This is not a light dish. It is better suited for a cold winter evening. But it is still yummy.

Yonish also was able to give us the recipe for diablo sauce, at least his mother-in-law's. Later when I followed her recipe, I modified it slightly (adding the cabernet vinegar and honey) to achieve the bit of sweet and sour effect with the heat. Check the recipe section on our website for the revised recipe. In all fairness to her, Mexican catsup does taste different...much more sugar.

We spent four days in Chamela waiting for a favorable forecast to round Cabo Corrientes and return to Banderas Bay (Puerto Vallarta). While we were there, other boats pulled into the bay until 8 were queued up to head North.

In the past when we left Chamela headed North, we departed in the morning and stopped in Ipala for the night. Early the next morning we rounded Cabo Corrientes before it started to blow around noon. Ipala has added fish holding pens taking up a lot of the prime anchoring spots. We all had a major concern that all of the good anchoring spots would be taken. If we left in the morning and Ipala turned out to be full, we would be forced to anchor in a very uncomfortable spot in Ipala or round the cape
during the highest winds and seas.

We changed our habits and left with a group of 8 other boats at 4 PM on Feb 26th. We went non-stop to Puerto Vallarta. All started out fine but soon the winds built on our nose - only 18 to 20 knots - but the seas were short, square, choppy and confused. That is not good sleeping weather because the boat falls off the waves and slams. It's not too bad in the cockpit but down below it is much more dramatic.

We compensated by slowing the RPM's down and tacking out 30 degrees and them tacking back. That helped but it was still choppy and also took longer. Ipala was full so we could not stop there. But at that point conditions improved. We still had a few hours to go so sleep was in order...in shifts naturally.

Our timing was good. It was daylight when we reached Paradise Marina in Nuevo Vallarta and came right back to our old slip, E-44.

That was our February.

Stay tuned for our March fun in the continuing adventures of Mary and Bill on Raptor Dance!

Warmest Regards,
Mary Mack and Bill Finkelstein

A Busy Time in Zihuatanejo

2007-02-14T12:19:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone,

We hope you all have a Happy Valentine's day!

We also hope you are having an enjoyable winter wherever you are. We catch some of the weather reports for the states. It does not always sound pretty.

When we last gave you a major update, we were in Las Hadas about to depart for Zihuatanejo. Our weather report was for 10 to 15 Knots from the North West. That would have been good...in fact perfect. We would have a great sail.

What we encountered instead was 20 to 25 Knots on the nose with short choppy seas. This is not good. It would slow us down considerably and not be comfortable. We decided to turn around and go back to Las Hadas. The other 5 boats that left that morning returned also. The flowing day we had light winds from astern...a better trip, but not enough wind to sail.

During this 190 mile motor sail we had plenty of dolphin company, a few whales and a big group of turtles. We did not immediately recognize the turtles. At first I thought it was a marker for some long liners or big floating coconuts. They must have been sleeping. They were not active and didn't even wave. Sorry to say we did not have any nibbles on our fishing lines.

There were a few areas that must be good for the long line fishermen though. We saw a dozen or so long lines on our passage between Las Hadas and Zihuatanejo and about the same number on our way back.

Each long line can be 2 miles or more long. Every 30 to 40 feet along the main line is a 10 to 20 foot leader with bait. The main line is supported by empty 2 liter soda bottles used as floats. The whole assembly typically has a black flag at each end with a panga in attendance. If we can see the long line in time and if we can see the end flag, we try to go around.

Most of the time the main line sinks a little. So as long as the motor is off (I think they call that sailing!) or in neutral we can carefully pass over a section - aiming for halfway between the soda bottle floats. Unfortunately, we have found some lines floating just under the surface.

Coming north from Zihuatanejo we managed to pass over one of these long lines but caught 3 of our 4 hand fishing lines on it. That made it necessary for us put the engine in neutral (there was no wind at the moment) and pull in our lines which pulled Raptor Dance backwards to the long line (we use 200 pound test line). Then we were able to unhook our lines. Funny, we decided to do without our fishing lines for the rest of this trip.

After one overnight we arrived in Zihuatanejo the following morning, just a bit tired. Zihuatanejo looked very different than it did in the early 1980's when I had been there before. It was still charming but much more busy and had greatly spread out. Plus cruise ships come in 3 times a week. Those cruise ship cruisers do not spend much time in town though. It is very convenient to provision your boat. The local mercado (farmers market) and the big "Commercial" (a large chain store) are nearby.

A local fellow, Nathaniel was available at one spot in the beach to help dingy's land and exit the surf. It amounted to valet parking for dingys. Very handy.

Another enterprising Mexican, Ishmael would bring fuel, water, drinks, etc to the boat plus take care of picking up and delivering your laundry. He and his wife were kept busy with the 100+ boats in the anchorage.

There are plenty of palapas and other restaurants available. One of Zihuatanejo's specialties is pozole, in red, green or white variety. This is a hominy based soup with lots of other goodies, very tasty. The green is our favorite.

Playa las Gatos was the snorkeling location across Zihuatanejo bay with cleaner water, a variety of fish and a nicely located palapa at the point. It was good to be back in the water. If we return to Zihuatanejo we'll anchor at Playa la Ropa with an additional stern anchor. It is further from town but the water is cleaner. And the stern anchor reduces the effect of the swell.

The big event was Sail Fest see: http://www.zihuasailfest.com/ - a four day program to raise money for the local schools and school children. It is a very worthwhile cause.

Rick's Bar was cruiser central and the center of action for activities included registering (paying a fee, signing up for volunteer activities, and receiving tee shirts), chili cook off, seminars, school kids beach party, beach pot luck, local music artists CD, seminar CDs, musicians performance at the Blue Mamou, raffles, auctions, soliciting local businesses and cruisers for donations for the raffles or just money, and a boat parade from Ixtapa to Zihuatanejo (carrying paying passengers). Needless to say, we could not be involved in every event. It would have been overwhelming.

While Bill was giving a seminar on Marine and Ham SSB Radio, Winlink, Sailmail and computers (handout posted at http://raptordance.com/sailfest.pdf ) - I went to visit the present school, the new school site and the one school that has already been build from Z Fest money. The present school is made from scrap lumber. The floor boards are flexible and the ground is eroding. So the school is now perched on edge of the eroding hillside. But the children seem happy, energetic and very anxious to learn. Depending on the money that comes in, those with the best grades are given a scholarship to be able to continue their education. At present it costs $250 for one child's school expenses for one year.

The one school that was already built is very basic but built to last. $85,000 was raised this year. That will allow the new school project to begin.

We entered the chili competition. Bill and I created a great chili recipe and cooked a great chili. In fact we won! There were 17 entrants, some cruisers and local restaurants. We've posted he recipe on our website. So feel free to try it yourself. Our friends Linda Frakes and Marie and Don from Freezing Rain helped us serve.

The following day we moved to the small island outside the Bay, Isla Grande, aka Isla Ixtapa. It was a good plan. Because of the "nutrient rich" environment in Zihuatanejo Bay and the local temperature (10 degrees hotter than Barra) it is a very active marine growth area. In other words, our chain, prop and the bottom of the boat needed a good cleaning. In just 10 days there was so much growth on our prop that it slowed our motoring speed by 2 knots, as we went to Isla Grande. As we scrubbed the bottom, this small cove became packed with power boats from Ixtapa and a few more sail boats. But by 6PM all of the day boats were gone.

With a clean bottom we headed north the next morning. "Light and variable winds" turned out to be more "noserly" winds and choppy seas. So besides a rollicking ride, lots of salt water over the boat and the snagging of the long line (previously mentioned) it was a fine ride. Once we turned past Punta San Telmo it calmed enough to sleep well.

It was wonderful returning to Las Hadas, our friends on Liberty and Fafner, the hotel pool and a Pechugón pollo dinner. That's the place with the great roasted chicken and potatoes.

We waited to get to Barra to clean off the salt deposits on the boat and up the mast - we had thick deposits everyone on the boat. I wonder if there's a market for "Raptor Dance Sal de Mer"?

Refreshed with a full night's sleep we continued onto Barra Navidad the next morning, accompanied by 2 humpback whales (pod a du?). It was a calm and short passage back to Marina Isla Navidad.

We do love the variety anchorages and marinas provide.

We hope your lives are full of variety too, whatever direction you take.

Warmest Regards,
Mary and Bill

Raptor Red Top of the Food Chain Chili Recipe

2007-02-12T12:38:00.000-05:00

This is our Chili recipe that won the Chili Cook Off at Sail Fest in Zihuatanejo on Saturday, Feb 3, 2007. It's a flavorful red beef chili with a deep flavor and pleasant back heat.

This is quite a different Chili than our team prepared at Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta which won the competition in December 2006.

This recipe is fairly complex and should be prepared at least a day ahead to allow the flavors to blend. It freezes and reheats well. Serve with a dollop of Toasted Cumin Crema (recipe below).

You will need to do a lot of tasting as you go along to get the best results.

The pot is important. It should be big enough to hold the whole batch. The pot should also have a thick bottom to spread the heat so the chili doesn't burn.

We don't have a big pot on board and borrowed one from fellow cruisers. It was fairly thin metal, so we used a flame spreader.

We used 2 separate fry pans to toast or sweat (lower heat than a sauté) the components before adding to them to the pot.

The following makes approximately 2 gallons of Chili.

-----

Preparation:

The Meat:

The meat is very important. You want a flavorful cut of beef with some connective tissue. Chuck is preferred. Flank steak or skirt steak are also fine. We used 3 Kilos (7 pounds) of un-marinated Arrachara, Mexican skirt steak.

The Chili Molé (gravy):

A good guide to identifying chilies can be found on the web at http://www.chillisgalore.co.uk/pages/varietys1.html

Dried Chilies (possibly more of each if small, buy extras):
2 Chipotlé
3 Ancho
4 Pasilla
5 Cascabel
4 New Mexican
3 Guajillo

Remove the seeds and stems from the dried chilies. Then toast the dried chilies (except the chipotles) in a dry pan until fragrant, be careful not to burn.

Pour boiling water over the toasted chilies and allow to rehydrate 30 minutes.

Scrape the meat off the skin of the chipotles and cascabeles (or any other thick skinned chilies) and put in a blender. Do not use their skins. Thin skin chilies can be added directly to the blender.

Add water to the blender to cover. Taste the chili soaking water and use it if not bitter. Blend until smooth.

This should produce around 1 liter of a very thick sauce.

The Aromatics:

3 Poblano chilies, seeded and diced
2 Jalapeño chilies, seeded and diced
3 to 4 Large Red Onions, finely diced
1/2 cup of chopped garlic

Other Ingredients:

* Olive Oil
3 bottles of dark beer, we used Indio
5 Oz of dark, semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
3 14 1/2 oz cans of chopped tomatoes
1 6 oz can of tomato paste
3 14 1/2 cans of black beans, drained
3 Tbsp ground cumin

Ingredients to balance taste and consistency:

* Beef Broth
* Fresh lime juice
* Sweetener (maple syrup, honey or Agave nectar)
* Fresh grated nutmeg
* Salt and pepper
* Hot Sauce or Salsa

-----

Cooking:

Add approximately 1 Tsp Olive Oil in your frying pan (we had 2 pans going at the same time) and brown the beef in small batches.

Do not crowd the pan. You want to brown the beef not steam it, do not burn the beef. When the surface of the beef cubes has a deep brown color, Add the batch of beef to your pot.

Between batches, deglaze the frying pan with some of the beer, reduce slightly and add to the pot.

When all the beef is done, add 1 Tsp of Olive Oil to the pan(s) and sweat the aromatics. Season with salt as you add each aromatic.

Start with the fresh Chilies, sweat 2 or 3 minutes until fragrant (be careful of the fumes), add the onions, sweat for 2 minutes more, then add the garlic and sweat for another 1 minute. Add to the pot.

Now add the Chili Molé, chocolate, chopped tomatoes, remaining beer, ground cumin and black beans to the pot.

Note - REAL Chili does not have beans in it! You can omit them and have a heartier chili. We added them to extend the recipe for the contest and because we like the taste.

Bring the pot up to a gentle simmer. Stir frequently to prevent burning and to blend completely. Simmer at least 2 hours until the meat is tender, but still has a little bite to it.

During the cooking, you should taste the chili and add the following ingredients:

* Beef Broth - as needed to reduce thickness
* Fresh lime juice - as needed to increase the brightness of the chili
* Sweetener (maple syrup, honey or Agave nectar) - as needed to balance the flavor
* Fresh grated nutmeg - as needed to add flavor complexity
* Salt and pepper - to taste
* Hot Sauce or Salsa to increase heat

When plating, add a dollop of Toasted Cumin Crema to each serving.

-----

Toasted Cumin Crema (also prepare a day ahead to meld flavors):

1 Tbsp cumin seeds
1 Cup Mexican crema or creme fraiche
* salt and pepper to taste

Place the cumin seeds in a dry sauté or fry pan over medium heat. Toast until lightly golden brown and fragrant, do not burn.

Place in a small bowl, stir in the crema and season with salt and pepper to taste. To dispense, put in a squeeze bottle with a big enough nozzle to not clog with the seeds.

Bara de Navidad to Las Hadas

2007-01-23T12:39:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone,

We hope this new year has been good to you.

After several weeks at anchor and having had a fine time in Tenacatita we decided to move on to the next destination.

Barra de Navidad is just 9.3 miles around the corner. We had originally planned to anchor in the lagoon. But we were both ready for Isla Navidad Marina, with all it's amenities. It is a lovely sight, as you round the corner and see the town to the right with it's multi colored buildings, the well kept marina, the interesting salmon colored hotel with all the levels, the terraces with swimming pools, the lush vegetation and the little island just off shore covered with palm trees and flowering plants. The island can be reserved for special times...like a romantic dinner.

We love being at anchor but were ready to be back in a marina and plugged in.

We had a great time wandering around the town of Barra and sampling the restaurants. We are actually eating on board more than we had in the past though. The bus service is very good and we used that to go to the nearby town of Melaque during the day.

Melaque is very different than Barra and interesting to see. One night we heard Latcho and Andrea, the Blond Gypsies playing in Melaque at restaurant Maya. Many of the other cruisers are familiar with their lovely Spanish Guitar and Flamingo music. That evening we can easily say that we knew more than half of the dinners...other cruising friends. This restaurant is lovely with excellent food. It is a little Mexican but more California cuisine. We enjoyed the lively evening. I'm just sorry that I did not bring my castanets.

Our expected five day stay stretched into ten. One of the things we really enjoy is our time at and in the pool. There usually are not very many hotel guests, so we have the run of the place. But the last few days a (very white, soon to be red) contingent of builders and suppliers from Minnesota arrived and filled every room in the hotel. The pools were overwhelmed. Luckily we had heard about some other, out of the way, pools situated throughout the hotel. Ah. Our own pool, large enough to swim laps, was waiting for us among the suites.

This actually turned out to be a busy week for the hotel and marina. A fishing tournament was also being held over the weekend. This brought out the Mariachi bands and tequila and brought in the sailfish (vella pesce), swordfish, dorado (mahi-mahi), and tuna...big tuna. After watching the men clean the fish, I know very well how to fillet our tuna. Now if we can just catch one. At that size, we only need one!

On our way from Barra to Santiago Bay we had four fishing lines in the water without even a nibble. Too bad. Santiago Bay is a new place to us and we anchored in the area by the town of Santiago. It was a little rolly at night with the swells coming in broad side. The next day, the tide was so high that if we went into shore, we would be landing among the tables and chairs of the beach palapas. OK, it is time for a change of plans. We upped anchor and moved around into the next lobe and anchored off the Las Hadas hotel. Some may remember this from the movie Ten.

This is perfect for us. It is a calm anchorage, and we can use the dingy dock and hotel facilities. So this means that we do not need to do a dingy landing on the beach...so civilized. We'll have our more primitive anchorages later in the Sea of Cortez. So for now we can be pampered. Yes, there is another lovely pool with pool service. The water in the anchorage is very clear too with quite a few fish and turtles. Another great thing is that we finally crossed paths with some of our best friends including, Yvette, Carl, Joel and Kyle on Liberty and Karen and Bill on Miela.

Life is good. We are sitting here on the boat, watching the sunset feeling energized and wonderfully at peace at the same time. This over whelming feeling of well being comes over us through out our voyage. Sometimes it has to do with the spectacular sunset, the colorful sunrises, the feeling we have that we are part fish while we are in the water, or how the mountains look in the distance in the changing sunlight. It is not limited to these times though. This has been/is a very special time for the two of us.

Tomorrow we will leave at day break for and overnight sail to Zihuatanejo. Maybe there is tuna waiting for us along the way.

Our best to you all. We look forward to hearing from you.

Warmest regards,
Mary and Bill

Happy New Year from Bahia Tenacatita

2007-01-02T13:41:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year Everyone!

Gosh, you sure can keep busy when cruising!

We left Ipala on December 24th and proceeded down to Bahia de Chamela (Chamela Bay). Chamela was as nice as we remembered it. Lot's of Palapas (Beach Restaurants) and a small town with a few Tiendas (small grocery stores). Unlike two years ago, when we were the only cruisers in the bay, there were 5 boats in the anchorage. There were many Mexican families there for the holiday week, but not as many as two years ago. Apparently tourism is down a bit in Mexico so it wasn't quite as crowded.

Miguelito's Palapa had among the best food. A Polish ex-patriot, Yonish is partnered with Miguel and serves as manager and sometimes cook. He will arrange for special dinners with advance notice. Unfortunately, he couldn't get the ingredients together to cook Perogi for us before we left. We did have a great shrimp dish, however. He calls it Camarones (Shrimp) 4 x 4: 4 large shrimp cooked each of 4 different ways. It was great!

We stayed at Chamela until the 27th enjoying the anchorage. The dingy landings were a little challenging as there was a little surf - 2 feet or so, but we were cautious and landed between sets and didn't dump going in or out.

We then continued on to Tenacatita, one of our favorite anchorages on this section of coast. Tenacatita is a huge well protected bay and we're anchored here with a few dozen other cruisers. On Saturday Dec 30, we took our dingy on the jungle passage to the other lobe of the bay where there are many Palapas and two Tiendas. Things are a bit more developed than they were two years ago and the brand new Tienda was fairly well stocked.

Every year in Tenacatita one of the cruisers "volunteers" to be mayor. This year it's Chris and Heather on Legacy, http://www.legacysailing.com/

Unfortunately, they've been delayed in Mazatlan and won't arrive until tomorrow, January 3rd. So Bill was asked to set up the New Years activities.

We did a dingy raft up for New Years Eve. Basically we anchored our dingy (we have a little 6 pound Fortress anchor) off a side beach and 10 other cruisers tied their dingys to ours. We then passed appetizers around, introduced ourselves and waited for midnight. We then toasted the new year and continued chatting until the bugs came out - we anchored a bit too close to the beach and the bugs came out at sundown... Oh, did I mention that we celebrated at midnight Greenwich Mean Time? That's 6 PM local time. That way everyone is awake! At local midnight the hotel across the bay shot off fireworks so we got to celebrate twice.

On New Years Day, we arrange for a BBQed Rib lunch at 2 PM at the Palapa on the beach. We had 30 cruisers attend. After that we played a few rounds of Mexican Train Dominoes until sunset, when the bugs started to come out again. We then went back to our boats and had a relaxing evening.

Bugs in Tenacatita will only bother you on the mountain hike, jungle trip or on the beach at dusk. They don't come far enough off shore to get to the anchored boats, except those who are anchored very close to the beach.

The next day, we went hiking in the hills with Dave on Deja 2 who showed us the trail to the other side of the bay. It's an alternative to the dingy trip through the jungle. It's about a 5 KM hike. I don't think we'll be doing this one with groceries.

Today, we're taking it easy. Bill is doing various chores and Mary is working on jewelry projects.

We did turn on the cell phone and discovered that Telmex finished their tower project and we now have cell phone coverage! A few days ago, we only had our satellite phone. We're surprised at how much further the cell phone coverage has expanded in the last two years. There are very few places we've been that are not now covered.

We also have intermittant WiFi Internet coverage. Not enough for web surfing or updating our pictures, but enough to do occasional emails - please continue to contact us on our winlink.org address as coverage isn't good enough to reliably pick up our raptordance.com emails.

We love hearing from you but remember to send us a NEW message, don't reply and send this message back to us. Our winlink email is extremely slow! We haven't heard from some of you in a while, so drop us a note and let us know how you are doing!

You can see where we've been and where we are via our position reporter link at:
http://www.winlink.org/positions/PosReportsDetail.aspx?callsign=WB6JAO
Be sure to click the "Satellite" link and zoom in on one of the balloons to get a fantastic view of where we are.

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

At Anchor in Ipala

2006-12-23T19:48:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone!

We're on the move again after a wonderful stay in Puerto Vallarta.

Right now we're anchored in Ipala, just about 14 nautical miles South of Cabo Corrientes - just South of Banderas Bay. We left Paradise Village this morning at 630 AM and arrived just at 2 PM.

We launched our dingy and had a lovely lobster early dinner. Very tasty and very inexpensive. Just over $30 total for a 5 pound lobster grilled with garlic butter, which we split between us.

We delayed our departure a few days to see our very good friends, Lani Spund, June Lundstrom and Paul Rosenthal (we hadn't seen Paul in over 20 years!). They all were in town for a day on a cruise ship on a 7 day cruise from LA.

Tomorrow morning we're off to the Bahia de Chamela (Chamela Bay) - 50 nautical miles south of here. We'll meet up with Holly and Denis on their Perry 46 Catamaran "Tango" for Christmas. Two years ago, we were the only cruisers in Chamela for Christmas and it was wonderful with all the Mexican families, kids and Grandmas with home made tequila!

We'll give a full report in a few days.

Warmest Holiday Wishes to All!

Bill and Mary

Adventures in Puerto Vallarta

2006-12-12T14:55:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone!

We've been remiss at sending out an update as we've been so busy since we arrived here in Puerto Vallarta on November 14th.

