Saturday, February 19, 2011

ONE Fine Lady

I arrived Feb. 14 Valentines to find 7 people living on board. Don't worry, Kim, Kiya, Noah, Mechelle, Rob, and 3yr old Hania. Gypsywind was in dissrepair, mainly the heat exchanger was missing. So much for preventative maintainance.In November we commissioned some service work mainly,  new injectors adjust the valves and timing. oh and clean the heat exchager core.

Well....... the core could not be removed from the housing, so as a last ditch effort I  gave  the OK to drill out the core to save the housing  which is worth $1500 alone. The core is $1750. Its like getting a cavity filled, next thing you know you are paying for a root canal and a crown.  Welcome to the reality of boating.

Our dear freind Jay back up Marina Del Rey was the first to ask me "Do you know what Boat stands for?"

B.O.A.T= Bring On Another Thousand.

Harvey

Friday, February 18, 2011

Sharing Gypsywind with family

When we were living on Gypsywind more full time we longed to share our experiences with family and friends and to share a tid bit of lifestyle with them.
My opportunity came when this past month We had the honor of my sister Mechelle  and Niece Hania  stay aboard with us in mazatlan Elcid marina for 3 weeks and having  her husband Rob join us for the last week.
It was interesting to arrive at the boat without Harvey and just us girls with all kids in tow I had my start the boat list ready and was pretty excited, breakers, water pressure, battery checks, refrigeration start up,  check the dry goods on board make sure no bugs then bedding and cleaning unpack and then the Margarita!  It was sure nice the first few days, Mechelle  took to the VHF right away and at times was up before me with receiver in hand ready to check in, she was also busy converting temp. from Fahrenheit   to Celsius to try and understand why we were so cold, she claims as true we were at one point 1 degree above freezing and she saw her breathe in the morning. It was true it was the coldest weather that Mazatlan has had in 55 years , and low and behold there we were with Margaritas and bathing suits in mind!!! 
Well despite this we had some days of  sunshine and that's when we headed to the beach , Mechelle eager and excited forgot to put her bathing bottoms on and when we arrived she then realized and whatever sat in panties regardless who would guess these days anyway,
so we celebrated with the Happy hours at each pool site for a few days! this is where she figured out that knitting and Margaritas are not good together.
The wind blew like snot for a few days and I was preoccupied trying to keep the boats Sun shade on. It felt like we may parachute off the dock any moment that's when i decided to climb onto the boom and rebundgy all around,the old ones were literally fraying apart very fast .Mechelle held my legs. it must have looked weird.  We were boatbound!! thank god for Mechelle eager teaching techniques we survived and did lots of homeschool to free up some days when the sun would shine. Markets, and restaurant hopping, once the wind calmed down,. we still froze at Plaza Machado . I had to buy Kiya a scarf so the complaining would stop.

Sharing living and lifestyle I think Mechelles a natural although she read ADRIFT the novel (about a man lost  sea for 72 days and all he went through she could not do it she said, She questioned me on all the things i have in our ditch bag, and she was so friendly with the dock folks for the last weeks on my own there were cruisers saying oh I met your sister, yeh, she was staying with you. Had she been there for the swap meet on Saturday she would have sold Hanias holey souls for 50 pesos. 
Hania and Noah had amazing bonding time and today she asks for him daily, Her fist comments come out as oh my god this is so cool! it was like a fort for her. Mechelle and Hania shared the forward bunk and had their own head. She was amazing for the 3 weeks and not once wanted to go home. She has that adventurous spirit in her. extremely curious and asks a thousand questions, I loved it! and she is only 3.

noahs first pics -home and mexico some xmas 322 






Any way Sharing and living bring out the best and other stuff in all of us , we had fun we laughed and cried and did stupid stuff just as sisters should, thank-you Gypsywind.