The passage from Cabo San Lucas was quite uneventful. We cast off at 11 AM on Nov 12th, filled up at the fuel dock and headed out.

The remains of a tropical storm had left unsettled weather along our route, but nothing worrisome. We had no winds to speak of, with a few scattered rain clouds with distant thunder and lightning. Seas weren't too bad either. The second day all that cleared out. Unlike two years ago, we didn't have enough wind to sail so we had to motor sail the whole way.

We arrived in Paradise Village at 8 AM on the Nov 14th and pulled right into our assigned slip, E-44. This is way out at the end of the Resort and Marina (which ends at E-60). This is so far out, that locally it's referred to as "Tepic", after a town that's about 100 miles North of here.

It's actually quite pleasant down here - It's well protected, quiet, with no surge from the harbor entrance. The only disadvantages are that it's a quarter mile or more walk up the dock to the Yacht Club and the Cable TV signal mostly poops out before it get's here. We only get about a dozen, snowy channels of the 70 or so available (this is supposed to be fixed soon).

It is a good place to spot the alligators while sitting on the boat or exploring the canals beyond our dock. The mangrove trees make it look like a jungle, interspersed with lovely homes.

What is really eerie is going up the canal at night to to the "Fajita Republic" restaurant. It is totally dark except for maybe a distant light until reaching the restaurant. Just up from a dilapidated dock is the open air rustic dinning deck strung with cords of welcoming hanging lights. Good food and interesting ambiance.

The first week here was consumed with errands, boat chores and catching up with friends that we haven't seen in a while. Then off on Nov 20th, by plane, to Harrisburg PA to spend Thanksgiving with Mary's family. We had a great time visiting the family and cooking Thanksgiving dinner. The time went too fast though and soon we found ourselves back in PV.

Upon our return on Tuesday the November 28th, we joined Alice's Spanish class over at Estudio Cafe. We took the first 6 (of 10) lessons from her 2 years ago and were delighted to find that they were up to lesson 6 when we were able to rejoin. We've not missed a one since. The 10th and final lesson of her beginner series is tomorrow, Dec 13th.

Before we left for Thanksgiving, we were already organizing a trip to El Eden for a canopy tour on Nov 30th: Flying through the tree tops over a river on zip lines. So many other friends wanted to come too that we ended up with a group of 20. We had a blast zipping, eating and then sipping tequila at a local distillery. This was constructed using the old site of Schwarzenegger's Terminator movie.

The following Saturday, Dec 2nd, was the Chili Cook-off, one of our favorite events. We joined the team organized by Heidi and John on Raven. We did most of the cooking as Heidi was busy coordinating the decorations too. The team made a pirate ship out of cardboard as the team theme was "Queen Anne's Revenge - Blackbeard's favorite Chili". We re-used our pirate costumes that we had onboard for the event. I guess we were quite a site. Some of the local Mexicans were asking to pose with Bill and I and have their picture taken.

It was a great success! The team won both for best decoration and best Chili! Mary is already thinking of a possible theme for next year.

The following week we relaxed as Bill had come down with a scratchy throat. That means Bill on the computer and Mary making jewelry.

Last Saturday Nov 11th, we went over to the El Farol Restaurant in Jarretaderas (the village about 2 miles from here) with Anne and Charlie from Sunseeker to enjoy a classic Mexican holiday dish: Chiles en Nogada (Chilies in Walnut Sauce) see http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/000114print.php for a picture and recipe. It was quite delicious!

The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is today, the 12th of December. The celebration of her day started on the Dec 1st and is continuing thru today.

There have been parades every day in the evening with floats, music, great costumes, dancing, and the locals families marching with candles. Plus all along the parade route to the church are street vendors selling all sorts of foods that we love to sample.

Hopefully we can get some of our pictures posted soon!

Warmest Regards to all for a Happy Holidays!

Bill and Mary

Ha-ha to Puerto Vallarta

2006-11-18T08:56:00.000-05:00

Greetings everyone,

Let us just give you a wrap up of the Ha Ha. It was great fun, making new friend and seeing some old friends. There were over 600 Ha Ha participants so we never did meet everyone. But with Bill and I circulating separately we did meet a large number. In Turtle Bay we had a major pot luck and a good time to meet other cruisers. imagine a pot luck with 160 dishes.

One dramatic moment came when the crew of one boat attempted a beach landing in their dingy. It was instructional in how NOT to do a beach landing. The boat actually went vertical end over front with arms and legs flying. They were fine and even the salad for the pot luck survived. You can see a picture of this on 'Lectronic Latitude at:
http://www.latitude38.com/LectronicLat/2006/1106/Nov15/Nov15.html

Bahia Santa Maria was especially nice. The water was perfect for swimming. The surf was not too bad for landing the dingy. And the party was great. There's no village, just some fisherman's shacks. A super band from La Paz showed up with their amplifiers and a generator to power it. They were just asking for tips. They did well.

Also cooks and helpers arrived with lobster, shrimp, fish and all the trimmings, including lots of beer and ice for the party. They had to wait for low tide to be able to drive their trucks across the hard sand. We liked this bay so much that we were tempted to stay for a few more days. Some people did.

But we did push off for the last leg of the Ha Ha, to Cabo San Lucas. The wind was quite light so we motored the entire way, getting in just after dawn, as all the fishing boats came rushing out of the marina. Last time it was very noisy in the marina as the fishing boats left each morning. This time we were well positioned and did not have any of the noise. The same agricultural inspector as in 2004 came and was much more pleasant. She was only looking for beef. So we were fine. She didn't take any meat and I was able to keep the racks of lamb that we had. Hooray!

Cabo is very built up, and not a favorite of ours. Some call it Mexifornia. But we still had a good time. We had been getting lots of calls for information (which was fine) but by this time it was getting to be a bit too much. One morning we were getting ready to go up to the dock for breakfast and Bill hardly had time to get his pants on. Calls were coming in one after another. Our favorite restaurant in Cabo is NikSan (Japanese). We had excellent meals there. The first night it was a big gathering at Squid Row, lots of music and dancing. They even have the tables built extra strong for all the dancing done on top of tables. Somewhere around 11PM it just got too crowded so we returned to out floating home. All the other folks in our age group agreed that, while fun, we did not need to repeat that for several years.

The next day was another gathering at the beach with music, food drink and games. At this point we were saying good byes to some new friend and making arrangements to keep in touch or figure out where our paths would cross in the next few months.

It was all winding down now. The only thing left was the awards ceremony. Bill, along with Debbie from Sailor's Run, took a prize by popular demand for being on the radio the most. Bill also got a really great bottle of Tequila for running the radio net during the Ha-ha since the organizer's radio broke down. We came in third for our division. That may sound good but you must know the truth. For each division there is a first, a second and everyone else gets third.

The way to win is to sail all or most of the way but this was not so much a race as a rally.
The very next day we were ready ready ready to be on our way to Puerto Vallarta. To be continued...

Have a great weekend ya all,

Mary and Bill

Fish on!

2006-11-05T17:15:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone!

We're almost to Bahia Santa Maria and we caught our first fish! Actually two.

Just as we sat down for lunch we started across a seamount and caught 2 Dorado in 5 minutes. These are our first fish on this trip (we didn't really try until today).

The bigger was 42 inches and 18 pounds, the small 25 inches and about 12 pounds.

Fish in the freezer for dinner ;-}

Regards to all,
Mary and Bill

Bahia de Tortugas - Turtle Bay

2006-11-03T11:58:00.000-05:00

Hola,

We are happy boaters, smiling broadly with the sun shinning down on us in Turtle Bay.

When we left San Diego we were still bundled up. We also had a nice breeze once we past the Point Loma lighthouse. At the start we were only doing 4 to 5 knots with our spinnaker up. Past the light house it got to be more fun as we passed one boat after another...not that we are racers by any means...but that is still too much fun. Soon we found ourselves looking back at most of the fleet. We are the smallest boat in our division, so we figured the larger boats were far ahead.

We were moving right along with the spinnaker until after dark. Then the winds lightened so we choose to start the motor. We also planned to sleep (3 hours for Mary, then 3 for Bill) and we did not want to fly the spinnaker single handed. But as soon as possible in the morning we had the spinnaker flying again. Yahoo! As the wind shifted to directly behind us we changed our sail plan to wing on wing. This means having the main out as far as possible on one side and the jib on a pole out on the other side.

Wow! This was great. We were flying right along over 8 knots. That's good. We stayed with that through the night and into the morning. Only when we were ready to pass between Isla Cedros and Isla Benito did we pull the main in and drop the jib. This made it possible for us to change course as needed more easily. To our surprise, this was the only place where we could see other Ha Ha boats on our radar. During the night we did cross paths with cruise ships and fishing boats.

Night sailing is special in it's own way, the moon on the water and the brilliant starts (particularly after the moon sets) are majestic sights that most of us urban dwellers don't usually see. Sailing along with the phosphorescent glow of the boat's wake are simply fantastic.

As we approached Turtle Bay the sun came out and we could shed our coats. Ah. After we passed the finish line we still had more than an hour to go to the anchorage. There were only a handful of boats in the bay at this time. It certainly felt good once we were anchored, even if we were a little short on sleep. We actually managed the night shifts better this time. We tried to get a little nap during the day, which helped. Also the seas were more gentle than when we did the Ha Ha in 2004.

The beach and the palapas called to us. So did all the children on the dock vying for our attention to "watch" our dinghy. They watched and we went to the nearest little restaurant for a lunch of pesce con mojo de ajo y cerveza fria (fish in garlic sauce and cold beer). Yum! There we met and joined the folks from a couple of other boats who arrived before us.

We got right into the swing of things, seeing friends, meeting new boaters, checking out the town. Once Bill's expertise was know, we were swamped with calls for help with radios and VHF etc. Luckily there was another boater that actually fixes radios for a living. So he helped some folks too. Last night the folks on Salt Whistle shared margaritas and their fresh catch of tuna with us, after Bill helped them with their radio. They were the Cave Clan at the "kick off" party.

Interestingly Profligate's Marine Radio was acting up, so Bill volunteered (or got drafted, depending on how you look at it) into being net control for the HaHa Fleet. All the expertise available was not able to fix their radio in Turtle Bay, so Bill is now officially net control for the Marine SSB net for the rest of the Haha. If you have a radio and are interested in listening in, it's at 4.146 Mhz (Marine 4A) at 730AM PST.

This will be our last day in Turtle Bay. The plan is for a pot luck beach party. Can you picture over 700 people on this beach, lots of food tables, music and local Mexican beer concesiones.

Warmest Regards to all,
Mary and Bill

Start of the Ha-ha

2006-10-30T19:15:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone!

What a wonderful day.

It's a bit cooler today than it's been for a while, but we got off to a great start this morning at 11:00 AM PST on the Baja Ha-ha. Next Stop, Bahia de Tortugas - Turtle Bay. At the present rate of progress, we should arrive around the middle of the day on Wednesday.

We left the Silver Gate Yacht Club Guest Dock this morning at 9:15 AM and made our way out to the start area. We arrived a bit early, so we motored around as the fleet gathered. There were 183 sign ups for this years rally and around 160 started. We'll have a better number tomorrow or so.

The start with this many boats is always a little hectic, so we held back from the crowd until after the start. After all it's a cruisers' rally and not really a race.

We were better prepared today than ever before and got our spinnaker up just at the start. The winds were light so we only were doing 5 knots or so for the first hour. Then the winds picked up (to around 15 knots maximum) and our speed picked up to. We have consistently averaged around 7.5 knots. We've even had periods in excess of 8!

It's now approaching sunset and winds are starting to diminish and move aft, so we're slowing down to under 7. We'll see how this holds and figure out what to do as we approach nightfall.

During the day we worked our way by most of the fleet and are now among the front 10% of the boats. We think, it's hard to figure as the boats have spread out all over the place.

We've had an occasional dolphin playing around the boat and have had an overall wonderful day.

That's the news from Raptor Dance - off the coast of Baja just off Ensenada.

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Ha-Ha Tomorrow!

2006-10-30T01:12:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone!

We just posted pictures of some of our highlights for the month of October on our website at http://raptordance.com

It's been a very busy 2 1/2 weeks since we got to San Diego. We ran innumerable boat errands, shopped till we dropped and generally got everything ship shape.

We had a lovely stay on the guest dock of the Silver Gate Yacht Club on Shelter Island. http://www.sgyc.org The members and staff were extremely friendly and the food in their dining room was outstanding.

Also, on October 21st we drove up to Upland California for Bill's 40th high school reunion. We saw lots of old friends. Six of the folks at the reunion went to the same elementary, middle and high schools. 5 of them were even with Bill in Kindergarten!

Today was the kickoff party for the rally to Mexico, the Baja Ha-ha see http://www.baja-haha.com and we leave the dock tomorrow at 9AM for Mexico!

We'll post position reports a few times a day, so you can follow our progress via the position reporter link on our website or directly at:
http://www.winlink.org/positions/PosReportsDetail.aspx?callsign=WB6JAO

We won't be able to check our "raptordance.com" email for the next few weeks, so use this, our winlink.org address to contact us.

Remember, please don't REPLY to this address. Send us a NEW Message!

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Dolphins at Dawn!

2006-10-12T11:48:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

Just a quick update on the news from Raptor Dance.

We had a great time the last two weeks over on Catalina Island. We met many new friends who will be going on the Ha-ha and had an interesting time at Buccaneer days. We'll report more fully in a later post.

We left Avalon Harbor just before midnight for the run over to San Diego. It was a quiet night with a just past full moon. It was a beautiful passage.

Then at dawn, we were greeted with many Dolphins playing around the boat. They've been coming and going for over an hour.

We'll be arriving at the Silver Gate Yacht Club in San Diego on Shelter Island around 10:30 AM this morning and are looking forward to seeing all our local family and friends.

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Catalina Island - Cat Harbor

2006-10-01T11:57:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

We had a wonderful week in Marina del Rey visiting with my Dad, Sam; Brother, Bob and Sister-in-law, Stephanie. We stayed at my old stomping ground, the California Yacht Club. We saw a few of my old friends, but there are a lot of new faces at the club. It was 1992 when I moved North and stopped being a club regular.

We left Marina del Rey on Friday the 29th at 10:15 AM and motored out of Santa Monica Bay in Fog and 1 to 2 mile visibility and light winds. After we passed Palos Verdes the skies cleared and we had a wonderful close reach over to the Catalina Isthmus. Again, as on our 2004 trip, this was one of the best "sails" of our trip down the coast.

We tied up at mooring G2 at the Isthmus, got out the dingy and went in to Doug's for a famous "Buffalo Milk". They're much richer than I remembered (from 15 years ago!) so we switched to beer.

The anchorage was so rolly all night that we got up at 11 PM and rigged the "Flopper Stopper". This is the first time we've used it in all our cruising so it took about an hour to figure out, rig up and deploy.

Our Flopper Stopper is an aluminum contraption 2' x 3' consisting of a frame and one way flaps. Hung off the end of our spinnaker pole, off the side of our boat, completely submerged, it acts like a one way valve. When we roll to that side of the boat, the flaps open and the water flows through. When the boat starts to roll the other way, the flaps shut and the whole think acts like a sea anchor, damping the roll. It works pretty well, we were able to sleep the rest of the night.

Enough with this nonsense! Saturday morning we talked with the Harbor Patrol and switched to mooring N1 in Cat Harbor. We're less than a mile from our original mooring, but it's absolutely flat water.

Oh, for those not familiar with Catalina Island, we did have to motor around to the other side of Catalina as Cat Harbor is on the South side of the Island and Isthmus Harbor is on the North. We left at 9:15 AM from the Isthmus and were moored in Cat Harbor by 1130. We went around the West End of Catalina for short passage of 15 nautical miles.

Cat Harbor is wonderful and quiet as it's on the "back side" of Catalina. It gets very little traffic as most folks stay on the side closest to the mainland. It's only about a 1/2 mile walk from the Cat Harbor dingy dock to Isthmus Harbor, so we can still easily get to the little store, restaurant and Doug's Harbor Reef Bar.

We're going to stay here until Monday the Oct 9th, when we'll move to Avalon, then on to San Diego the morning of the 12th. We plan to do a lot of hiking up in the hills and go diving while we're here.

This coming weekend (Oct 7th) is buccaneer days at the Isthmus. It should be very interesting... We have our "2nd string" pirate costumes at the ready (we're saving our best ones for the Ha-ha kickoff party).

That's the latest from Raptor Dance!

Warmest Regards to all,
Bill and Mary

Santa Barbara and Channel Islands Harbor

2006-09-21T15:01:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone!

After arriving safely in Santa Barbara on Monday, Sept 11th, we got caught up in the social whirlwind, meeting some of this year's Ha-Ha cruisers.

Our trip down was uneventful. The most difficult part was at 10PM, trying to see all the channel markers as we left Morro Bay. We had fog almost the entire way. Going around Point Conception was remarkable only because the sun was shinning brightly as it rose. That did not last long. The fog retuned.

I managed to sleep some on the way down. Bill did not do as well. It was rather amusing seeing him later in the day in that "fun stage" of sleep deprivation. Being an expert in sleep deprivation from my years in the OR, I recognized what was going on with him and let him enjoy it.

Santa Barbara was an enjoyable place for us. The town is so accessible from the marina. We mainly walked but shuttles were available to the marina and up and down State Street, the main street through old town.

There is a wonderful farmers' market on Tuesdays with all sorts of vegetables and fruits, even Dragon fruit, flowers and grass-fed beef. The aromas of the basil, mint, cilantro, etc. mingled with the Spanish guitar being played in the background.

State Street is lined with restaurants and shops. These feet stop at all the interesting shops. But that's not where I made my purchases. That I reserved for Sarah's gems. Sarah and Darrell, our dock neighbor's from Alameda, were in Santa Barbara too. Sarah makes beautiful one of a kind jewelry. See http://www.saraherickson.com for just some of her work.

We even had a little fun trying out the Segways at the local dealership see http://www.segway.com/ We have seen some power boats with them ready to go on the stern. But they are still to big for our boat. Fun and easy though. What a great way to get around if you lived in town!

The best part was all the people we met. The last time we saw Pat, a single hander, was in Port Angeles, Washington. Stan, who we met in Monterey, arrived before us. Carl, Yvette, Joel and Kyle on Liberty came in the next day. Sarah and Darrell unfortunately were not continuing south with us yet. We spent some time getting to know Richard and Andrea, Flamenco dancers on Saete. They are planning on performing to finance their journey to Spain.

Then Richard, Karen and Richard (their son), on Chessie, arrived and docked by us just in time for us to convince them to do the Baja Ha-ha with us. No sooner had they pulled out than Chere with Charles and Cathy pulled in...friends made in last month in Alameda.

Now my memory is being challenged with all the names. I know I am forgetting some of them already. And to think there are 182 boats signed up for the Ha-ha all with at least 2 folks on board and many with 4 or more!

Down the road we'll get to spend more time with Mark, his wife and little 2 year old girl on Southern Star. Same with Mike Moorehouse and his wife who were busy with boat projects. We had been expecting Robyn and Chris with their boat Robyn's Nest (nice cozy name)for a couple of days. So we were happy to see them pull in.

The biggest surprise came from some buddies that we met on the 2004 Ha Ha. We kept extending our time in Santa Barbara for a couple more days. We were having too good of a time. It was a good thing. Rob and Shannon were bringing their new 1990 Angel 56 Pilot House Motor Yacht down to Mexico in a hurry. So they were not making many stops in order to get Rob back to work on Sunday. So into Santa Barbara they come with Rob and Shannon, Craig and Barbara (who sold their boat Capella) and Roger and Mona (who also sold their boat Cherokee Eagle). What a sight for sore eyes! They looked jubilant but a little tired as they/we all toasted to "cheating death again" done on arrival to each destination. John and Kay Semon of Semonship (their boat is docked in Santa Barbara) drove down to make our group complete.

Santa Barbara held one more surprise for us...a wind shift that brought fine ash down on us and the entire area. It came from the fires roaring away up near Magic Mountain. That lasted for two days. Then the wind shifted again to blow it in the opposite direction. It was a pain to be scrubbing it off the boat. At least we could hose down and scrub the boat. It's not so easy for the home owners.

We finally broke our ties to Santa Barbara and moved on a short distance to the Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club, Channel Island Harbor, Oxnard. It's a nice club, complete with pool, Jacuzzi, bar and restaurant. Here we met up with Len and Norma, also friends from the 2004 Ha-ha. What a kick! We definitely had some laughs getting together.

Tonight we are having dinner with Don Anderson and his wife, Joan, from Summer Passage, a Valiant 47 see:
http://www.csus.edu/indiv/f/foxs/Summer%20Passage/sumpas_index1.html

Don is the famous and most helpful weatherman for cruisers, especially in Mexico. He not only gives the weather projections but helps all the cruisers learn what to expect and how to anticipate the weather. We'll report back on this later.
-----
Our next stops:

Sept 22 - arrive in Marina del Rey - California Yacht Club

Sept 28 - leave Marina del Rey for Catalina

Oct 16 - arrive in San Diego - Silver Gate Yacht Club

Let us know if you would like to come visit us or go day sailing!
-----
That's all for now from Raptor Dance!

Warmest Regards,
Mary and Bill

Rounding Pt. Conception

2006-09-11T11:16:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

We rounded Pt. Conception at 7 AM - Just 1 hour ago - and are anticipating arriving in Santa Barbara around 2 PM.

We left Morro Bay just after 10 PM last night (we couldn't sleep so we decided to leave early).

The hardest part of this 103 mile passage was leaving the harbor! The lights going out the Morro Bay channel were washed out by the street lights up by the big power plant at the head of the bay. Once we turned the corner and headed out the main channel - it was a bit easier - but it was nerve racking until we passed the breakwater. The moon wasn't fully up yet and it was overcast so there wasn't very much background light.

A few hours later, it was much brighter as the moon was higher in the sky - even though it was still overcast. We had no trouble at all on the difficult parts of this passage (between Morro Bay and Pt. Conception).

Interestingly the winds were light and it was a dead downwind run the whole way. We motored as the winds were too light to sail.

The strongest winds were off Pt. Arguello where it was briefly blowing 18 knots. Otherwise it was 8 to 12 knots the whole way.

Off Pt. Conception it was only blowing 4 knots! Quite a change from 2 years ago when it was blowing 25 to 30. OK, 2 years ago we rounded at the peak wind time at 4 PM in the afternoon and today we rounded at sunrise.

Right now we're motoring up Santa Barbara Channel with 1 to 2 knots wind...

We're officially in warm weather! Halfway between Pt. Arguello and Pt. Conception (10 miles apart) the overcast and fog lifted, the moon and stars came out and we saw a beautiful sunrise over Pt. Conception. This was our first observable sunrise since leaving the bay area. All the other mornings were foggy and overcast.

It's now noticeably warming up! It's time to stow the dorkey hats and long undies. If the weather is anything like our cruise 2 years ago, we won't need them again!

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Leaving Morro Bay

2006-09-10T14:21:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone!

We've had a relaxed 10 days, getting back in the swing of cruising, seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Heading to the sunshine.

It's really great that we have so much less stress than our first time down the coast. We're enjoying this a lot more and worrying a lot less.

We also posted some pictures of the start of our cruise at http://raptordance.com

If you've been following along with our position reports via the "Position Reporter" link on our website or directly at
http://www.winlink.org/positions/PosReportsDetail.aspx?callsign=WB6JAO You'll see that we've been progressing down the coast and are now in Morro Bay. Our latest position is the blue balloon. Be sure to click on it then zoom in with the "+" button and click the "Satellite" button for a view from space.

We Anchored in Half Moon Bay until Labor Day, the 4th, which was also our 8th wedding anniversary. Over the weekend we were joined by Jim and Sheila Goetsch on the Valiant 42 "Aurora" and Ed and Cornelia Gould on the Valiant 42 "A Cappella". Our friends Kim and Trish Casey on "Cheers" anchored not far away. We all had a lovely dinner Friday night at the local brew pub before things started getting crazy on Saturday.

It was an interesting sight with 3 Valiants rafted in a row. At one point a lady started taking lots of pictures of our boats. It turns out that she was from Scanmar - the company that makes Monitor wind vanes. Since all three of us have them it was an interesting picture. I'm sure we'll probably end up in one of their brochures in the future.

Saturday, was a literal boat parade with the majority of the boats arriving. There were literally hundreds of boats moored in Half Moon Bay, with 5 yacht clubs having major parties, BBQs, Pot Lucks, etc. Everyone had a great time.

We've started meeting many more cruising couples heading down the Mexico. Many will also be doing the Baja Ha-ha rally see http://www.baja-haha.com/ We'll talk more about some of the folks we meet along the way as we spend more time with them.

After most folks left on the 8th, we pulled into a slip in the Marina. Bruce Bongar, Karen Friday - of "Berkut" the Waterline 46 and Gordon and Vlasta Hanson of the Valiant 40 "Far Country" joined us for a great fish lunch in Princeton Seafood right in the Marina.

We left Half Moon Bay on Tuesday, the 5th at 630 AM on the 63 nautical mile trip to Monterey. It was totally uneventful, with little or no wind until we started crossing Monterey Bay. Then we benefited from a 15 knot tailwind that sped us along. We arrived in Monterey around 300 PM, in time for the Tuesday farmers' market.

On Wednesday, we re-visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This is one of the best aquaria in the world. They have a new juvenile Great White Shark in their open ocean tank. The only one in captivity. see http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/

On Thursday, we hiked up the hill to the Whole Foods and cleaned them out of Scharffen Berger 70% Cocoa Chocolate see http://www.scharffenberger.com/ This is our favorite and we now have a good stash in our chocolate locker. After lunching at Abalonetti Seafood Trattoria we retired to the boat to tidy up and retire early for the next leg of our trip.

We got up at midnight, Friday morning Sept 8th and left at 1220 PM on our 104 nautical mile leg to Morro Bay. It was a little lumpy with light winds until we passed Pt. Sur, then the seas calmed with just a 6 foot swell. As usual, what little wind we had was on the nose until we rounded Point Piedras Blancas, then the wind shifted to a close reach. We arrived in Morro Bay at 4 PM and tied up at the Morro Bay Yacht Club.

When we arrived, the dock was full, so we were asked to raft up to another boat. The owner of the boat stuck here head out of the hatch and said "They can't raft here" with a gleam in her eye. It turned out that we rafted next to Sarah and Daryl Erickson - our ex-neighbors from 2004 in Paradise Village in Alameda!

Since the club was having races on Saturday and Sunday and they have a small dock, we had to move to a mooring on Saturday morning.

That night we dined at the home of our friends John and Kay Semon of the Beneteau 473 "Semonship", who we met and befriended on the 2004 Ha-ha. We had a lovely dinner of BBQed Salmon. On Saturday, they joined us on Raptor Dance for a dinner of Roasted Herb Crusted Pork Tenderloin and our first game of "Mexican Train" dominoes on this cruise.

Here in Morro Bay we also met the folks on the Peterson 46 "Liberty" Carl and Yvette Nichols and their sons Joel 12 and Kyle 11. They're from Friday Harbor, WA. They're going to join us today for a BBQ lunch on Raptor Dance along with Chris and Robyn Parker from the Island Packet 35 "Robyn's Nest".

Carl and Yvette were kind enough to let us use their dingy, so we didn't have to get ours out. After the BBQ, we'll wind down and get ready to leave again at midnight tonight (Monday morning, Sept 11th) for Santa Barbara.

You may recall that in 2004, we were dreading this section of the coast as our next leg takes us around Point Conception, "The Cape Horn of the Pacific Coast". It turns out that there are lot's of "Cape Horn's of ""X""" around. Just like the rapids in the Northwest - with due diligence and care, proper planning and due respect given to the weather, these rounding can delightfully boring. Our Valiant is a sea worthy boat that is capable of handling almost anything, so with our cautious nature, we have much less concern than in 2004.

That's the news from Raptor Dance!

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Pillar Point Harbor - Half Moon Bay

2006-09-01T12:00:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone -

Well, we did it. We cast off at 945 AM yesterday, Thursday, August 31, 2006 and set off for Pillar Point Harbor at Half Moon Bay.

As is always the case, boat chores were left unfinished on the list - we may get to them on our way...... or not. We've still got some minor items undone from our departure in 2004 ;-}

We had a little wind during our passage - on the nose, so we motored. Opposing swells from our beam made the ride lumpy so we were both nibbling a bit of crystallized ginger. Interestingly, when we left in 2004, this was also the only leg of our voyage where we felt a little off.

We arrived at Pillar Point Harbor around 330 PM and stopped a the fuel dock to top off. This harbor has the lowest fuel prices on the coast by at least 50 cents a gallon.

We then proceeded to anchor, not happy with our first spot (too close to some mooring buoys) we moved and found a lovely spot with no other boats or buoys within at least 150 feet of our position at the end of 100 feet of chain (i.e. the nearest boat is at least 250 feet from our anchor).

We have a Bushnell Yardage Pro 1000 LASER range finder that we use to keep track of other boats, rocks, buoys, etc. at anchor. This is a handy gadget used primarily by golfers to measure the distance to the pin. Unlike marine accessories, this item was pretty inexpensive, just over $100.

That will change in the next few days though as lots of other boats arrive for the holiday weekend. At least 4 Yacht Clubs are coming in and lots of others as well for the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club BBQ. We'll report back on the festivities later.

We've already seen our first set of friends arrive, Dan and Eileen Ulum on their Valiant 42 Naussica pulled in just as we were sitting down to dinner (we had Beef Zinfandel with pasta and broccoli). We didn't know they were going to be here so it was a very pleasant surprise.

There are also two other boats here flying this year's Baja Ha-ha burgee, so we'll go say hi once we get the dingy out later this morning.

Pillar Point Harbor is just as we remember it before. The huge anchorage is very calm and quiet - except for the "HOOOO.............HOOOO............" of the entrance horn (Bill says he feels like Horton the Elephant) and the occasional sound of the gulls. When anchoring here, we made sure to be upwind of the major gull nesting spots on the breakwater as downwind you get bad aroma.

You can see the satellite picture of this harbor is great detail by going to the "Position Reporter" link on our website http://raptordance.com - clicking on our latest position, the "Satellite" button and zooming in (the "+" button).

It was overcast late yesterday afternoon. This morning it's foggy and looks like a great misty picture. We should get some sun later today.

We've got the heater on this morning and are wearing socks! But we're heading South!

We hope you all are well and will enjoy this wonderful holiday (in the US) weekend.

Warmest Regards to all,
Bill and Mary

Almost Ready to Go!

2006-08-25T11:56:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone -

It's been over a month since you last heard from us as we've been totally consumed with all the work needed to resume cruising. In an effort to bring you up to date we've summarized what we've been doing and our plans. This posting is a bit long - so skip over the parts that you may find uninteresting.

Some new folks have joined our mailing list since we left the Pacific Northwest, so I just want to remind everyone that we love to hear from you all! Please however, don't forward messages to us or use attachments.

Just send us what you have typed! Also, please don't "reply" to these messages unless you delete our original message from your email. It's much better just to type and send us a new message.

CRUISING DESTINATIONS:

Our tentative cruising outline is, and will remain, cast in Jello - we're trying not to have a "schedule" to keep. However, we would like to visit with those of you who live along our route, so let us know if you are nearby any of our destinations and let's get together!

You can always see our latest position (updated at least daily - when we move) by following the "Find our Current Position on Position Reporter" link on our website at http://raptordance.com

We're planning to cast off on Thursday, Aug 31. We may spend Thursday and Friday in South Beach in San Francisco, but that's still undecided, we may just go straight to Half Moon Bay.

We will spend Labor Day Weekend in Half Moon Bay. Three Yacht Clubs (Oakland YC, Sausalito YC and Berkeley YC) are cruising down the coast for a BBQ at the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club, we have lot's of friends who belong to these clubs and it will be a great time for us to visit with everyone.

On Monday, Sept 4th, down the coast we'll go to Monterey Harbor. This is one of our favorite stops on the Central Coast. They have a great Farmers' Market on Tuesdays and we're members of the wonderful Monterey Bay Aquarium, so we'll be sure to check out any new exhibits.

Around Sept 7th or 8th, we'll continue on to Morro Bay where we'll visit with our friends, John and Kay Semon of the Beneteau 473, "Semonship".

Continuing on, We'll head to Santa Barbara for a few days. The Northern Channel Islands and either Ventura or Channel Island Marina to visit with Len and Norma Brownlow of the Olsen 40, "Hangover" and Don and Joan Anderson of the Valiant 47, "Summer Passage" - but more famously - the fantastic volunteer weather forecaster for Mexico, Central America and Pacific cruisers.

Then it's on to Marina del Rey and the Southern Channel Islands. We'll visit with our family and spend some time at the Islands.

We're planning on arriving in San Diego on October 16th, in time to finish getting ready for Mexico. If we can arrange it, we'll get our Retirement FM-3 Mexico Visas in San Diego (otherwise we'll get them in Puerto Vallarta). We'll also visit with family, visit the Zoo and enjoy San Diego.

On October 21st, we'll drive up to Upland for Bill's 40th Chaffey High School Reunion.

On October 29th, the Baja Ha-ha activities start and at 11:00 AM on the 30th, we'll cross the Ha-ha starting line, and on to Mexico. We'll stop briefly in Turtle Bay, Bahia Santa Maria and Cabo San Lucas, then on to Paradise Village, Nuevo Vallarta where we'll arrive around the 15th of November.

Once we get Raptor Dance snug and settled in to Paradise Village, we'll return to spend the holidays with our family before continuing on with our cruise.

CHORES COMPLETED (non-sailors, skip over the geeky details):

This has been a very busy (and $) time for us. Here's a partial list of what we've been up to (and why we haven't had a lot of time to visit friends, socialize, etc.).

New Roof - Our vacation house roof was worn out. Since we won't be home in the rainy season and we wanted to avoid problems, we re-roofed and added ventilation so the new roof will last longer. We used Home Depot to do the roof as we really liked their warranty and we think they'll be around to honor it. They did a great job on the roof but just need to fix the poor gutter install before we leave.

Solar Panels - We had a framework fabricated above our Bimini and added two 130 Watt Kyrocera solar panels and a Blue Sky Energy 2000E MPPT charge controller. These are working very well so far. Since they've been installed we haven't had to run our battery charger at all! We'll see how they do cruising. KKMI did the metal work and West Marine/Maritime Electronics in Point Richmond did the installation. We obtained the panels and controller from Hotwire Enterprises http://www.svhotwire.com

Rig maintenance and upgrade - We had our Leisurefurl in boom mail sail furler serviced and we added a Dutchman 750 Boom Brake to replace the Valiant Preventer System. The preventer system caused undue wear on the gooseneck bearing when the sail back winded. Consultation with the top riggers and our sailing coach led to the conclusion that we should convert over to the boom brake to minimize rig wear and potential damage in an accidental jibe. JP Boatworks in Sausalito did the Leisurefurl work and Glenn Hanson in Alameda installed the Boom Brake

Canvas Work - Mary spent many hours on the sewing machine creating fantastic new covers for our mainsail, life raft, jerry cans and hatches. She also whipped up pirate shirts to augment our costumes (for the many costume parties along the way), made some additional storage sacks and altered many of our clothes as we've lost a lot of weight.

New Inverter/Charger - Our Statpower Inverter (old unit sold on eBay) and Pro Mariner battery charger (which died coming down from the Washington in June) were replaced with a new Magnum Energy MS2812 pure sine wave inverter/charger.

Sails - Our sails were serviced by Quantum Sails. They also added chafe patches to the main, mended some minor tears and replaced the webbing at the heads of our Genoa and Staysail with new, stronger, more robust Spectra webbing (so we won't have a repeat of the failure we had at the Banderas Bay Regatta in 2004).

Deck work - we changed our life raft cradle from the Valiant model to the standard Switlik cradle (our liferaft is a Switlik SAR-6), It was too difficult to get the life raft in and out of the Valiant cradle and we didn't want to have to rely on adrenaline to get it out of the cradle if we needed to launch it. We also mounted new pad eyes on deck to tie down our 3 Jerry cans. For the last 2 years we had them tied down with webbing running from the mast to the life raft cradle and these new pad eyes make for a much more tidy installation. Putting in new deck fixtures is lots of work as we needed to remove the cabin head liner to access the underside of the deck, seal the holes and bed everything properly. We did all this ourselves.

Skills improvement - We went out with a sailing coach, Roy Haslup of J-World San Francisco, to improve some of our techniques. We practiced safety maneuvers, such as the "Quick Stop" Man Overboard procedure (which is much easier than it sounds from the written descriptions of it) and spend quite a bit of time practicing jibing the spinnaker. We previously (and will still mostly) jib by putting the spinnaker back in its sock, moving it to the other side and re-deploying it.

Misc. Tasks - We also had our Outboard and main engine serviced, the bottom cleaned, had our B&G wind instruments fixed, worked on the electronics wiring, replaced the hard drive on our laptop and restored all the software, worked on the boat detailing and did a myriad of other small tasks.

Whew! It's been a lot of work, but now we're ready to head off!

Regards,
Bill and Mary

Since our Return...

2006-06-29T15:39:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone!

When we last reported on June 12th, we were 58 miles out anticipating an 8 PM arrival. At that time the weather was foggy with a few mile visibility.

As we approached the Golden Gate, the skies cleared. The bridge was glorious in the early evening sun as we reentered San Francisco Bay after an almost 2 year absence.

We found our old slip at Mariner Square in Alameda waiting for us and we docked at 8:30 pm (we had an ebb tide in the bay slowing us down). Gosh, things have changed at Mariner Square.

We left to move to Marina Village in 2003 in the midst of seismic retrofitting of the Alameda tunnels that run under the marina. Everything was torn up. It was still like that when we left the bay in September 2004.

Now, almost everything was rebuilt and upgraded. There's a waterfront park that's quite nice, a Sr. living residence and a boat dry storage building. The Marina office has nice shower, restroom and laundry facilities. The only area that hasn't been completed is the old foundation of Larry and Della's Restaurant, near Chevy's, that burned down in 2002. I think that they're still haggling with permits over this rebuild.

We cleaned up the boat that night and said our good-bye's to Bob and Jerry who headed off. The next day we returned to our vacation home in Sonoma and started coordinating all the work to be done on Raptor Dance while we're in the bay.

Since then, We've been busy with lots of chores:

We've given the boat a thorough cleaning. This was quite involved as we had a lot of rust particles on deck from a fishing boat that was undergoing a lot of grinding up wind from where we were docked. We still have some detailing left to do. We're doing this job ourselves as the folks we previously used quoted us $900+ for the job.

We also polished all the stainless using the wonderful "Miracle Cloth" that was recommended in a recent edition of Practical Sailor. It made the job much easier.

We had our dead battery charger and modified sine wave inverter replaced with a new Magnum Energy MS2812 pure sine wave Inverter/Charger. This was a tough project as the old units had to be removed and the new put in their place on the far side of the engine room. Alan Mcdonell from Boat Guys in Alameda spend two days wrestling the units in and out. I really like this unit as it already provides noticeably better results (e.g. less radio interference, it runs the microwave at full power, it has a bigger charger, etc.).

Yesterday we motored to Point Richmond and back to drop off our 4 sails at Quantum Sails for service. They're 6 years old and need a thorough going over.

We still have more chores to do and I'll report on those later.

We hope to get all this stuff done so we can have some fun days sailing on the bay before we leave to head South towards the end of August.

Mary and I want to wish you all a happy 4th of July weekend (US folks), Canada Day (North of the boarder) or just a happy summer weekend (everyone else in the Northern Hemisphere)!

Regards,
Bill and Mary

ETA Mariner Square, Alameda - 8 PM

2006-06-12T15:47:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

If you've been watching our progress on Position Reporter (see our homepage http://raptordance.com or go directly there via http://www.winlink.org/positions/PosReportsDetail.aspx?callsign=WB6JAO ), you're aware that we're making much better time than we anticipated from Crescent City.

We're now just off Bodega Bay (where Alfred Hitchcock shot his movie "The Birds" - no sign though of Tippie Hedron!) and we've been making between 7.8 and 8.0 knots.

We should be entering the Golden Gate around 6:30 PM tonight, Monday, June 12th and we should be at our temporary home at Mariner Square Marina in Alameda around 8:00 PM.

Thanks to the hospitality of Bill Joos at Valiant West, we'll be in the same slip we used to occupy before we moved to Marina Village (during the seismic retrofit of the Alameda Tunnels), a year before we left on our voyage in September 2004.

We'll be there for the next month or two until we resume cruising by heading down to Southern California and then back to Mexico. Right now we're scheduled to arrive in Paradise Village in Nuevo Villarta, Nayarit, Mexico approximately November 15th.

During the trip south, we've accumulated a number of maintenance items and will be attending to those while we're in the Bay. Also, this coming weekend is the Summer Sailstice and we're planning to participate.

It's been a VERY quiet trip (except for the engine), so far, from Crescent City. Off Cape Mendocino, one of the most feared spots on the Pacific Coast south of Alaska, we did raise the main - but didn't have enough wind to turn off the engine ;-{

All in all, we've been a motor boat on this leg. Right now is flat calm with nary a ripple on the seas, in light fog, with variable visibility (right now it's about 1 mile).

Except for tweaking the autopilot to say on course and watching for other traffic on the Radar, the Automatic Ship Identification (AIS) system and visually there's not much to do. So Jerry's standing watch, Bob is finishing up his book, "The Da Vinci Code", Mary's tiding up and I'm typing you all this message.

According to the GPS and Chart Plotter, we're 58 miles and 7 hours 45 minutes from the slip.

That's the news from Raptor Dance!

Regards,
Bill, Mary, Bob and Jerry

Departed Crescent City - We're once again on our way

2006-06-11T13:03:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

We cast off the dock lines this morning at 645AM and left Crescent City Harbor. We left on a rising tide as the harbor is shallow and we didn't want to get stuck for long if we ran aground. As it was we saw water as shallow at 8 feet on our way out - that's only 1' 9" more than the depth of the keel!

Once out of the harbor, we raised the main and guess what... The wind's on our nose again! The forecast is for 10 to 15 knot North West winds, which would be behind us - but right now the winds are about 4 knots from the South West! At least it's not slowing us down much as we motor sail down the coast.

We should pass Cape Mendocino somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00 this evening. Cape Mendocino can be pretty rough, but the forecast is for benign conditions as we pass. Right now we're heading South West but will turn South East after rounding the cape.

We should arrive at the Golden Gate sometime late Monday night. We're attempting to get there during the flood tide. At 2 AM Tuesday morning the tide turns to ebb and we would have to fight a current on our nose of 6 knots if we arrive later than that.

Weather Window looks good for a Sunday Morning Departure from Crescent City

2006-06-10T15:29:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

It looks like the winds are lightening and we have a favorable weather window starting tomorrow morning, Sunday the 11th. We'll leave here probably around 8 AM on a raising tide and are anticipating passing through the Golden Gate very early Tuesday morning.

We've been busy here in Crescent City waiting for our weather window to continue South.

When we were out bouncing around a few maintenance items came up. The most fun was the furling line on our main sail.

We were double reefed, heading on a deep broad reach and had the boom held in place firm with our preventer. Coming down one wave the main was back winded in 30 knots of wind - good thing we had the preventer on or we would have accidentally jibed. The furling line was taking the pressure and the stopper stripped the Dacron cover from the Spectra core. This kept the stopper from holding the line so enough of the sail unrolled to drape the main across the stays. I had to go forward, engage the furling ratchet on the Leisurefurl's drum, insert a winch handle and manually re-furl the main. Of course, I was clipped on with a harness to our Jacklines. This cleaned things up. No big deal, but exciting at the time.

When we got into Crescent City we replaced the line with a replacement. We basically have enough spare line on board to replace all the running rigging at least once.

Did I mention that the head also was clogged? Fortunately it was the overboard thru hull that clogged, so we could still use the head into the holding tank. So when we got in I used our "Blast it Out" (http://www.blastitout.com ) to clear it. I also replaced the Joker valve, which probably contributed to the problem.

Also, the battery charger died, but we're able to charge the batteries off the engine alternator. Just to keep things topped off, I bought a small charger at the local Crescent City marine chandlery and hooked it into one of the auxiliary power sockets on board (these sockets used to be called cigarette lighter outlets).

We have a new charger and inverter from Magnum Energy awaiting installation when we return to SF Bay. We also got word that our Solar Panels that we ordered at the boat show are in and ready to be shipped to us. So this should help us when we continue our cruising in August.

All is well on board and our next report will be at sea. Keep an eye on our position reporter to follow our progress.

Regards to all,
Bill, Mary, Bob and Jerry

Crescent City CA

2006-06-09T16:58:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

We're safe and sound in Crescent City waiting for the winds to lift before we continue on.

We arrived at 4 AM Thursday morning. The winds were building and we decided not to push too hard. The winds were already up to 30 knots and forecast to have gusts over 40. Seas were building too!

Anyway, Crescent City is a lovely little town with a pleasant marina mostly with fishing boats. There's a great chandlery near by for any items we need. Town is a short mile walk away.

We're in "The Coffee Corner" right now having our espresso's (Bob) , cappuccinos (Bill and Mary) and Raspberry smoothy (Jerry). And, of course, using their wireless Internet connection. Since it's a mile walk, this will probably be the only time we're on while here.

The Weather is forecast to lighten Sunday, if so, we're resume our voyage. We're about a 40 hour sail from the Golden Gate - so just under 2 days to go, once we cast off.

That's the news from Crescent City.

Regards,
Bill, Mary, Bob and Jerry

Off the Brandon OR (South of Coos Bay) - Past the Halfway mark

2006-06-07T14:52:00.000-04:00

Hello Everyone!

We past the half way mark this morning at about 10 AM. We motor sailed all night as the we were sailing dead downwind and the wind strength wasn't sufficient to get much speed sailing.

This morning, at about the half way mark, the wind picked up a bit and we're now sailing "wing on wing". This configuration is when we have the main on one side of the boat (starboard in this case) and the Jib on the other side (Port). To hold the Jib stable, we're using our Spinnaker Pole attached to the jib sheet.

After a great 4 hour sail the first day, we've pretty much been motoring almost the whole time. Our sail right now is a welcome respite.

With 16 knots of wind, we're making between 7.5 and 8 knots of speed over the ground (as measured by the GPS - the nearest ground is about 6000 feet straight down!).

All is well on Raptor Dance: Jerry and Mary are doing dishes, I'm (Bill) typing this note on the computer and Bob is keeping watch.

We rotate watches every three hours with 1 person on each. This is great as you have 3 on and 9 off - ample time to sleep, read, whatever.

Commanders Weather says we might see more boisterous conditions off Cape Mendocino, but nothing major and no where near what the boat and crew can't easily handle. so far the winds and seas have been substantially lower than forecast and we're hopeful that that trend will continue.

We've been seeing loads of hump back whales and dolphins the last few days. They're always welcome visitors.

That's the news from Raptor Dance!

Warmest Regards,
Bill, Mary, Bob and Jerry

Oregon Coast - Looking for wind.

2006-06-06T12:31:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone,

Yesterday after our long slog out the Straights of Juan de Fuca, we turned the corner at Tatoosh Island at 3:30 PM.

Finally the wind was not dead on our nose. We raised sails at 4:00 PM and by 4:30 we had the Monitor wind vane hooked up a steering the boat. Under sail the boat quieted down and just moved! Using no electricity or other technology (the Monitor is a totally mechanical steering "computer"), we were on course, happily zipping along at over 8 knots.

We were on a close reach until 6PM when we turned to port (left) again and headed South to parallel the coast. Our speed was in the 7 knot range with a really nice ride while we had dinner (Garlic and Thyme Roast Chicken, Asparagus with a Balsamic Glaze and a Brown and Wild Rice Pilaf).

Around sunset the wind died - to less than 12 knots (from behind making our apparent wind less than 6 knots) - with 4 foot swells - so we furled the Jib and Staysail and motor sailed with the main up.

We still had enough wind to push us along and maintain 8 knots until this morning when the wind died further. Right now (9 AM PDT, Tuesday June 6th) we're off the Oregon Coast - 40 miles due west of the Columbia River Bar - and we only have 2 knots of wind.

More wind is forecast and we hope to get more sailing in.

It's great having Bob and Jerry along as it means that Mary and I can get lots more sleep than we did on our long passages in Mexico. We're doing 3 hour shifts, so everyone is on 3 and off 9 - plenty of time for sleep!

It's time to fire up the Genset, cool down the fridge and desalinate some more water. We'll report further later today.

Be sure and check out our position reports, we've been filing 3 or 4 per day - see the "And Find our Current Position on Position Reporter" link on our website or go directly to:
http://www.winlink.org/positions/PosReportsDetail.aspx?callsign=WB6JAO

That's the news from here!

Warmest Regards,
Bill, Mary, Bob and Jerry

Enroute Report - Off Neah Bay in the Straights of Juan de Fuca

2006-06-05T16:16:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

Bob Hinden and Jerry Stadulis arrived yesterday and we had a lovely Bon Voyage dinner with Jerry's wife Cory and daughter Emily at Michaels restaurant in Port Angeles.

We all turned in early so we could get up at 4:00 AM and cast off just before 5. Twilight up at this latitude starts at 3:40 AM with sunrise at 5:18 AM - so we had plenty of light when we cast off. As we rounded the end of Ediz Hook, exiting Port Angeles harbor - we entered the Straights of Juan de Fuca.

Oh great, lumpy seas with a 15 knot plus head wind. Ho hum... here we go again. At least it's not as bad as we've seen off Monterey.

We had the wind opposing the current unit around 8 - with an ebb tide and a West wind. This always creates a lumpy situation. It slowed us down considerably. Our normal 7 knot cruise was reduced to 5.

Around 8, the tide went slack and we picked up speed - even without the current pushing us. The seas also flattened. Our speed didn't last though as a flood current on our nose and increasing winds slow us way down to a low of 4.5 knots at one point. Over the last hour (11:30 to 12:30) we've only progressed 4.7 nautical miles.

The sun came out around 10 (it was overcast this morning) and it's a beautiful day with relatively flat seas in spite of an 18 knot headwind and adverse current. So no problems... Even if we're only doing 4.6 knots as I look at the GPS.

We should be well out of the Straights by 5 and well offshore by sunset at 9:13 PM tonight. Twilight will last until 10:50 PM and the moon will be up until 2:19 PM so we'll have ample light for most of the night.

Around sunset we'll make the final turn to the south on our route - from there it's 458 miles to Cape Mendocino.

As of right now - 1:00 PM we have 637 miles to go to the Golden Gate.

More later along the way.

Regards,
Bill, Mary, Bob and Jerry

Southbound Preparations

2006-06-03T22:39:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

It's been a busy week since our last message.

After Pender Harbour, we motored back to Vancouver and spend a lovely 5 days across from Granville Island in False Creek. We again moored at the False Creek Yacht Club.

It was quite frustrating seeing all the great produce and meats at the Granville Farmers Market as we couldn't take any of these wonderful items across the boarder into the states.

Besides boat chores, we managed to spend Saturday, May 27th at "Eat Vancouver" sponsored by a number of local restaurants and Food TV Canada. It was quite interesting and we discovered a very nice local Mexican Restaurant where we had lunch on Monday "The Mouse and The Bean" http://www.themouseandthebean.com/, quite yummy.

On Tuesday May 30th, we crossed back across the boarder and spend two nights in Friday Harbor. We had a favorable current which had us exceeding 12 kph at times, getting us into Friday Harbor 2 hours early. We hit the local markets to start our provisioning and visited with Bill's high school friend Candy Bowers.

On Thursday, June 1st, we crossed the Straights of Juan de Fuca and arrived at Port Angeles in thick fog. It's a good thing we have GPS and Radar, we needed them to get safely into the harbor as the visibility was only about 100 feet!

We never did see what all those large blips on the radar were since we gave them at least 1000 feet clearance. Only one tiny 20 foot Boston Whaler style became visible for a few minutes and the swallowed by the fog again. When we arrived at the breakwater, we saw it on radar long before we could see it with our eyes. And when we did, it just looked like a slightly darker shadow. We continued on until we suddenly saw a wall in front of us, quickly turned and slowed down. This was the entrance to the marina which we couldn't see until we were on top of it, literally.

Since then we've been getting all our boat chores done, minor repairs, provisioning, cooking, etc. getting ready to head back to San Francisco. The dock is loaded with local fishermen and other boats getting ready to head out to Hawaii or San Francisco. Everyone has been exceedingly friendly. There is even a pair of dock ducks that make their rounds several times a day. It's curious. The ducks walk the docks. We have yet to see them in the water.

The passage is planned at just over 750 miles and it should take us between 5 and 6 non-stop days to make it. We'll have two crew along. This is a first for us as it's always been just the two of us since we left California in September of 2004.

Bob Hinden and Jerry Stadulis are the two fellows coming with us. Bob and his wife Maryann own the Valiant 42 "Acacia". Jerry and his wife Cory are having Valiant 50 #114 built in Texas (very exciting construction should start soon!).

Bob and Jerry arrive tomorrow, Sunday and weather permitting we'll cast off around 5 AM on Monday.

We're using a weather forecasting and routing service "Commanders' Weather" http://www.commandersweather.com/ for our trip planning. They provide great briefings and en-route updates.

Right now they're forecasting favorable conditions (mostly 15 to 20 from behind us) until we get to Cape Mendocino. Then it may be a bit "strong" 30 to 35 knots pushing us. We'll decide if we're going to go for it or pull into Eureka, CA (before the cape) when we get closer and get the latest update.

You can follow along as we'll be sending out email updates periodically reporting on our passage and we'll also update our position reports - probably at least twice a day.

You can access our position reports via our homepage or by using this link:
http://www.winlink.org/positions/PosReportsDetail.aspx?callsign=WB6JAO

The Blue Balloon is our latest position. You can also click on any of the balloons to see our Course and Speed (if we're away from the dock), text comments from us and the date and time (in UTC, commonly inaccurately called Greenwich Mean Time, to convert to Pacific Daylight Time subtract 7 hours - subtract 4 for the east coast, etc.).

While we're out, we won't have regular email - but will be checking winlink and sailmail. Remember we love hearing from you, but please only send messages of a few paragraphs with no attachments.

We have many other stories to share about our last week getting ready, but we'll do that in later installments. Coming soon! "The mystery of the Shredded Charmin"

Warmest Regards to all!
Bill and Mary

Up Jervis Inlet to Egmont, the Skookumchuck Rapids and Princess Louisa

2006-05-23T16:53:00.000-04:00

See the pictures for this part of our voyage at http://raptordance.com/PrincessLouisa/index.html

Hello Everyone!

We're back from from Princess Louisa and it was well worth visiting. It's a beautiful Fjord with peaks rising to over 8000 feet and with spectacular waterfalls all around. At the head of the bay is the largest of them all, Chatterbox Falls. It was good to be there early in the season while the falls were at their fullest.

We left Pender Harbour on May 18th and had a quiet motor up Agamemnon Channel to Egmont. We docked at the Egmont Marina Resort which is located partway up the Jervis Inlet near the Skookumchuck Rapids.

The Backeddy Marine Pub at the marina is famous for it's Skookumchuck burger. It's huge! We split one. It's very tasty and we recommend it highly. It's probably the best burger we've had in Canada.

We then hiked about 4 miles (each way) from the marina to Skookumchuck Rapids. The path through the park was lovely, winding through the cedar and pine trees, lush ferns and mushrooms.

The rapids join the Sechelt Inlet to the Jervis Inlet and the sea. A whole lot of water passes through them on every tide. These are claimed to be the wildest navigable rapids in the world. On a peak day, the currents in the rapids exceed 16 knots, With 8 foot overfalls.

At peak current, the rapids are used by white water kayakers even surfers! see http://www.paddleguides.com/rivers/bc/skook/skook.html

At slack, you might see a tug with barges or log booms going through. Some pretty large vessels also traverse at slack.

The decommissioned 323 foot, Canadian Navel Destroyer, HMCS Chaudiere, was sunk for wreck diving in the Sechelt inlet, so it traversed the rapids to meet its fate. We don't know if that was the largest vessel to traverse the rapids, but we wonder how they got her through!

The rapids are also a popular site for expert SCUBA divers to do a "drift" dive. Too cold for us!

In the language of the local First Nation's tribe, Skookum means "big" or "strong" and chuck means "body of water" - it lives up to it's name. I guess that applies to the burger too, only with a different kind of chuck - ground chuck that is.

We visited on a day when the ebb through the rapids was a wimpy 12.5 knots at peak with 4 foot overfalls. We took lots of pictures and put the best on the website.

It was most interesting and we were glad that we didn't have to pass through those rapids. The pictures do not express how powerful the rapids looked in person. We could see how much deeper the whirlpools were from the surrounding water. We know how they are able to nudge the boat one way or the other when the flow is almost slack. So these would not have given a nudge but a mighty shove.

On the 19th we were joined in Egmont by Jim and Marilyn Ming on their Valiant 40, Coyote Moon. We buddy boated with them the next few days.

Both boats left the Saturday May 20th for the 31 nautical mile trip up Jervis Inlet to Malibu Rapids, the gateway to Princess Louisa Inlet. We planned our trip to traverse Malibu Rapids during the period with the smallest tidal differences to avoid any problems. We were rewarded with a delightfully boring passage through. We were in awe though as we watched a large motor yacht, we think it was between 120 and 150 feet follow us through the rapids.

We were looking forward to our trip up Jarvis Inlet, hoping for that warm clear weather that we had the previous week. The weather turned on the 20th however and our passage up Jervis was marked by fog and rain showers. It wasn't entirely disappointing. The fog, mist and low clouds around the cliffs looked like something out of a movie. We could picture a crew on their boat venturing into this scene on some important quest. We entered Princess Louisa with clouds unfortunately blocking the view.

We continued inside Princess Louisa for the 4 nautical miles up to the head of the Inlet to the park docks at the base of Chatterbox Falls. We were fortunate as the only space left that we'd fit into was right up front, facing the falls. Many of the other boaters were on the dock helping tie up the newly arriving boats. There was not an obvious space for Coyote Moon but some of the other boats retied closer together making room. Very nice of them.

In clearing weather, we hiked up the short trail to the base of the falls. It encouraged us to climb further but there was no route to do that.

Sunday dawned much brighter and only partly cloudy unveiling the magnificence of the valley. Picture Yosemite Valley, but much narrower and just as tall, with dozens of waterfalls cascading down the sides, uncrowded with only a few visitors in boats in the sea covering the valley floor, and you may get a sense for the majesty of Princess Louisa Inlet.

All in all it was a beautiful place. There's not a lot of places to hike though as the only other trail is a rock scramble up a slippery path to an abandoned trappers cabin up the side of the fjord.

So 24 hours in Princess Louisa was sufficient for us. John Mills, the owner of the Egmont Marina Resort commented before we left that "Princess Louisa is the kind of place where two hours is too long and two weeks isn't long enough". We agree.

We left on the high slack on Sunday the 21st with Coyote Moon and made our way back to the Garden Bay Hotel and Resort in Pender Harbour. Underway the weather first turned great! We were back to shorts and T-shirts - then it started to turn cold and rainy.

Just as we were pulling into Pender, it got really gusty and rainy. Jim and Marilyn saw 30+ knot winds on the nose right before they pulled in. We were a mile and 10 minutes ahead and didn't see anything nearly that bad.

We've been here in Pender since, waiting for the rain and winds to abate. 30 knots from the South East was forecast for the last two days - and that would be no fun as that's on our nose as we head to False Creek in Vancouver, our next stop.

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 24th, the winds are forecast to ease. We're planning to leave early tomorrow morning to make the 46 nautical mile passage to False Creek.

That's the news as we snuggle on board Raptor Dance, keeping warm on a rainy and cold day.

Bill and Mary

What a Difference a Year Makes!

2006-05-17T20:33:00.000-04:00

In May 2005 when we arrived in Canada it was cold and rainy. We didn't see the sun until late July.

This year - it's been dry since we got here. The last few days it's been so warm and sunny that we're even wearing shorts!

Tomorrow we leave the Garden Bay Hotel and Marina in Pender Harbour for Egmont on our way to Princess Louisa. We'll be in Egmont for 2 nights then off to Princess Louisa.

NOTE - for the next 6 days or so we will have NO connectivity. No Internet (shudder), No Cell Phones, Nada! When we're in Princess Louisa itself, our Iridium most likely won't work due to the high surrounding mountains. We'll try our Winlink SSB, but it might not be able to get out either.

Yesterday, the weather was fantastic for our 5 hour passage from Gibson's Landing to Pender. We had light and variable winds, but we were actually able to sail for about an hour! With the engine off! Hooray!

It was so warm that we were in shorts. It was a lovely passage. We need more days like this so we can get the moss off the sails (yes, we had a few tinges of green on an edge that hadn't seen the light of day for more than 6 months).

We will give you all a full report on Princess Louisa when we emerge.

Warmest Regards to all!
Bill and Mary

Changes to our Website and Web log

2006-05-15T20:11:00.000-04:00

We just wanted to let you know about some of the changes we've made to our website and web log (Blog).

1. We've added news feeds
We now send out an RSS Feed of the information we post on our web log. If you use My Yahoo or My AOL you don't need to do anything technical other than click on the appropriate button below to add our feed to one of your news pages. If you have something else that processes RSS you can click the leftmost button below and walk through the dialog to add us to your news reader!

We've also put these buttons on the Blog and on our homepage.

If you prefer an ATOM feed, you can use the URL http://raptordance.blogspot.com/atom.xml

2. We have segregated our content

We've got a pretty broad audience who read our stuff. We also have folks who are on limited bandwidth connections via Sailmail, Winlink and Satellite Phones. So we'll keep our emails pretty much general interest, non-technical and text only. We'll continue to post pictures on our website.

What we have added (based on lot's of requests) is a more technical look at "how we did it". Electronics, boat gear, gadgets and generally technoid stuff we'll post only on our web log (with links from our website). You can just check our web log at http://raptordance.blogspot.com/ if you're interested - but I recommend signing up for the news feed so you'll find out about things new on the Blog when they're posted.

3. Ads?

Yes, we've put some ads on the site. Who knows, if enough folks click on the links we might make a few bucks. We'll keep then innocuous. If they bother you, let me (Bill) know. If you see something interesting to you. Please visit the advertiser.

4. Indices

We've added some additional indices to make past articles easier to find (e.g. Recipes, Web Log Contents, Recommendations, etc.). We've updated the quick links on our homepage and also the table of contents of the BLOG.

5. Position Reporter

We've added a new mapping resource so you can find us. It's called "Position Reporter" and it's linked into the position reports we file. Click on the "Find our Current Position on Position Reporter" link on our homepage to access this map. It uses Google maps so you can zoom, pan, see the view of where we are from satellite photos, and lots more.

Our latest position is shown by a blue balloon. Prior locations are shown in green. If you move your mouse over on of the balloons, you should get a popup of the date and time we were there. If you click on the balloon, you should get a popup with more information on the location.

If you want to know how we do all this, see "About Position Reporting" link in our homepage Quick Links.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to make our stuff more usable - drop me an email!

AIS Update - Nobeltec's AIS 100 Receiver with VNS 8.1.2000

2006-05-15T15:07:00.000-04:00

I thought you might be interested in our experiences so far with Nobeltec's Visual Navigation Suite 8.1.2000 (the latest patch level) and their Single Channel AIS 100 Receiver.

Installation was pretty easy - running the cable to our antenna arch was fun of course. The 4' Shakespeare VHF Antenna we're using is now occupying the last of our 6 mounts. Hmmm - this confirms that I'm a technoid geek if I've used all 6 mounts (2 GPSs, a CARD, Iridium antenna and Sirius Satellite Radio antenna take up the other 5 mounts).

Connections to the unit were 12V, the VHF Antenna and a serial port to the computer. Fortunately I have a permanently installed USB hub with unused ports and an extra serial to USB adapter on board. The Serial Port on the AIS 100 outputs NMEA-0183 formatted sentences at 38.5 kbps, so we really could not multiplex into our 4.8 kbps NMEA multiplexer system.

Firing everything up - It worked out of the box. See http://raptordance.com/VNS-AIS-Display.jpg for a screen shot.

We're up in Gibson's Landing, across Howe Sound from Vancouver today and I've counted 34 targets that I'm tracking. It's really interesting as you have a lot of information about many of the vessels - e.g. destination, cargo, etc.

Overall, the system works OK.... Mostly....

VNS 8.1.2000 Crashes a lot - it seems to suffer from memory problems and freezes up every few hours and requires restarting. So far Nobeltec support hasn't answered my emails. I'll try calling them later (you really don't want to try to reach them on Monday mornings). I've already followed some of their advice to no avail.

The basic problem with this current set up is that VNS and the AIS 100 don't show all the targets! Also, targets that should remain visible disappear from time to time. The disappearing targets are often closer to us than other targets that remain and often within physical line of site. So, I don't think it's a problem with VHF reception. Some of the disappearing targets are quite close and a possible collision hazard. My theory is that this is due to the fact that the AIS 100 is a single channel receiver, the disappearing target ships' transponders have switched to the other AIS Channel. To try to continue displaying these targets, I have raised the AIS/ARPA Timeout value in VNS to 600 seconds (10 minutes). This didn't seem to noticeably change behavior.

If you have other thoughts about what might be going on, drop me a note!

I'm thinking that single channel AIS receivers may be of much less value than believed (I played with using the worthless word, but I'm still think it has some value). We'll most certainly upgrade to a 2 channel receiver when prices come down.

Princess Louisa Bound

2006-05-15T13:40:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

We’re on our way to Princess Louisa! We should arrive there on Saturday May 20th.

Princess Louisa Inlet is reported to have the most fantastic scenery in the entire Pacific Northwest, it’s a must not miss. It’s reachable only by boat or float plane. The water in the inlet is over 1,000 feet deep and is surrounded by 5,000 to 8,000 foot mountains, carved by ancient glaciers.

Earle Stanley Gardiner wrote in his Log of a Landlubber:
“There is a calm tranquility which stretches from the smooth surface of the reflecting waters straight up to infinity. The deep calm of eternal silence is only disturbed by the muffled roar of throbbing waterfall as they plunge down from sheer cliffs. There is no scenery in the world that can beat it. Not that I’ve seen the rest of the world, I don’t need to. I’ve seen Princess Louisa Inlet.”

We’ll have our reports and photos when we get back out around the 24th or so.

For more info about Princess Louisa see: http://www.princesslouisa.bc.ca/

Today, May 15th, we’re back at the Gibson’s Landing Marina across Howe Sound from the city of Vancouver.

Yesterday, we left Ganges at 8:55 AM heading for Porlier Pass. We had an adverse current of over 2 knots so we had to increase our normal engine RPMs from 2250 to 2500 to make the pass at the 11:47 AM slack tide.

Porlier Pass is one of the more boisterous passes – particularly during Spring Tides (around the time of the full and new moons). For example, at 8:12 AM the tide would have been 5.5 knots on our nose. At 2:56 PM the tide would have been 8.6 Knots on our tail!

Up here, there appears to be a pecking order for passes. Up to fairly boisterous, their called “Passes”. The really hairy ones are called “Rapids”. Passes can have whirlpools and currents exceeding 9 knots. Rapids can also have overfalls, big standing waves and currents up to 14+ knots – they’re generally much more turbulent than Passes. These are our observations, I haven’t found specific definitions of the difference.

We traversed quite a few rapids last year and many passes. It turns our they’re really no big deal – as long as you traverse them at or close to slack current. The allowable timing varies – some rapids have a navigable window of as little as 15 minutes.

On Saturday (May 20th), we’ll be heading through Malibu Rapids, which guards the entrance to Princess Louisa. The tricky part of this one is timing your arrival as it’s 32 miles from the nearest safe place to spend the night – Egmont Marina. This is also a pretty hairy set of rapids – e.g. the sailing instructions say “Wait until the surf created by the overfall subsides entirely” before proceeding through. The rapids also have a dogleg turn in the middle, it’s narrow and you can’t see the other end when you start through – so a call on the radio announcing your intentions is a really good idea.

OK, back to our yesterday’s passage: Our timing was pretty good, we were going to arrive at the pass a few minutes early – but then the RCMP came by in a fast Zodiac and picked us to do a “Customs Check”. This is the first time we’ve been boarded in the 5+ years we’ve owned Raptor Dance. As we had been in Canada since March 24th and had our paperwork (and flags) in order, the check only took 10 minutes. The RCMP members (apparently they’re not called “officers”, at least on our copy of the “Custom Check Sheet” they left with us.

We still got to Porlier Pass within a few minutes of slack, so all was well.

We then forereached across the Straights of Georgia motor sailing with 20 knot headwinds arriving in Gibson’s Landing at 3:35 PM.

We’ll be here until tomorrow morning, then up to Pender Harbour for 2 nights, the Egmont for 2 nights then up to Princess Louisa.

I’ll wrap up for now, but I’ll send another message in a little while on what else we’ve been up to since we got back to cruising.

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

We've Changed Our Web Hosting and Domain Registrar

2006-03-30T01:21:00.000-04:00

We moved from "SBC/Yahoo" to "1and1" a very highly rated service. You don't have to do anything different, the changes were all on our end.

We did this to improve our capabilities and lower our costs.

Yahoo's web service level was reasonable, but their customer service was poor and their prices were too high. We're saving more than half the cost of running our site by switching. Also their tools are a bit better.

Click the link below to find out about their offerings or Contact me via email if you'd like to why we switched in more detail.

Note - Our BLOG remains with Google's Blogger.com. We're very happy with this service.

see: http://raptordance.com/Hosting.html for more info

Whitecaps and Dorkey Hats

2006-03-25T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today's theme is Whitecaps and Dorkey Hats...

We got to arrived in Seattle Wednesday night, March 15th as planned. The rest of our time in Seattle was spent wrapping up the boat maintenance with the various repair folk. Since we arrived in October, we had 4 separate teams working on different systems. So our week was taken up by checking out all the work and finishing up the final tasks.

Finally we had some time to see our friends, Chris and Julie on Kona Trader who were over at Bell Harbor Marina - about 2 miles from Lake Union. We also got a few hours to visit Pike Place Market and do something besides shopping for boat parts.

Wednesday the 22nd, Charlie Stillman from Discovery Yachts came along with us as we "locked through" and headed back to salt water for the first time since mid-October. Of course, it rained off and on most of the day.

That evening friends from Powell River came over to our slip at Shilshole Marina, just outside the locks, still in Seattle. Bonnie and Wilf Rennecke were in town visiting family and we had a nice dinner at Anthony's Homeport - a nice seafood restaurant right near the Marina. Bonnie and Wilf have a Baba 40 "Warlord". We met them last summer at the "Perry Design Rendezvous North" (Bob Perry designed both their boat and ours) that they organized in refuge cove in Desolation Sound.

The weather forecast was for gale force winds on Thursday, so we delayed our departure to Friday.

This morning (Friday) we checked the weather and it looked a little better. The wind was at least forecast to be behind us for a change, so we went for it! Just as we were about to depart a squall dumped on us and we almost decided to wait another day. But if we waited, the wind was forecast to be on our nose! Fooey!

After the squall passed, we cast off with rays of sunshine peeking out from the clouds. It was a bumpy ride most of the way, but with a staysail only up we were able to make really good time. At times we were hitting 9+ knots. It was windy and cold though and we did get dumped on by 2 or 3 squalls as we headed up Puget Sound.

The strongest winds were around the headlands along the way at "Point no Point" and "Point Wilson".

Our records was broken... In 6 years of sailing on Raptor Dance, today was the first day we actually needed and wore our foul weather gear. We didn't wear it all day though... Thus the theme for today. Here's what we looked like shortly before putting on the foulies:

Note the Dorkey Hats...

They do keep your ears warm though!

The second picture shows Mary, modeling our foul weather attire as we passed Point Wilson. Note the whitecaps in the background.

We were doing fine until we entered the Straights of Juan de Fuca. Then the wind increased and we had a really bouncy half hour or so until the wind died totally!

Off came the foulies and back to normal attire.

Then the wind shifted to the west and was back on our nose! The forecast wind shift hit a day early!

So slogging into the 25 knot winds for the last 14 miles took much longer. As the tides were with us and opposing the wind, the seas got even lumpier! Good thing we have such a solid boat! These Valiants are delightful!

Anyway, we got into Victoria safe and sound at 445 PM after a lumpy, but otherwise uneventful day.

We're going to hang out here until Tuesday or Wednesday, then head up to Sidney. We'll park the boat and probably head back to the house around April 1. We'll fly back and resume our cruise the end of April, when the weather warms up a bit more.

We'll probably take Kenmore Air to get back to our car... Woopie! We'll get to ride a seaplane!

That's the news from Raptor Dance. Drop us a line and let us know how your doing. We have wireless Internet at the dock in front of the Empress Hotel!

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Back Underway

2006-03-13T20:47:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since we last emailed.

We've been off the boat at our Vacation home in Sonoma County California catching up on home chores. Some minor repairs, replaced the oven and range hood, remodeled the old closet where the furnace used to be, reworked some of the kitchen cabinets and generally getting the house ready to leave again!

We've also updated our website and changed our web hosting and domain registrar. You don't have to do anything different, just go to http://raptordance.com as always.

Note though if you have any bookmarks, links, etc. that go to raptordance.us, you need to change them to go to raptordance.com!

We changed the layout of our website. Some of the new things we've added include a list of "Quick Links" on the homepage to make it easier to get around and a database containing our Recipes! Go take a look. Let me know what you think!

We are planning to drive up to Seattle to get back onboard in two days on Wednesday, March 15th. We'll stay in Seattle on Lake Union for about a week, going back out the Lake Washington Ship Canal and the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks on Tuesday or Wednesday, March 21 or 22 see:

http://www.nws.usace.army.mil/PublicMenu/Menu.cfm?sitename=lwsc&pagename=Navigating

We will overnight in Shilshole Marina or Bell Marina before heading back to Victoria and Sidney (route to be determined, based on who's around to visit with!).

We're planning on docking Raptor Dance in Port Sidney Marina http://www.portsidney.com/ for the month of April and heading back to Sonoma for a good part of April. Since we'll have left or Jeep at Lake Union, we will come back via either the Victoria Clipper http://www.victoriaclipper.com/ or Kenmore Air http://www.Kenmore air.com/ and drive the jeep back. Later in April we'll fly right into Victoria Airport, which is actually in Sidney.

In May we're planning to hit the highlights we missed last year, including Princess Louisa Inlet. We'll also visit some old favorites.

In June, we're planning to leave around June 6 to 8, weather permitting, and sail nonstop to San Francisco Bay. We're signed up with Commanders' Weather http://www.commandersweather.com/ to maximize the probability of leaving during a good weather window. We'll most likely leave from Port Angeles in Washington.

We're planning to take two crew with us as this should be about a 6 day passage. We have two "probable" crew members, but they're not yet 100% certain they can make it.

That's the news from here. We'll update you next when we leave Lake Union.

Warmest Regards,

Bill and Mary

Using Wireless Internet - WiFi - While Cruising

2005-10-10T15:34:00.000-04:00

Wireless Internet “WiFi” – is becoming available in more and more marinas and anchorages, worldwide.   WiFi adapters are now also a standard feature in many computers.

WiFi can be used not just for email and web surfing, but also for very inexpensive telephone service, using a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) service like Skype http://www.skype.com (which we love and highly recommend).

In many of the Marinas we’ve been in, the service is free.  In most, though, you’ll need to signup for the service or pay on a daily basis.  We’re currently cruising the Pacific Northwest and up here a company, Broad Band Express http://www.bbxpress.net/  has wired many of the marinas and anchorages.  So it made sense for us to sign up for their annual plan.

The biggest challenge to successfully using the service has been getting good reception.  WiFi uses radio communications at 2.4 gigahertz, which is quite finicky.  We’ve had little luck using the WiFi adapters built into our PCs, so we’ve found a good solution in a combination WiFi adapter and antenna from Hawking Technology http://www.hawkingtech.com/ their HWU54D.  This unit attaches to your PC via a serial USB cable, which also supplies it’s power.

We bought ours online at http://www.ecost.com for $50 US.

There are also WiFi antennas on the market that you could try,  but there are a couple of issues with external antennas:

1. Most computers have no antenna jack to connect the antenna to, and

2. The cable loss at WiFi frequencies (2.4 Giga Hertz) is so high that the cable loses a lot of power.

You could also buy a marine grade external antenna and a high power PC Card, but this costs a lot more money (well over $100 US).

All our PCs have a built-in WiFi adapter.  We don't use the built-ins when we using the Hawking HWU54D.

It's easy to disable the built-in adapter.  Just right click on "My Network Neighborhood" (in Windows XP), select properties.  All your network adapters will pop up in a window.  Right click on the built-in adapter and select "Disable".  When the adapter is disabled, this menu will allow you to "Enable" it - for when you take your laptop to a hotspot.

When we use the HWU54D, we run in with a 10 foot USB extension cable and put it on top of our boom.  I use a high tech enclosure to weather proof it.... A zip lock baggie  ;-}

I use another baggie and twist tie to weather proof the connection between the two USB cables.

If you need more than 16 feet USB cable length, You’ll need to buy an “Active” USB extension cable.  These amplify the USB signal and will let you cascade cables to extend a greater distance.

On to Victoria!

2005-10-08T21:30:00.000-04:00

Hello Everyone!

We've just posted the latest batch of pictures on the website http://raptordance.com

During the last week, it's been very rainy and overcast. We've only had one nice day.  The forecast is for more of the same ;-{

After the last week's boat chores in Sidney, we continued back to Maple Bay and had a lovely afternoon and evening at Rob and Shannon's home in Crofton on Sunday, October 2nd. Also present were Craig and Barbara from Capella along with their friends Pat and Mary Ann. On Monday, we all went over to Capella for a dinner of BBQ pork loin.

Pat and Mary Ann were visiting to get an idea of what the "cruising life" might be like. They expected it to be very slow, lots of lying around and reading. We may not have given them a totally accurate picture. Now they think it involves lots of eating and socializing.

On Tuesday the 4th, we motored back to Port Sidney with Capella and were joined later in the day by Roger and Mona on Cherokee Eagle who came across from their winter slip in Blaine Washington.

Craig, Barbara, Pat, Mary Ann, Mary and I went to "Fish on Fifth" in Sidney for fish and chips. This remains, in our opinion, the best fish and chips place we've found in Canada.

That night we went to the "Maple Palace" for Chinese food with Roger and Mona. This restaurant was excellent.

We all went back on Wednesday for a Chinese lunch feast. That night we gathered on Raptor Dance for a game of Mexican Train dominoes.

On Thursday, we left Capella, who headed back over to Ganges and motored with Cherokee Eagle down to Victoria. We were dressed in full cold weather gear as it was rainy and cold.

We tied up in one of the most scenic anchorages in any downtown harbor, the Docks in front of the Empress Hotel in James Bay in Downtown Victoria. A wonderful little marina, be sure to check out our pictures on the website.

The docks were almost empty when we arrived on Thursday. This is a long weekend for Canadians... Thanksgiving. So the docks are filling up now.  Also tomorrow is the Royal Victoria Marathon, one of the qualifiers for the Boston Marathon - see: http://www.royalvictoriamarathon.com/

The starting line is nearby and the race passes by on the road between the docks and the Empress Hotel. We'll be rooting them on as they pass right by the marina. The finish line is in front of the Parliament building, just South of the Marina.

We'll be here in Victoria a week, then head over to Friday Harbor in Washington on Thursday or Friday (weather permitting). After that, we'll be heading for the barn! We should be in Lake Union by the 18th or 19th.

We'll then meet with the water maker repair folks and pack up to head to Sonoma for the winter. We've already hit some of our favorite restaurants and gone for some nice walks in town.

Last night, we saw the premier of the Wallace and Gromit movie, "The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit". Highly Recommended! See: http://www.wandg.com/ and http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051006/REVIEWS/50929001

Tuesday, we have tickets to see the Pacific Opera Victoria production of Tchaikovsky's opera, Eugene Onegin see: http://www.pov.bc.ca/season_onegin.html

One tool we've found that we really like is Google Earth. It's a free satellite photo service. It gives a great view of the world with not quite the resolution of spy satellites. You download and install the Google Earth client on your PC to use the service. Give it a try at http://earth.google.com

Once you have Google Earth installed try this link: http://raptordance.us/KMZ/EmpressDocks.kmz to see where we currently are docked in Victoria (Save the kmz file to your hard disk, then double click the file to launch Google Earth).

Note, these pictures are up to a year or two old, so you won't see us in the slip! Google Earth gives a much more dynamic presentation than the static satellite maps on our web site's current position page.

That's the latest from Victoria BC!

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Back to Sidney and Water Heater Woes

2005-09-30T14:37:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone,

Since our last note we've made a few stops and had a
variety of weather. Also, the numbers of boats out
and about have decreased significantly since the labor
day weekend.

We only stayed one night at Telegraph Harbor, Thetis
Island before continuing on to Chemainus, Vancouver
Island. The marina is small but Harmen, the
wharfinger (harbor master), is great, very friendly
and helpful. We could walk through the entire town
right from the dock. In fact, we did a lot of walking,
finding many interesting places. We followed the
footprints on the roads past the many many murals on
the town buildings. We also found a tiny but excellent
Chinese Restaurant, Ding Ho, right up from the marina,
and a good Japanese place too.

We had to stop in the Grapefully Yours store to see
what is was. We recognized the familiar aroma as soon
as we entered. It turned out to be a gift shop plus a
U-brew place. After a bit of tasting of Raspberry
Port, we decided to have a batch of Old Vine Zinfandel
prepared for next April. We'll let you know how this
turns out...weather it was a weak moment or a good
idea.

A few days later we moved on to Maple Bay. This is a
good marina for locals but not so good if you don't
have a car because it's too far from town. The reason
we went there was to hook up with friends we made in
Mexico, Roger (Mona had just gone back to the states)
of Cherokee Eagle and Rob and Shannon, of Sea Bull,
who live nearby in Crofton. We all enjoyed an
excellent meal at the Grapevine which is near the
municipal pier.

We were on a roll. After two nights we moved to
Ganges, Salt Spring Island, with Roger to hook up with
Craig and Barbara of Capella fame.

We enjoyed our time here in June and were glad to
return for the Saturday Market, good restaurants and
friends. Barbara and Craig were happy on arriving here
to just put the anchor down for a long term stay.

Needless to say, there was more good food involved.
House Picollo was our favorite restaurant. Another
evening we all had steaks and all the trimmings on
Capella, Pork Marsala on Raptor Dance and Bill's
excellent (weather inspired) onion soup. See below for
the recipe.

Rob and Shannon came by ferry and gave us all a tour
of Salt Spring Island...and a home grown frozen
chicken (would you believe?).

Our timing was good, so we were able to visit with Ken
and Wendy on Poppy II too. They had just returned from
Sausalito.

We also met briefly with Marilyn Ming who, with her
husband Jim, own the Valiant 40, Coyote Moon. She's
head librarian at the Salt Springs Library in Ganges
and commutes over from Sidney. We missed them on our
earlier pass through the area as they were doing a
circumnavigation of Vancouver Island.

We did manage to see some sun during this time but
it's getting pretty cold now. We've been regularly
using our heater. The dominoes came out for Mexican
Train and we learned how to play team Skip Bow (also
known as Spite and Malice).

We had already made plans to return to Canoe Cove to
have our water heater checked. Bill determined that
the tiny leak, which we've had since we were in the
Sea of Cortez, was coming from a corner of the water
heater. We thought it was better to do the work there,
where a replacement was available if needed. Funny
thing, all doubt was lifted when suddenly water was
pouring out of the water heater. Yep, a new one was in
our immediate future. But it was Friday and we were
not due at Canoe Cove until Monday. Now I know many
boaters routinely use the marina showers but we never
had. We missed being able to use our on board shower
but it was actually not too inconvenient using the
marina's. So for one Looney (a $1 CAN coin with a Loon
on the back - approximately $0.83) we got four minutes
of hot water.

Monday we arrived in Canoe Cove and got settled in at
the service dock. Monday night we had dinner with Jim
and Marilyn and had a lovely dinner at the house that
they're building a short distance away from the
marina. We also did the usual tour of each others
boats. Coyote Moon is back in their slip, also at
Canoe Cove. Interestingly while they were off on the
circumnavigation, the marina put us in their slip for
a few days when we were here before.

Stan from Canoe Cove worked with us on the water
heater problem. He's the fellow who did our new
through hull and raw water manifolds back in June - so
we know he does good work.

First we had to get out the old heater, A Seaward 11
Gal. model. This is quite a bit more complex than in
a home as the unit is in a tight corner under the rear
state room bed. We had to drain the unit, detach the
115V electricity, fresh water hoses and the hoses
going to the engine (we can heat water either by using
115V power or by an engine coolant heat exchanger in
the water heater). Stan's nimble plugging of the
engine coolant circuit prevented us from losing very
much liquid. Then we removed the mounting brackets
for the heater and tried to lift it out. Oops! One
of our Group 31 house batteries is in the way - so we
disconnected and removed it and then lifted out the
water heater.

When we got the old heater up to the shop we removed
the cover and found the hole in the tank. It had
corroded through! Wait a minute, this tank is
Aluminum! We thought we had a stainless steel tank!
A quick check of the manual shows we misread the
specifications... This water heater only has a
stainless steel outer case, Duh!

Also, the only water heater we could get in a
reasonable time period is also aluminum, oh well.
It's a Force 10, 11 Gal. When this goes, we'll
replace it with a true Stainless Steel unit (It turns
out that there are very few on the market).

We are also looking into putting on a magnesium anode
to cut down on the corrosion. While these are
standard on home units, very few marine units come
with them.

The Force 10 is the same size as the Seaward, but the
attachments are in slightly different places. Also
the mounting brackets are on the sides instead of the
ends. So we had to work with Stan to make everything
fit.

At 1:00 Tuesday afternoon we were all done, so we
fired everything up... Works like a champ - Hooray!

We did have a slight drip that we discovered later.
So Stan came back over Wednesday morning to find it
and tighten one joint. The leak was about 6 feet from
where the water was pooling and it was, very slow...
So it took some detective work to find.

So at 11:00 Wednesday we left Canoe Cove for Port
Sidney Marina with the threat of a "Significant" Storm
for later in the day.

Port Sidney is only about 3 miles from Canoe Cove, so
we got there in no time at all - in spite of 25+ knot
head winds, fog with 3/4 mile visibility and 2 foot
choppy, sloppy seas.

We tied up and went to our favorite fish and chips
place in Canada: Fish on 5th. We like fish and
chips, we tried it lots of places up here. Haven't
found any nearly as good.

Later in the day, with the clouds gathering and the
wind gusting to 30+ we decided to stay on the boat and
cook one of Shannon's chickens... It was yummy.

Yesterday - Thursday - we spent a raining day onboard
doing boat chores. The video processor for out Runco
flat screen died, so Bill routed a S-Video cable from
the DVD player over to the screen. We had a jury rig
of two cables spliced together and duck taped overhead
in the cabin, but we wanted more shipshape
arrangement. So, we routed a cable of the proper
length alongside the wiring harness that traverses the
cabin up along the forward bulkhead and down the
starboard side. This required disassembling and
reassembling the Computer/AV equipment locker,
emptying lockers, taking the wine cabinet apart,
creative snaking under the cabin sole, replacing the
video processor with two books so the equipment still
stacked properly and a lot of head scratching. The job
took all afternoon.

This evening, with the rain pouring down, was a good
time to enjoy the last of the crab with a light sauce
(olive oil, sweet red pepper, sambal and garlic) over
pasta. We aren't starving, as you know, but our weight
is not increasing.

This morning, it's overcast, cold with showers
forecast for later today with another 1/4 of rain
likely. Today's chore is to replace the raw water
pump in the heat/air conditioner. It sounds like the
bearings are going out in the pump and we want to fix
it before it breaks! The thrum thrum thrum of the
pump also wakes us up sometimes when it runs at night.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we'll had back over to
Maple Bay for a Dinner party at Rob and Shannon's on
Sunday night.

That's the latest from Raptor Dance!

Warmest Regards,
Mary and Bill (we both wrote major sections of this
report)

----------

Bill's Onion Soup (Best made in a pressure cooker -
ours is a 6 Quart)

3 Tbsp Olive Oil
3 Pounds Onions, Sliced (more is OK - you want to
basically fill your pressure cooker pot with raw
sliced onions)
1 Tbsp Flour
1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 Tsp Brown Sugar
1 Cup Beer, suggest a nice flavorful ALE, such as a
Pale Ale (more is OK, I've often used the whole
bottle)
6 Cups Beef Stock (or water + lower salt, beef bullion
or use more beer!)

For serving:
1 slice of toast per person
shredded Gruyere cheese

Heat the oil in your pressure cooker and add the
sliced onions. Cook on high, stirring occasionally.
You want the onions to sweat out their moisture and
cook down. You want them to slowly turn light brown
as the liquid cooks out and their sugars caramelize.
You want to stir frequently enough so the color is
even, you don't want any medium or dark brown color.
This should take around 30-40 minutes (depending on
how many onions you're cooking).

Then reduce the heat to low, add the flour,
Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar - stir frequently
for 5 minutes.

Then add the beer and beef stock and turn up the heat
to high and close the pressure cooker. Cook under
high pressure for 20 minutes. If you don't have a
pressure cooker, you can simmer the soup in a regular
pot or dutch oven for 2 hours, but you may need more
liquid.

Turn off the heat and allow the pressure to release
naturally as the pressure cooker cools.

Spoon the soup into bowls, float the toast on top of
the soup and sprinkle shredded Gruyere cheese on top
to cover. You can then pop under the broiler to get
the cheese bubbly and brown. Then serve.

We don't have a broiler on the boat, so we use our
electric heat gun (hair dryer on steroids - normally
used to shrink, heat shrink tubing and remove paint)
to get the same effect.

------

On to Nanaimo and Telegraph Cove

2005-09-14T20:28:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone,

After heading south to reach the sunshine, we finally found it in Vancouver...at least part of the time. We had been moving every few days so it felt good to settle in for a bit.

We stayed at False Creek Yacht Club in Vancouver for a week and would have stayed longer if it was possible. All their slips are occupied by yacht club members. So it is only when someone is traveling that there are slips open for visitors. This is located in False Creek on the city side, at the second bridge. It is directly across from Granville Island, so we just had a short dingy ride to the shops and restaurants, (and West Marine) on Granville Island. Oh yes, we had to check out the tour and tasting at the Granville Brewery.

While we were there the Fringe Fair started. This fair's purpose was "to ward off mediocrity". Those wishing to be part of this entered their names in the lottery. Once picked, they could perform any sort of entertainment, without censure for an hour and a half. It was good to see reviews of the presentations. There was quite a range of style and quality, with a few listed as recommended.

We enjoyed the Yacht Club and their quite reasonable dinner selections. Rack of lamb...that works for us! Unlike the YC's that we are used to, which are busiest during the weekend, False Creek Yacht Club is open for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Friday and are closed over the weekend. There are many places close by to cruise to, so members leave on the weekends.

The cruising season is pretty well over now. The members are all back in their slips so we had to leave or stay in the one remaining spot under the Granville Island Bridge.... and get bombed by the perching sea gulls...

We did have a great time during the week in Vancouver, taking lots of long walks, going to the Maritime Museum, exploring different parts of the city and enjoying new restaurants. But of course we had to return to Chinatown for some yummy Dim Sum. The city is actually small enough that we could walk to most places we wished to go.

During this week we did have one night of over 35 knot winds. The most exciting part of that was the Coast Guard boat going full throttle past the marina on the way to a boat fire. We definitely rocked on that wake. At least one 30 foot powerboat bounced onto the dock and back into the water, suffering some damage. We were fine, nothing more than a bit of rocking.

Our next stop was Nanaimo. I'm not sure if the folks who recommended this town did so because they have a sweet tooth. One of Nanaimo's claim to fame is a sweet convection named after the town, the Nanaimo Bar. I suppose that we must at least try one (we did, see below).

Again, we are getting lots of exercise walking. It's a good thing. On Monday, Sept 12th, we stopped at Armani's Restaurant and ordered his mushroom burger. It was very tasty but huge. We had to take at least a pound of the mushrooms in a doggy bag. They'll be great on our
mushroom pizza later. Since we had it for a late lunch, we didn't need dinner that night - in spite of a 5+ mile walk on Monday.

We also really liked Acme Restaurant (no relation to where Wily Coyote buys his stuff). Sort of a West coast eclectic fusion cuisine, but not at all pricey. They have a selection of dishes from
creative soups and salads to sushi. Quite good. We went there twice - once dinner on Sunday and once for lunch on Tuesday.

One thing that is noticeable is the greater number of sail boats in Nanaimo compared to elsewhere in the North West. Open water and wind is more accessible. The Straights of Georgia are just a mile or two away.

Right now, Wednesday, Sept 14th, we've stopped in Telegraph Cove for One Night. Tomorrow, we're off to Chemainus for two nights, followed by Maple Bay on Saturday.

Warmest Regards,
Mary and Bill

-----
The Original Nanaimo Bar recipe:

The Nanaimo bar has a notable thermal significance. During Nanaimo's heyday as a major coal mining area, families of miners sent care packages which often included this sweet treat. Dubbed a "Nanaimo Bar" the cake travelled well on the journey from the miners' families homes in the UK and brightened the spirits of the workers underground.

The Nanaimo Bar consists of three layers and looks a bit like a brownie, except for the cream colored middle layer.

These guys are tasty, but very sweet, rich and calorie packed. We shared one between us (over 4 days!).

For 16 - 2x2 inch Nanaimo Bars:

Bottom Layer:

1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter (pref. Euro-Style cultured)
1/4 Cup Sugar
5 Tbsp Cocoa
1 Egg, Beaten
1 3/4 Cup Graham Cracker Crumbs
1/2 Cup Finely Chopped Almonds
1 Cup Shredded Coconut

Melt the butter, sugar and cocoa in the top of a double boiler. Add egg and stir to cook and thicken (don't stop whisking or you end up with lumps of scrambled egg!). Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, coconut and almonds. Press firmly in an 8x8 inch baking pan.

Middle Layer:

1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter
2 Tbsp + 2 Tsp Cream
2 Tbsp Vanilla Custard Powder
2 Cup Icing Sugar

Cream butter, cream, custard powder and icing sugar together well. Beat until light. Spread over bottom layer.

Top Layer:

4 Oz Semi-Sweet Chocolate
2 Tbsp Unsalted Butter

Melt chocolate and butter in double boiler. Cool. When cool, but still liquid, pour over middle layer and chill the pan in the refrigerator until the bars set.

Cut into 2 inch squares and enjoy!
-----

Back to Vancouver

2005-09-04T19:04:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

After we left Oleo's last Saturday Aug 27th, we headed back through the Dent and Yaculta rapids in a downpour. Yes, more rain.

The rapids themselves were totally uneventful. The trick is to go through around slack current according to the Canadian Tide and Current tables. There was a fair amount of other boat traffic, but everyone was well behaved.

We then anchored back in Squirrel Cove and had 1 day of good weather. On Monday, Travis and Barbara joined us on Bar-T-Na and we had a lovely evening playing Mexican Train dominoes.

Finally on Wednesday, the 31st, after daily rain - we both had enough. Time to head South. We were originally intending to visit a few more anchorages in the Desolation Sound region, but we were both going wonky from the all the crummy weather.

Out next stop on August 31st and Sept 1st was Garden Bay in Pender Harbour. Pender is an interesting place with at least half a dozen marinas with pubs, restaurants and small stores. There is even a small shopping center across the bay. We hiked up to a local lake and generally walked around a bit. The local mosquitos were active but they've changed their taste. For some reason Bill is the preferred taste treat instead of Mary.

On Friday Sept 2nd we continued on down the coast to Gibsons Landing in Howe Sound. How is just up the coast a little from Vancouver. Gibsons is at the far side of Howe Sound, so although it's on the mainland, there's no connection by road across the sound, only ferries. Still it's a fair sized community with lots of little shops and a small shopping center. The marina was full for the weekend with boaters on holiday from Vancouver. This is labor day (actually it's labour day) weekend up here in Canada too! The best things in Gibson's were Mike's place for great gelato and the latest DVDs (we rented two over the two days we were in town) and the Bayview Szechuan Chinese Restaurant.

This morning, Sunday the 4th, we headed down back to Vancouver and tied up at the False Creek Yacht Club across from Granville Island in Vancouver. We'll be here for about a week. Vancouver was one of our favorite places on our journey up and we're looking forward to spending more time in this lovely city.

It's also our 7th Anniversary! So we're looking forward to a nice dinner tonight to celebrate.

After we pulled in, Sam and Nadia Calmes from the Jeanneau 37 "Avanti" stopped by. They've been here in False Creek for about a week. They were with us on the Baja Haha and had been cruising in Mexico and Central America. They came up a few weeks ago on the same Dockwise Yacht Transport voyage as our friends on Barbara and Craig on Capella and Mona and Roger on Cherokee Eagle. Sam and Nadia will be heading up to Desolation Sound for a bit of a cruise before heading back to Seattle for the Winter and to sell the boat as Nadia is expecting twins ;-} We'll visit with them later today and share our favorite spots with them. We hope they have better weather than we did.

We're currently planning to be here in Vancouver for a week, then head over to the Gulf Islands for a few weeks. More later as our plans firm up.

We're going to cut our Canada trip a little shorter than we originally planned as we're tired of the lousy weather. More on our anticipated schedule as our plans firm up.

We're back in civilization, so our cell phones and regular email addresses work again!

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Some additional thoughts - at Oleo's

2005-08-27T12:02:00.000-04:00

Hello again everyone!

We love hearing from you during our travels. Please feel free to send us an email and let us know what you're up to, how things are going, etc.

If you REPLY to our messages, PLEASE DELETE the text of our message to you. This winlink.org connection is over a slow speed high frequency single sideband radio connection and only runs at a few hundred characters A MINUTE. You can find out more about this way of sending a receiving email at http://www.winlink.org or http://www.sailmail.com

If you have any problems getting through on the winlink.org address, please drop me a note on our raptordance.com address and I'll fix it from our end.

Quite of few of you have commented that we talk about food a lot. Hey, we're foodies! The concern is that we must be gaining weight and blowing up like blimps! Good news, we're not! In fact, since I (Bill) retired I've lost weight and my waist is down from a 38+ to a loose 36. Mary's lost weight too! While we don't have a scale on board, clothes fit is the major indicator we use between weigh ins.

Also, in yesterday's email, I forgot to mention that as we stopped at Blind Channel and Oleo's on the way up to the Broughton's, you can read about those locations in our past postings:

Blind Channel:
http://raptordance.blogspot.com/2005/07/blind-channel-resort-and-marina.html

Oleo's:
http://raptordance.blogspot.com/2005/07/oleos-restaurant-frederick-arm.html

Also, during this visit to Oleo's we met the mom, Ruth and had a lovely chat.

You can see all our old postings on our Web Log at:
http://raptordance.blogspot.com/

We hope you're all having a great weekend!

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Port McNeill, Johnstone Straights and Points South

2005-08-26T23:50:00.000-04:00

Hello Everyone!

We posted pictures, yesterday on our website of our August adventures. Be sure to check them out at http://raptordance.com

When we last emailed, we were anchored out at Dickson Island on Saturday Morning, Aug 20th. We left that morning in Fog and overcast and headed over to Port McNeill.

Mary was planning to fish, but we had to cancel that side excursion when the autopilot insisted on steering the boat in starboard (right hand) circles. With the fog and no auto pilot, there were enough hands on board to steer, watch for logs (there were lot's!), fish and land the fish if we caught any.

So, with "Car Talk" and "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on Sirius Satellite radio - we hand steered the four hours over to Port McNeill.

After tying up in the Marina - we delved into the depths of the transom to figure out what was wrong with the autopilot. To get to it, we had to empty the lazerette, then take out the port propane locker. A quick look showed that the autopilot ram was fully extended with the wheel not even centered, but to starboard (right). Hmmm, out also came the starboard propane locker.

This one is more troublesome to remove as it's the locker with the active propane bottle. So we not only have to remove the vent/drain hose from the bottom of the locker, but also disconnect the propane solanoid wiring, and clip the tie wraps retaining the coiled propane hose that's extra length so we can remove the locker without totally disassembling the propane line.

Finally, with both lockers out, I could get below the rudder quadrant to the autopilot drive arm to fine the set screw and bolts holding in position had loosened and the arm had shifted from position.

First we tried centering and tightening the bolts. No, that wouldn't work. The whole drive arm assembly had slipped down on the rudder shaft and now the autopilot ram was abrading the stern through hull hoses (not good).

So, loosening the whole shebang, raising it on the rudder shaft and re-tightening was necessary. Done, now the test. Yes!!! The autopilot now could move freely! Task done (or so I thought).

Since we rarely have both propane lockers out, I took care of some other chores while in the transom area.

Our Seafrost refrigeration unit's "sight glass" is only accessible with the lockers out. So, I gave it a look. Hmmm, foam going by! That indicates an incomplete charge of R-22 refrigerant, we must have a slow leak (we had the service fellow, recharge a bit of R-22 in it before we left Alameda last September after 4 years - so it's a real slow leak).

The only repair person in Port McNeill doesn't have equipment for R-22 (one of the "sort of green" Freon replacement refrigerants). We have a "cruising kit" with the fittings and two cans of R-22 to use to recharge the unit when out on a cruise - but no instructions!.

Fortunately, Port McNeill has cell phone coverage and double fortunately, our service fellow back in the bay area answered his cell phone on a Saturday and talked us through the process of adding the gas to our unit. Two successes!

I also added an interference filter to our Marine SSB antenna tuner (also in the transom and only accessible with both propane lockers out), this was a project that I've had on the back burner waiting to do when I was in the transom. Without this filter, the transmitted signal from the Marine SSB gets into some of the boat systems and causes them to act up (e.g. the Autopilot does "S" turns, or "Snake Wake" as it's called). The filter is supposed to keep the transmit power going out the antenna and not running around the boat. We'll see how it works...

Buttoning everything up, that killed our Saturday.

Sunday, we had a great visit over to Alert Bay where we visited the U'Mista cultural museum and walked around town. See our website for the pictures.

Monday, we did laundry and other chores.

Tuesday, we did shopping and got ready to leave at the crack of dawn on Wednesday. Doing last minute boat checkouts, a strange noise was coming from the rudder assembly when turned from stop to stop. Oh boy, back into the lazerette and out came the port propane locker. Hmmm, the rudder cable seems a bit loose and the ends are "snapping" on the autopilot drive arm. tightened them up and buttoned up the locker and lazerette.

Wednesday, we left Port McNeill in overcast cold conditions at 6:15. Sunrise was at 6:30. We caught favorable currents until we were past Telegraph Cove and into Johnstone Straights. With virtually no wind, the sometimes fearsome Johnstone Straights were a piece of cake. We also had Neap Tide currents, so things were not bad in the current category either.

Plan A was to anchor at Forward Harbour. Conditions were so benign however that we continued the extra 20 miles onto Blind Channel where we spent the night.

On our trip down, we went from long underwear weather in overcast and cold conditions to warm, shorts weather in only 60 miles. We also saw multiple pods of Orcas - one male with an enormous doral fin, pods of dolphins and Minke Whales (we think, we need to get a whale book for positive ID).

The autopilot wasn't happy during the passage - so, at Blind Channel, into the transom/propane locker for the third time. I had over tightened the rudder cables. Ahhh Perfection!

While working away, we changed the engine oil and filter as it was due.

Thursday, we updated our website with pictures, fueled up, then motored over to Oleo's.

Today, Friday, we spent the day with Paul fishing for Salmon. Skunked again.

Tomorrow, we'll be heading back through the Dent and Yuculta Rapids, heading back to the Desolation Sound area.

That's the latest from Raptor Dance!

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

AT LONG LAST - BEARS AND CRABS!

2005-08-19T20:45:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

We left Sullivan Bay, Tuesday in rain showers. This Pacific Northwest weather is pretty depressing, a totally sunny day is pretty rare. Most days it's also fairly cool, only reaching the high 60s by mid-afternoon.

A short distance from Sullivan Bay, we anchored in Claydon Bay up Grappler Sound. We had a pleasant night at anchor and the Wednesday morning, Travis and Barbara on Bar-T-Na, joined us. Mary and Travis went off crabbing with Travis's lucky crab trap and finally success! the first pot had 4 keepers out of 7 total (the other 3 were real close to keeper size). Re-setting it with some bait fish, it had 3 the Thursday morning and a huge sun starfish. These were Mary's first successful catch of keeper dugenous crabs.

We also arose early Thursday morning to look for bear. They like to hunt on the beach at low spring tide. Claydon Bay is on the BC mainland coast, North of Broughton Island and is prime bear country.

Travis and Barbara spied a mother and cub from their boat, but by the time we got dressed and on deck they were gone.

We got in our dingy and went exploring.

In the next lobe of the Claydon Bay is an abandoned logging trestle and a broad beach at low tide. We slowly motored by, being very quiet, searching the beach and tree area. Nothing...

We went almost completely around the bay and started back.

Looking back, I saw a black spot emerge from the trees. Quickly changing direction, we crept closer...

It was a mother and cub!

When we got within a few hundred yards, we cut the engine and let the slight breeze and tide carry us closer. Fortunately, we were not directly up wind of the bears, so they remained oblivious to our presence.

We got within 30 feet of the shore where the bears were happy turning over rocks, some very large, noisily crunching their clams. The bears were about another 20 feet from the shore so we were at a safe distance. Bears can swim well and a mother and cub are not to be trifled with, but they showed absolutely no signs of distress or alarm.

At one point the cub wandered back into the woods and the mother, happily continued munching clams for another 20 minutes before she noticed he/she was gone and went huffing into the woods looking for her progeny.

They both returned 5 minutes later to the beach and continued hunting. After watching the bear for over an hour, we left them to their breakfast and went back to ours.

We had a great rest of the day Thursday, having breakfast with Travis and Barbara and cooking up our crabs. That night they came over for dinner. Mary made her world famous Crab Cakes and I made Pork Marsala.

This morning, it was very foggy, but when the fog lifted around noon, we left and went about 7 miles further up Grappler Sound to Turnbull Cove. Another lovely anchorage, with the usual trees, etc. Yawn...

We had lunch and decided to head down to Dickson Island to get ready to head across Queen Charlotte Straights in the morning to head either to Port McNeill or Sointula.

That's the news from Raptor Dance!

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Sullivan Bay Marina - The Broughton's

2005-08-16T12:59:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone,

Here we are in Sullivan Bay, North Broughton Island at 2:15PM, Monday, August 15th and waiting for the sun to come out. It's a little late today. Usually around 1PM we'll see some sun. Sometimes it's not until 4PM.

When we left Pierre's, we went just a short distance to Echo Bay. We met another couple, Ken and Carol Whitaker, on a Valiant 42, Whisper. Carol was not interested in fishing. So Ken and I went out to catch dinner. We did well with a couple of rock fish and several black cod, plenty for a couple of meals for the four of us.

Meanwhile Bill had several boat chores in mind. Usually each boat chore takes three times as long as expected. Bill completed these in record time, without tripling it. Even the ever popular boat chore: "Rebuilding the Head" (marine toilet). So we had time to check out the neat pictographs on the rock face. It was hard to imagine what they were meant to be but interesting even so. The "Bead Lady" also had a shop with all sorts of beautiful bead work, leather, paintings etc. in Echo Bay at Windsong Sea Village. It was a treat.

Then there is the "Crab Saga". We were still hopeful and placed our trap in a recommended area. No crabs took the bait but we did have a small flounder in the trap. Surprise, surprise! Naturally we reset the trap, 80' deep at high tide with 150' of sinking line and extra floatation. The trap was gone when we returned to retrieve it. It seemed suspicious, since it was not near a ledge or where a boat might snag it accidentally. We decided not to invest any more money in seeking crabs.

That night we did get together with other boats for a pot luck dinner. A couple of boats brought their fresh cooked crabs. So we did have our taste of local crab. It seems the crabs here are not as flavorful as those we buy at home from Northern California. It could be the different diet. Another thought was that most boaters clean the crab before cooking it but that it has more flavor if cooked before cleaning.

We discovered that many boaters in B.C. come prepared with a good sized freezer. Then they fish (salmon and halibut especially) and catch prawn and package and freeze their catch for the winter. Some had a near production line going freezing buckets of prawns.

It was here that we went to visit Bill Proctor and his museum. It was an interesting afternoon. Bill's museum contains all sorts of artifacts, from fishing lures and bottles to large lumber saws, all collected on the beach by him. It was quite an array of "junk". Bill is a local legend and author of some local best sellers, including "Full Moon, Flood Tide" a history of the local folks and folk lore of the area in the last 100 years or so.

The highlight in this area was the humpback whales we saw on three different days. "Show us your white bellies". OK, well it worked in Tonga!

It was time to move onward. we were overdue for some anchorage time. So we continued north to Berry Cove, Cypress Harbor, Broughton Island. We had this lovely little spot to ourselves. We thought we might see some bears but I think we get up after they have gone back to sleep for the day. Also we hoped to see the meteor shower but the sky was completely overcast.

Next Stop was Greenway Sound Marina, Broughton Island. I noticed going in that the water temperature was 64 degrees. Mentioning this to the owner, he said that is why the salmon have gone. They like 52 degree water. Also there is a greater concentration of Atlantic Salmon fish farms in the Broughton Islands than elsewhere in Canada. You all probably know what that means.

The best thing about here was the Greenway Sound Broughton Lakes Park. A dingy dock was right at the trail head. From there we hiked/climbed to the first lake, then continued on a "corduroy road" to the beaver dam and second lake. The corduroy road was very impressive. It is large logs laid horizontal on the long path. Originally it was to help shuttle the cut tree trunks down the hillside. It was a nice work out and we finished the day with a feast of pork Marsala and mushrooms with all the trimmings.

Onward to Sullivan Bay. This used to be a great fishing destination. They still seem to be doing fine as a marina, but the fishing has died out. There have been very few catches reported in the area. We have met some fine folks here. Yesterday Tom (5 years old) and Corey (maybe 10) spent the afternoon aboard with many question and much enthusiasm. They were a joy! We heard of Corey's plan to become a boat designer and Tom's, to become a spy. We had a fine time with their parents too.

We got to know another couple, Travis and Barbara Wills on BAR-T-NA. Travis really took me under his wing and gave me a lot of help on fishing...when to fish, what to fish with, where to fish for what type of fish, how to decide what depth to fish, what music fish like, etc. What a great help to me and he was so enthusiastic. This morning at 8:30 he and I went out fishing with salmon in mind. Barbara was happy to stay behind and continue painting (She is an artist and writer) and Bill was happy to catch a few more ZZZ's. Nope, Salmon weren't biting, no surprise. Pulling in the line, I caught another black cod.

Though the fish weren't biting, when I got back I found Bill byte'n! The public Internet computer in the restaurant was not working so Bill fixed it for another free meal. He also fixed Travis's computer which had a virus.

That's the news as of Monday. Tomorrow we head out to anchor again.

Warmest Regards,
Mary and Bill

FINE PIG!

2005-08-11T21:25:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone,

We haven't gotten very far since the last E-mail. We stayed at Pierre's for three nights. We had such warm greeting, we couldn't just run off. Pierre was right at the dock to greet us and help with our lines. What a wonderful smile he has!

It was a delight to find cleats instead of just the wooden rails to tie to. We have gotten used to tying around the wood on the dock itself but the cleats seemed luxurious, especially since they are so rare here.

Tova, who is much more than "just a pretty face" (as she calls herself) is full of energy and a lot of fun. She and Pierre know that folks come into the marinas for more than just moorage. They come to be social and have some fun. More about that later.

"Lady Di", Diane, the marvelous baker came right out to greet us too and chat a bit. As we walked into the lodge we were greeting with the aroma of freshly baked bread. Yum! As we looked further, we saw that there were cookies too. We didn't see the other treats because they were all gone. But there was a sheet available to place your order for the next morning... sticky buns, To-Die-For brownies, white or wheat bread, a variety of cookies and a luscious variety of pies. Double yum. They had a big sign on the front of the lodge saying, "Bakery". Many a boater cruising by has made a sharp turn into Pierre's, at the sight of that sign.

Another unusual thing they have here is a gathering room inside the lodge. We did use it one night when we had the (very local) grand Canadian National Backgammon Tournament. Ian from Fore Play won that. Also available was, wireless internet (Bill was happy), TV, games, a lending library, and laundry facilities. The water is colored the shade of tea by the leaves. So I decided to wait on doing the wash.

We had a little happy hour at 5 and got to meet everyone. I felt doing something different. So I made crisp tomato polenta squares with Parmesan cheese. Tova was reminding everyone that the next night required "appropriate attire". Everyone needed to wear a tie and/or a hat. This was for the pig roast pot luck dinner and karaoke. Sounds like a big night, doesn't it?

The tie thing went right to Bill's funny bone...his head. We still had his Halloween costume, a hat and tie of thick white unlaid braided rope. Everyone loved it! After asking what he was, Bill was ready with his reply. "I'm a frayed knot!" All of you who know Bill, know it is SO him.

I wore one of my nicer hats from on board and a scarf made of a pair of Bill's black socks (work leftovers) for a tie. Got lot's of complements. Other folks used duck tape, aluminum foil or a sail tie to make ties.

Now the karaoke, that was fun for awhile. It was good when everyone knew the words. But we didn't have many folks who were willing to give it a go on their own, maybe that's OK. I always sing much better in the car, driving down the road with the radio on loud. So we had the bit of karaoke but everyone was really more interested in the pig.

You should see the huge barbecue. It was donated by th Des Moines, Washington Yacht Club. It is an old huge tank lined with bricks. The spit is a boat's stainless steel prop shaft.

This was a good size pig. It was actually an elaborate process removing the pig and carving it. They have been doing this almost every week now. So they have the process down pat. It is a long day for Pierre and the pig. He starts roasting him at 7AM and it's ready around 6ish. There was plenty for everyone and even some to take for sandwiches the next day. And naturally everyone brought very nice side dishes. A good time was had by all. We highly recommend the pig roast and Pierre's.

So much for all the food stuff. When we arrived, Diane mentioned she had a problem with her computer. Aha, A challenge for Bill. He thought he would take care of that in a few minutes but it proved to be more complicated than he thought. And then one thing lead to another and hours later, all was well.

We kept hearing,"The salmon are coming. The salmon are coming". So we had to give it a try. Neither one of us is an accomplished fisher person. And one of us has no interest...Bill. So I am the designated fishing expert on Raptor Dance. I have a long way to go to expert though. The way it has worked out, Bill drives the dingy or the boat and I fish. So far, I know I can catch bottom fish, rockfish etc. Other people have been bringing in salmon, so we know that they are out there. Thus far the salmon have eluded me. Soon. After all, they are coming.

We felt very welcome here. We left feeling like we had made friends and look forward to returning. Check out their website at: http://www.pierresbay.com.

That's the news for now. We're now in Cypress Bay after stopping in Echo Bay. We'll tell you about those adventures next time.

Warmest Regards,
Mary and Bill
Raptor Dance

Pierre's Bay

2005-08-05T19:15:00.000-04:00

When we last left our intrepid travelers, they were hunkered down with 2 days of pouring rain in Blind Channel Marina.

Since then, the sun came out and we've been on the move.

If you're interested, you can always find our current location on our website: http://raptordance.com under the "Where in the world is Raptor Dance? - Current Position" link. We undated that location as soon as we get to a new spot.

You can also go there directly via http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=WB6JAO&units=nautical&relief=1
You can zoom out for a broader view or scroll down for a satellite picture of our current location. Right now, we're in such a remote location that you need to zoom out 4 or 5 times (the "-" button) to get a sense of where we are.

We've met many new people along the way and run across some folks who we've met in other locations. Most of the boats up here are power boats, but there are still quite a few sailboats. There are lot's of boats up here designed by Bob Perry, who designed the Valiant line. There are quite a few Baba's and Tayanas and an occasional Valiant.

Blind Channel was pretty nice, with all the amenities: nice docks, water, electricity, restaurant, small store, gas dock, laundry, hiking trails, Internet access, etc. The restaurant had some nice dishes with a German flair. We'd avise not picking the spetzle as a side dish, though it was heavier than it should be and not quite the right "bite". The flavors were good though.

After leaving Blind channel we headed up through Green Point Rapids and Whirlpool Rapids. After Whirlpool Rapids, we decided to continue instead of stopping for the night in Forward Harbour. Listening to the weather, Johnstone Straights Fannie Island reported only 12 knots of wind, so we continued on.

They lied, when we got there it was blowing 25 knots. Still no big deal though. Johnstone Straights was less bother than a typical summer afternoon on San Francisco Bay, where it often blows 30 knots at 3:00 PM every afternoon in the slot between the Golden Gate and Berkeley.

At 8:00 PM we anchored in Port Harvey, just up Havannah Channel from Johnstone Straights. It was a lovely calm anchorage and we had a very quite night.

Next morning we up anchored and motored around East Cracroft Island to Lagoon Cove Marina. Another funky, fun place. The owners, Bill and Jean Barber have a very rustic little marina with a store (fishing gear, chips and candy) and gas dock. Water was available. Lagoon Cove Power and Light was available 7AM to 1030AM and 4PM to 1030PM daily. One unique thing there is the happy hour. The owner, Bill, provides his daily catch of shrimp for Happy Hour and everyone adds to it with their dishes.

There are many opportunities for getting together on the docks and marinas. So when you head out cruising, go prepared with recipes and ingredients for appetizers and pot luck fare. One of our frequent appetizers is a plate of quesadillas. Tonight it'll be crispy tomato polenta with Parmesan cheese topping.

After our night at Lagoon Cove, we crossed Knight Inlet and up Tribune Channel to probably the most scenic place we've been so far, Kwatsi Bay. Max and Anca and their two children have a very nice little marina at the end of the bay. Kwatsi bay is a fjord, surrounded by very tall mountains with multiple waterfalls running down its sides. You can dingy over to a short trail to a great little waterfall. You're given an air horn in case you encounter a black bear.

We were at Kwatsi for two nights. The first night there was a happy hour pot luck (we did quesadillas). The second, there was a pot luck dinner. Lee and Diane on Sonata (an 85 foot home built steel motor yacht) caught 10 crabs (we're still skunked) and shared them with the group. Mary did a wonderful vegetarian Balti and pine nut couscous. There were lot's of other tasty dishes too. The food was definitely a few notches up from the usual pot luck fare.

After 5 days of sun, we woke up to a very foggy morning. It's now almost 4 PM and it cleared a bit to overcast skies. This was the first time since arriving up here that we thought it was a good idea to turn on our Radar.

We left Kwatsi just before lunch and motored over to Pierre's Bay where we are now. When we docked, we were met by Pierre and "Ms. Pierre Bay", his wife Tove. There's a lot going on for this little place off in the middle of no where. Check it out on the web at http://www.pierresbay.com/

This is also the first marina with cleats! All the others have these dock rails that are a pain to tie and untie to.

We'll be here for two days as we're staying for the "Pig Roast" tomorrow. I wonder if it will be anything like the "Pig Pickin's" they do down in North Carolina.

More news later.

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Blind Channel Resort and Marina

2005-07-30T21:56:00.000-04:00

Hello Everyone!

Well, the weather on the VHF radio from Environment Canada last night and this morning, waffled about a low front approaching just North of here. They weren't sure where it was headed and how strong it might be. They were talking definitely Gale warnings and possible Storm warnings (Storm warnings are even less fun with winds over 48 knots!). So we diverted this morning and headed to the Blind Channel Resort and Marina in Mayne Passage rather than head up Johnstone Straights where the crummy weather is forecast.

Blind Channel Resort and Marina has Wifi with a satellite link, so today and tomorrow we'll have Internet access. Still no phone coverage here though.

We ended up staying two nights at Oleo's Floating Restaurant and Marina. A very unique place. The Montoya family owns and runs Oleo's. Leon Montoya is the very charismatic 78 year old father. He's the famous character that everyone raves about, but the rest of his family is equally charming. Paul the son (in his 20s) is managing the place and handling all the upgrades, repairs, docking, etc. as Leon is off in Quebec taking care of the arrangements as a great uncle passed away.

Katrina, the daughter, runs the restaurant as Ruth the Mom was feeling under the weather with a knee problem. It turns out Katrina is only 17 and a Senior in High School (she seemed very sophisticated and we first thought she was in college). The schooling is by correspondence course and it seems like having friends her own age is not easy.

Oleo's has four entree choices for dinner: crispy duck, Louisiana chicken, stuffed peppers and cabbage rolls. We had the duck the first night and the chicken last night. Both were yummy. Dinner also included a nice greek salad (a feta complee!) and chocolate cake for dessert. Interesting, ay?

Note, we're picking up the Canadian language. "Ay" is VERY Canadian. So is, "You betcha" and "Don'cha know". We love it. It always brings a smile to our faces when we hear it.

Paul is also an experienced fishing guide. He used to guide for some of the big resorts nearby at $85 CDN per person per hour, but now he's running guided fishing trips on his boat from Oleo's at $20/hr. He want's it to be affordable for most folks. We thought this would be a good opportunity to learn and signed up to go yesterday morning (Friday, July 29th).

So we went with him Friday morning at 6AM. One other fellow went with us. So there we are, cool not cold, the first boat at the fishing ground as Oleo's is only a mile or so from the choice area. The other resorts are miles away.

Soon we were joined by a large group of small boats, all with guides and their clients. The way it works is we decide on a rotation, of who gets to handle the first fish on the line, second and next. Mary would have liked for the other gent to go first so she could see how to handle the fish. He was trying to be gentlemanly and insisted that Mary go first.

OK, so first hit... Paul sets the hook and Mary reels it in. It's a dog fish, a type of shark. It's released. Mary's still waiting for her turn with a salmon. We all are!

Finally, another fish strikes... Paul sets the hook... Mary reels and reels and reels. It's another dog fish. Her arm is getting tired already.

More than two hours have gone by and so our guide thinks he'd better check the bait, make sure it's still there.

On the way up, we get another strike...oh no. Is it another dog fish? No, it looks like a salmon. So Mary's reeling like crazy, listening to the instructions being yelling at her, getting excited. Mary was concentrating so hard she didn't see the fish! However, the other three of us could see that it was as fantastic 25 pound Spring (what the Canadian's call a King Salmon). It was fighting an jumping trying to throw off the hook and escape the holographic "flasher" about 3 feet up from the anchovy.

Unfortunately, he got away. He or she spit out the hook... Barbless hooks are used here by law, so that makes it much more difficult. You have to keep tension on the whole time or the fish comes unhooked!

The rest of the morning (until 10AM) was very quiet. How disappointing but fun. We did learn a lot.

Reeling in the lines, we caught a nice Quillback Rockfish - so we had rock fish tacos for lunch again.

Friday afternoon, Paul took another group of four out and the fish were biting like crazy and everyone got their limit in only 2 hours! Can you believe it?

We are going to try it from our boat as we go along. The equipment we have is for salmon fishing in California though. Here the fish much deeper and you need a down rigger and different gear.

More on the fishing story... The other gent got a bite and lost it. He thought it was probably a dog fish, Paul thought a small Salmon from the way the fish fought.

Bill never got to his turn. So nicely Paul only charged us for one person.

Paul is a great fishing guide and we'd recommend him highly. He's very knowledgeable and very inexpensive.

The Montoya family runs Oleo's the way things used to be! Highly recommended.

Katrina also bakes bread and cinnamon rolls for sale in the morning and does breakfast and lunch on request.

We did have some unexpected excitement last night. As we and the folks from two other boats were having dinner, we watched as another big power boat (a classic 50 foot Ocean Alexander, built in the late '70s or early '80s) started to come in. We were thinking and saying, "Where is he going? What is he doing?" He was all over the place. Then he started backing in and hit one boat and sent the dock reeling.

That cleared out the restaurant, small as it is. We all ran out to try to help. The Captain (alone without anyone else on the boat) definitely did not have control of his boat. Next he swung wide and our boat looked like his next target. So Bill ran to our boat, ready for defensive measures, if necessary.

Mind you this was all going on with almost no wind or current pushing his boat around...

Paul has a Captains License and offered to get on and park the boat for him. The captain kept up his inept efforts. Then finally said OK to Paul's help.

He had some difficulty too, not being used to the boat, until he found the bow thruster. It pushes the bow of the boat left or right as needed. The owner had not been using it. Now Paul was able to get the boat right in.

Whew! That was the only adrenalin rush we have had since we've been here. It took us all a little time to wind down. We all returned to our meal in the restaurant. It seemed everyone reached for a little more wine too.

Poor captain. We didn't find out until the next morning what the story was... We were pondering what his problem might be: new boat to him? Inexperience? Too tired? He stole the boat and didn't know how to drive? His crew deserted him? Or what? I'm sure he was mortified.

Next morning, we found out that he owned the boat for many years and was a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary. You'd think that means you know how to drive, but obviously, Nooooo! He'd been driving since early morning a long way from a place called Kwatsi up in the Broughton's. Most folks take 2 or 3 days to go that far. He was very, very tired and just lost it.

He left first thing in the morning before most folks got up - Paul had backed him and docked the boat (otherwise he wouldn't have been able to get off his boat as it was longer than the dock space available. So he could easily leave going forward. We would have left early too after the fiasco last night, if we were him. Whew again!

There is a nice German Restaurant here and hiking trails. So tomorrow we'll probably go hiking in the rain.

Warmest Regards to all!

Mary and Bill

Oleo's Restaurant - Frederick Arm

2005-07-28T19:23:00.000-04:00

Hello Everyone!

We had a great four nights in Von Donop Inlet.

We caught some Rock crab and cooked them up (very nice, but there's so little meat per crab, they're not worth the bother) and 6 rock fish - very tasty. We lightly sauteed the rock fish fillets in butter, we had them for dinner one night and fish tacos the next day.

Dungeness crab were not around, not a sandy enough bottom. We'll try again for them further North.

Yesterday (Wednesday the 27th) our very good friends Chris and Julie James arrived in Von Donop on their classic Stevens motor yacht. I've know them since the the mid '80s from California Yacht Club in the mid '80s in Marina del Rey and they also were just down the dock from us in Alameda at Mariner Square, before they cruised up to the Pacific Northwest in April 2004.

We had a great time catching up yesterday afternoon. We all had a great Indian tomato vegetable balti that Mary made using the great Indian spices she bought at the Ganges farmers market on Salt Spring Island on July 2nd.

This morning, we raised anchor at 8 AM and headed for the dreaded Yaculta (YEW-cla-ta), Gillard and Dent Rapids. These three rapids are right in succession and they can be quite fearsome with currents in excess of 14 knots on the spring tides (We motor at 7+). The rapids also have tidal rips, whirlpools and overfalls (basically waterfalls in the middle of the channel). The last rapid of the series, also has the dread "Devils Hole", a great boiling cauldron of white water in the middle of a giant whirlpool. We've seen impressive pictures of boats going through the rapids and getting rolled. Boats have also been sunk and lives lost when boats capsized in the rapids.

So we did a LOT of planning to make sure that we went through at a neap tide slack! The strategy was to arrive at the first rapid, one hour before slack and proceed through all three in succession, reaching the last just as the tide turns to have the current carry us through. We did fine, we arrived actually 10 minutes early and made it through all three with only a little bouncing around in the rips and eddies. We never had a current exceed 2.5 knots going through.

Just beyond the other side of the rapids, we pulled into Frederick Arm and docked at "Oleo's" a funky little dock floating in the middle of an inlet off Frederick Arm. The dock is not connected to land, it's just in the middle of this little inlet. The dock has two 50 dock fingers in the shape of a U. Across the bottom of the U is the restaurant and the families residence. The family serves dinner every evening for up to 10 people and moorage is included in the price of dinner - $22 CDN per person. We'll report back on the food - it's supposed to be very good. There are two other boats here with us, so dinner tonight will be for 6.

Oleo's is run by a family of four, the mom and dad run the place, the daughter is a senior in college up here and the son is the fishing guide. Tomorrow we're going out with him to try our luck catching some salmon. We've got a lot to learn so we'll be taking lots of notes.

That's the news from here! We hope you all continue to have a great summer!

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Von Donop Inlet

2005-07-24T21:00:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

We Left Campbell River on Friday, July 22nd with much more benign conditions than on our arrival. We waited until Noon to leave so we would not have a strong head current right outside the harbour. The current in Discovery Passage can exceed our boat speed!

We motored over to Manson's landing on Cortes Island to see if we could see if the farmer's market was still in progress, but we later found out that it's held a mile inland. There was also no space at the government dock for us to tie up, so we continued on to Gorge Harbour.

The entrance to the harbour is a narrow gorge (thus it's name), with petroglyphs on the northern most rock wall. As hard as we looked, we couldn't make them out. There's a really nice anchorage inside the harbour with a nice resort and restaurant. We anchored out as the bay was lovely.

On our way to drop the anchor, who should we see, but Dave and Debbie on Megabyte, the Maxim powerboat. They were on the Baja Haha with us and also on Dockwise. Dave took some of the pictures of Dockwise underway you'll find on our website as he traveled along on the voyage. We had a great chat with them that afternoon catching up on what they've been up to, good spots to go, catch crab, etc.

As soon as they unloaded from Dockwise in Vancouver, they provisioned and took off heading North, thinking they might try for Alaska this year. All the unseasonable bad weather that hit BC this year thwarted their plans. They were holed up most of the time in anchorages in the Broughtons and Fjord Land (North of the Broughtons) with tons of rain and gale force winds. So they changed their plans and are now headed back South.

Now that the weather has finally turned nice, we're headed part of the way that way. At least to the Broughtons.

Also, while in Gorge, we went for a nice 4 mile (round trip) hike to Whaletown, the next anchorage up. Nice walk, but not much there. There was one very small grocery/bait/boat supply shop, a library that is only open two hours a week on Friday afternoons and a few houses. It's main claim to fame is that the ferry stops there. We stopped along the way and had an Espresso at the only cafe on the island with a machine.

On our way back, we stopped for Halibut burgers at the restaurant before heading back to Raptor Dance.

This morning, we left Gorge and headed the 14 miles to Von Donop Inlet, long narrow twisty inlet (about 4 miles long). We're anchored in a little cove at the head end with trees all around and lots of wildlife (Otters, Seals, Eagles, Geese - no bears yet).

We set our crab trap as soon as we got here and 3 hours later, we had our first 4 Dungeness Crabs! They were all undersized though so we threw them back and reset the trap. Oh well, Fajitas for dinner today instead of crab.

That's the latest from here!

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Campbell River

2005-07-22T00:03:00.000-04:00

Hi All,

We hope you are all fine and enjoying the summer.

We've just posted our most recent set of pictures on the website at http://raptordance.com, including some from the adventures, below.

Presently we are in Campbell River and preparing to move tomorrow morning.

When we last wrote we were enjoying ourselves at anchor in Melanie Cove, Prideaux Haven. There are several paths on land, so we did some hiking through the dense forest. This brought us to Laura Cove, another fine anchorage but smaller.

After a few days we were ready to move on. Teakerne Arm had been recommended to us because of the lovely waterfall, but not for anchoring. There are a few rings imbedded in the rock wall to use as a stern tie. Too bad the anchoring wasn't better. There are some good hikes nearby. So we just did a "drive by" and then headed to Squirrel Cove for the night.

Squirrel Cove was great...lots of lobes for anchoring. So while there were many boats, it didn't feel crowded. The store at the pier was very well stocked. There was also a gift shop with creative offerings and a restaurant. We chose to eat at Marilyn's, whose speciality is cedar plank smoked salmon. Yum.

That was where we saw our first eagle.

One of the other interesting aspects to enjoy at Squirrel Cove is the (sometimes) connecting lake. In fact getting there is half the fun. There is a small stream that will allow a dingy to pass through at high tide. No motor is needed. In fact, it is still too shallow and there are too many rocks to have your motor in the down position. So you just position yourself in the mouth of the stream and sort of guide yourself with your oars as the "rapids" push you through. These are called the reversing rapids.

OK, so now you've (we've) explored the lake, watched the little fish and big star fish and are ready to return. If you've planned well, slack has passed and the rapids have now reversed. This doesn't happen quickly though, since the cove water is still higher at slack than the lake. We are getting mellow by now. So we pulled into a shady spot, relaxed and chatted with other boaters. Some folks had had enough of the lake and were ready to get back to their boats and have happy hour and/or dinner. It was wonderful. They made it through but not without a lot of fuss. The men were up to their hips in the stream trying to pull the dinghies through.

Meanwhile the others were trying to push from behind, row, or push off the rocks with oars. They felt they had accomplished something and we had marvelous entertainment.

We never did wait for the rapids to reverse. When the water level was high enough, we were able to motor through with the motor in the mid position.

After a few days at Squirrel and no internet access for over a week, it was necessary to move. So we headed south to Cortes Bay which supposedly has wireless thru the entire bay. That turned out to be true. BUT with the high winds and the boat swinging around, it was difficult to keep the directional antenna in the correct position. That, plus the thought of an uncomfortable night at anchor (the winds were already over 25kph) made us decide to up anchor.

Campbell River was our next destination. We had already arranged for our mail to be sent there. We had a rollicking good time crossing to Campbell. The winds were 30 to 35, but the swells were not bad, 3-4 feet. So, "No Worries Mate". Except that we still had our dingy in the water, towing it as most folks do in these parts. We were a little nervous about that, not wanting it to flip with the motor on. As we watched it though we could see it was doing quite well. And we were so happy to have our hard dodger protecting us from the ocasional aggressive waves.

So here we are in Campbell River. Many other boats joined us for a protected dock. We are back in civilization...a real town, with shops, movies restaurants, and our mail, the works.

Bill has spent quite a bit of time with boat chores and updating the software on our computers. We are fully stocked and ready to roll tomorrow, not expecting to find much in the way of provisioning for weeks.

Yahoo! We are ready to finally catch some fish and crabs...none as yet. Wish us luck.

Bye for now.
Mary and Bill

Melanie Cove, Prideaux Haven

2005-07-14T20:46:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone!

In the last few days we've been tooling around Desolation Sound. We're now in Melanie Cove in Prideaux Haven (Not to be confused with Pardo haven, where Don Pardo hangs out... but that would put our boat in Jeopardy! Any questions?).

After leaving Refuge Cove on Tuesday, July 12th, we went into an absolutely beautiful anchorage up the Malaspina Inlet on the Gifford Peninsula, Grace Harbour. While the books say everyone ignores Grace Harbour, we did have about half a dozen other boats with us.

There's supposed to be good hiking around the harbour, but with all the rains, the main trail was knee deep in mud. So much for the hike.

We also met Brad and Darlene Simmons on "El Bucanero", a power boat from San Diego. There boat is interesting in that it's designed after the east coast lobster boats. It's similar to a Hinckley Picnic Boat, but a manufacturer I hadn't heard of before. A nice boat for a couple - in a cold climate. It would be too hot in a place like Mexico.

On Wednesday, we moved over to Okeover Landing in Okeover Inlet, at the far end of the Malaspina Inlet. The landing is a tiny government dock with room for about 3 or 4 boats in addition to the small fishing boats that are permanently there. No water or power, nothing really to recommend it over anchoring - except for the "Laughing Oyster" restaurant a short walk up the hill ( see: http://www.laughingoyster.ca )

We had a fantastic lunch and made reservations for dinner. As it was Wednesday, they had their weekly buffet set out. It was good, but not as great as lunch. We recommend that if you go, you go when David, the chef, can personally attend to your food. It loses a lot sitting in a chafing dish. However, if you want a lot of pretty good food at a reasonable price, go for the buffet. We broke our rule about buffets after lunch was so grand, but the rule is now back in place.

Malaspina Inlet and Okeover are major shellfish farming areas - with pristine water. So between lunch and dinner, we walked up the beach and harvested about 15 nice oysters. At low tide, they were lying attached to other old shells on the beach, we didn't even have to pry them off the rocks. We brought them back to the boat, did a quick cook on the BBQ, shucked them and put them in the fridge for later consumption (we didn't want to spoil our dinner).

This morning, Thursday, June 14, we moved over here to Prideaux Haven, one of the most popular areas in desolation sound. Great views of the snow capped mountains in the background and a very nice anchorage. We anchored in the Melanie Cove arm of Prideaux Haven as it was a bit less crowded with more room. We got a nice spot in the middle of the anchorage, in 30 feet of water with lots of room to swing - so we didn't need a stern line.

That's the latest news from Raptor Dance.

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Inaugural Perry Rendezvous North

2005-07-10T19:57:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

Reminder - we have no Internet or cell phone coverage here, so please communicate with us via our Winlink.org or Sailmail.com email addresses. As we're often down in fjords (not Chevys), even our Iridium phone has spotty coverage.

We had lot's of fun meeting the folks at the Inaugural Perry Rendezvous North last night and visiting today. The party was much smaller than the big Perry Rendezvous in Pt. Ludlow in August.

There were 4 other Perry design boats in attendance 3 Panda 40s: Warlord with Wilf and Bonnie, Alcyon with Steve and Pauline and Silverfin with Dick and Rennie; a Baba 30 with Harry and Paula and us. A group of very interesting folks: When Dick was a graduate student studying vulcanology, he was 10 miles from Mt. Saint Helens when it blew and took some of the famous poster pictures of it. Steve is a glaciologist and fellow electronics geek - he had loaned some of his instruments to the science teams studying the eruption and it wasn't until this party that they realized that they knew each other from back then. Lots great stories.

Refuge Cove has been a good spot to be in right now. It's a safe haven in bad weather. We got here Thursday, just before a "not normal for this time of year" storm went through. Friday was windy and rolly but we were safe and sound tied up to the dock, boats were rafted to each other as the little dock here was over full.

This is also a very active marina because it has a good store for provisioning, fuel dock, laundry, showers and (expensive) pay phone. These stops are fewer and farther between now that we're beyond "civilization". Many boats stop for just a couple of hours and then are on their way. We re told that during the highest season 600 boats pass through in a single day.

Dock space here is first come, first served with no reservations, just a big long dock where everyone needs to work out how they tie up on their own. As boats come and go all day, there's often lots of space between boats on the dock - not optimum packing. As there's no organization, you have to negotiate with the other boats to move down a bit to make room.

When we arrived space was tight and there were no open spots. As we temporarily rafted up to another boat, Bill ran the dock seeking a large enough spot. About 30 minutes later another boat left at the end of the dock. Spot found, beers promised, he enlisted neighboring Canadians to hold onto it for us. We raced right around the dock and tied up quickly. Did I mention that cleats don't seem to be used here. There is just another raised 4X4 rail along the dock to tie lines to. We miss cleats.

Anyway, our new neighbors didn't care about the beers. In fact they were very generous in sharing their catch. So we had tastes of the local oysters, clams and succulent shrimp. The shrimp were so good, we were tempted to buy a shrimp trap. But that would mean not only another trap but also another 300 feet on sinking line. So no shrimp trap purchased, yet.

The group of Canadians were a big extended family of 12 people on 4 small power boats. The largest was a 1970s era 24 foot Carver. The smallest, a 21 foot bow rider. It was definitely camping. As there wasn't much space on any of the boats, their party was held on the dock. When the rainstorm hit, we invited them on board Raptor Dance and we continued the party in our cockpit.

We did see lots of activity...boats getting in away from the rough seas and high wind. Then when calm came, most of the boats left and a new group filled right in. So we've been getting to know folks and hearing their recommendations as where the best places to go are.

We have definitely decided not to sail to Alaska (more of the same scenery, fewer people and boats, more bears and more rain). We will continue to explore Desolation Sound, The Broughtons, Gulf and San Juan Islands. We plan on ending up in Lake Union for the winter in Seattle in Early November before the weather turns cold.

We forgot to mention in our last email, arriving in Desolation Sound, we're now above 50 North Latitude - much closer to the North Pole than the equator. As a result they daylight hours have been quite long. For example, today morning twilight began at 3:37 AM , sunrise was at 5:21 AM, sunset will be at 9:27 PM and evening twilight will continue until 11:11 PM. This makes for a very long day, good thing we have blackout curtains in our stateroom.

The weather has also FINALLY turned nice, sunshine in the mid-70s today with continued high pressure building contributing to a great forecast for the coming week.

Warmest Regards,
Mary and Bill

Desolation Sound!

2005-07-08T13:44:00.000-04:00

Hello Everyone!

We have been without any Internet connection since Tuesday - so if you'd like to contact us, please use our winlink.org address. We probably won't have connectivity again for a while. We're also currently out of cell phone range.

We're now in Refuge Cove in Desolation sound. We entered Desolation Sound yesterday afternoon.

After leaving Snug Cove on Bowen Island in Howe Sound on Tuesday, July 7th, we motored up to Secret Cove. The weather was pretty crummy with rain and light winds. We were comfy below our dodger and had no problems in the lumpy seas.

When we were in Mexico, we had our dodger poly carbonate windows replace as they were crazed and hard to see through. The new windows really made the rainy passage easy as we didn't have to stick our heads out in the rain.

We stayed in Secret Cove two nights. They have a nice store, and restaurant on the dock. The food was nice but unremarkable.

On Wednesday, Bill was reading the June issue of the local sailing magazine, 48 North, and noticed an announcement that a rendezvous was being held in Refuge Cove in Desolation Sound June 8 to 10th for all boats designed by Bob Perry (Valiants are one of his most famous designs). A quick look on the map showed that Secret Cove was only about 50 miles away - a long day's run.

So we called the organizers, Wilf and Bonnie Rennecke on the Panda 40, Warlord, to get the particulars. We huddled (always fun) and decided to go. So we signed up and planned to do the 50 miles in two legs. Leg 1 to Powell River, then Leg 2 to Refuge Cove.

Checking the weather Thursday morning, however, we heard that a front was forecast to come through on Friday with Gale Force winds in the area. So, instead we came all the way up to Refuge in one hop on Thursday.

We'll be here over the week end and give you a full report on the Rendezvous in our next email.

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Ganges, Long Harbour and Snug Cove

2005-07-04T20:25:00.000-04:00

Happy 4th of July everyone! Here in Canada, the big day was July 1, Canada Day.

Over the last week, we spent Tuesday and Wednesday at Ganges Marina on Salt Spring Island. A nice small community with lots of artist's galleries, restaurants and shops. There are two wineries on the island, but they were a fair distance across the island and we didn't have a car - so we didn't visit them.

When we were docking in Ganges Marina, who should be in the next slip, but Wendy and Ken Richards on Poppy II, from the Sausalito Yacht Club. We met them on the SYC cruise to Half Moon Bay two years ago and they've since moved up here. Ganges Marina is their new permanent home.

We found three wonderful restaurants all within two blocks of the Marina. We'd recommend all three to anyone visiting Ganges. Piccolo was the fanciest place, with white tablecloths and great
food. We both had the Venison, quite outstanding.

We had dinner one night and lunch the next at Calvin's. We had the Salmon Tartar and bouillabaisse for dinner. For Lunch, Mary had a Lamb Burger and Bill had a Salmon Burger.

At the Oyster Catcher Restaurant, we both had the oyster and chips for lunch - yummy!

Wine up here continues to be problematic, however. We've been drinking mainly Lindeman's Bin 50 Shiraz from Australia, it's one of the few cost effective, drinkable (to our tastes) wines we've found generally available so far. At the restaurants, we've either been ordering a single glass of wine each from the by the glass menu, or skipping wine all together with dinner and having a glass back on the boat.

We also both had great massages in Ganges at the Eight Branches Holistic Health Center. We'd highly recommend it to anyone coming to visit. We don't know why they call it eight branches, though - they only have one location (Bill must have spent too much time working for banks)! Info is available on their website at http://www.8branches.ca

We also met Glen and Debbie Read from the Island Packet 40, Nootka. Glen and Debbie belong to the Seattle Yacht Club (SYC) and were going to the Canada day reciprocal party with the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club (RVYC) at their outstation in Long Harbour on Salt Spring Island. Since we were up cruising from California and members of reciprocal clubs, he arranged for us to get an invite.

Many of the larger yacht clubs here in the Pacific Northwest have outstations. The RVYC has 8! - see http://www.royalvan.com/club_offshore.asp

The RVYC Scott Point outstation in Long Harbour is particularly nice with a pool, clubhouse and lots of amenities. Unfortunately, universally, outstation privileges are not extended to reciprocal yacht clubs, so this party was a special treat. We did have to anchor out however. SYC has an outstation in Ganges Marina and some of their members drove over - but many anchored out.

The festivities started on Thursday with a pot luck. On Friday, July 1, Canada Day the day started off with a big Canadian/American Brunch. Following brunch, there were games of croquet, horseshoes, and lawn hockey - Canada vs. the US. Of course, the Canadian's won!

At 3:00 the Salt Springs Pipe Band entertained. Dressed in full traditional attire (kilts and all) The band played a number of the traditional selections (e.g. Scotland the Brave, Amazing Grace,
etc.). The nice thing about bag pipe concerts is that they're short! Actually, Mary says it was one of the best bagpipe bands she's ever heard.

Since we were impartial outsiders from wine country and a foodies, Bill got asked to be one of the three judges of the chili cook-off that started at 3:30. The 5 teams had a spirited time with their cooking, with lot's of "secret ingredients". All the chili's were pleasant, but pretty wimpy by our standards. They all lacked heat and had few flavor notes. One stood out slightly and it won. Of the 5 teams, it was also the only one with no leftovers at the end, an indication that everyone liked it best as well.

Dinner consisted of the Chili and side dishes. Dessert was a Canada Cake - a white cream cheese based sheet cake with Canada day decorations.

The evening ended with dancing with music provided by a local band "Faith and Desire". They played a good cross section of the usual soft rock songs.

During the weekend the best beverages at the party were the, on tap, Salt Springs Brewery's Pale Ale (Bill's preference) and Porter (Mary's preference).

On Saturday, July 2nd, Wendy was kind enough to give us a lift into town so we could visit the Saturday Ganges Market. We found a number goodies, including some local truffle goat cheese, bread, and indian spice mix (by a local gourmet).

While we were back in Ganges for the day, we also met John and Diane VanDerbeek and took a tour of tour of their wonderful yacht, the M.V. Olympus, a 97' fantail motor yacht built in New York in 1929 see: http://www.nwmaritime.org/news/news_49.html and
http://www.five-star-fleet.com/yachts/mini_homes/97_olympus/?id=270

Sunday at 8:00 AM we pulled anchor - or tried to. The anchor and chain was very muddy, so Mary worked the windless while Bill worked the chain brush. Our chain brush is a handy gadget made of three scrub brushes mounted on a triangular holder that fits on the end of the boat pole. When it's worked up and down at the water level it does a great job of scrubbing the mud off the chain.

Halfway up, we found an old rusty, shellfish encrusted bicycle with basket entangled in our anchor chain! Gosh, how are we going to get that off! We already stowed the dingy. If we get that mess close to the hull, it will scratch up our lovely boat!

First we tried the boat hook, but the bike was too heavy - it kinked the pole's tubing (we fixed the pole later by sawing off the end and re-installing the end fitting). Then we pulled the bike up closer to the bow pulpit and Bill got down on his stomach and reached down to untangle our chain from the bike. It was pretty well wrapped around the bike's pedal crank. After 15 minutes of twiddling we finally got it free! The anchor came up the rest of the way, no problem.

We then left Long Harbour, went through Active Pass right on slack and crossed the Straights of Georgia again, heading for Howe Sound.

We arrived around 2 PM at the Union Steamship Co. Marina in Snug Cove on Bowen Island - North and West of Vancouver, see: http://www.steamship-marina.bc.ca/

Another nice community by the marina. Their Sunday art and craft fair was in full swing.

Today we had coffee and chocolate at the Cocoa West Cafe - the island's chocolatier. Good stuff! We liked their chocolate better than the chocolatier's in Ganges on Salt Spring.

Tomorrow we're off to our next destination - as soon as we decide where it is ;-}

Update! We decided to go to Secret Cove, it's about 30 miles up the coast on our way to Desolation Sound - see http://www.secretcovemarina.com/

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

On to Ganges

2005-06-29T18:50:00.000-04:00

Wednesday June 29, 2005

Brrr. It’s still cool but we are having fun.

Bellingham turned out to be a fine marina. As we pulled into our slip, Mike Kirkland (past commodore of the Bellingham Corinthian Yacht Club) noticed our Yacht Club Burgees. We did not turn down his offer of a free reciprocal slip, where we stayed for four nights.

Squalicum Harbor (http://www.portofbellingham.com/marinas/sql/default.htm) was walking distance to town but even better, the Marina has a shuttle to take us wherever we wished. We hit Costco, Best Buy and the local supermarket, Haggen’s to provision.

It is still a small world. The beer can races were called the next day due to rain (usually not a reason) and possible thunder and lightening. Some of the local racers, from the same dock, came by the boat to chat. One was Mike Reed of Islander (an Islander 36), who was on the Baja Haha as crew on At Last. He was the one who took those great picture of us with the spinnaker flying – see: http://raptordance.us/Sailing3/index.html

We ended up meeting a big group of the displaced racers for a beer…a really great bunch. In a few days we met quite a few friendly and helpful people, including local author, Clyde Ford (see http://www.mysticvoyagerbooks.com) on Mystic Voyager, who gave us suggestions on places to stop in the Broughtons (north of Desolation Sound).

Just as we were casting off in Bellingham on Tuesday morning, we found another card left by Larry and Joanie Roteman of Synergy, who we had met in Paradise Village in Puerto Vallarta. They live up here, on Lummi Island (just across the bay from Bellingham).

We spent a day with a great local couple Loraine Boland and Ray Nelson on Allegro, who are friends of Bill’s ex-Wells Fargo colleague, Elaine Felter. They gave us the grand tour of the Bellingham area. And what would that be like without good food? We found a lovely Oyster Restaurant in the woods, overlooking a creek, that made our taste buds very happy.

Ah, but the main reason for being here was to have our water maker serviced. As it turned out, only diagnosis was accomplished. We will have the work done in November rather than taking the time now. We should be able to do without it in this area.

So now we are ready to start moving on. We took the little hop to Echo Bay at Sucia Island, of the San Juan Islands. The bay was so peaceful and the water, like glass.

The next day we headed back to Sidney to meet up with Gordon and Bruce, returning to Berkut, a Waterline 46. We compared notes, Gordon and Bruce, Sailed Berkut from Puerto Vallarta to Hawaii and then on to Canada. We came up on Dockwise. They got caught in a storm coming across from Hawaii which trashed their Genoa and washed their outboard overboard. We all agreed that Dockwise was a better choice.

The water was very interesting, all the rips, eddies and short standing waves. These were no problem for us or the boat, just an interesting variation. We were going with the current, so at times our speed was 10.8 nm over ground. Whoopee!

Customs clearance for us was a phone call. So far we’ve entered Canada twice on Raptor Dance and the US once. Each time we cleared over the phone. To insure that future crossings are as uneventful, we’ve got a US Customs I-68 – see: http://cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/pleasure_boats/cbbl.xml and we’ve applied for a Canadian CANPASS http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/travel/canpass/canpassprivateboat-e.html. Each of these allow for telephone check-in when crossing the border.

This time we stayed at the Port Sidney Marina, http://portsidney.com, right in downtown. Talk about convenient! It was lovely. They had some touches that we haven’t seen in other marinas, such as the two hanging baskets of flowering plants at each slip, charming lighting and pet swans.

I must tell you, for the best Fish and Chips EVER, go to Fish at Fifth (on 5th St.) in Sidney. Excellent!

Canada day is coming up on July 1st. So the stores are full of Canada flags, socks with the red maple leaf, etc. We expect music, parties and fireworks. We’ll let you know if they have any different way to celebrate.

That brings us to the present. We are in Ganges on Salt Spring Island. This is north and east of Sidney. It was a short journey on this nice but windless day. You guessed it…more motoring. It appears that we are now a motor boat with auxiliary sails.

Salt Springs is know for it’s artisans, and it’s Saturday market, which has both art work, curiosities and fresh produce. We had fun walking through the shops in town. Much of it reminded me of some of our more colorful towns in the 70’s, even the 80’s…creative, fun and “out there”.

Some nice restaurants too! We’ll give you a full report in our next episode.

Warmest Regards,
Mary and Bill