Got the flag pole cleat mounted on the stern

End of August- Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta Mexico

 Now for next summer over we put some Sikkens Cetol on it along with the helm seat :)
We can through a line with a loop (dingy painter) over this or wrap up on the cleat or both etc.
Should be handy.
We were missing something like this on our last cruising season. The small one on the stanchion is hard to reach in a dinghy. I think it was for the flag pole originally any way. Now with dinghy davits the flag pole does not work.




Sattee front getting varnished , sanded, first coat - 2013

End of August 2013 - Currently in Paradise Village Marina in Banderas Bay Mexico 
Sanded.

New Dorads are installed, one from storm loss - 2013


Used the Dremel tool to cut away the flange deep enough for the new dorad base to fit in.
 We got the dorads in finally. We lots one in a storm during the passage from Cobo to Mazatlán.

Test image

End of August- Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta Mexico

 This is a test image from


At the top left you can see our Islander Freeport sail boat under the shade tree. The round gray shade at the top back of the roof on the building.

postimage.org/

Cable TV

End of August- Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta Mexico

 So we had a cable to hook up the TV to the dock box cable hook up but we could never find it. Not that we looked real hard because we do not watch cable TV. In fact we have some dock mates that are news junkies and we need to keep reminding them not to tell us what the news is. We do not care or want to know. We live in Mexico now and could care less about some politician in the US or some shooting, usually the big items.

You can see the whit TV cable along the dock.
 
 So because we found the cable we or I had to hook it up and try it out. We are due for a storm so I was thinking maybe there would be and evening show to watch? Explore all options you know.

 So far we are liking summering over here a lot.

Blue Seas solar bus changed to Blue Seas fuse panel

End of August 2013- Currently in Paradise Village Marina in Banderas Bay Mexico
 We are going to change out the Blue Sea Systems buss for the solar panels to a Blue Sea Systems panel. This way we can just pull out a fuse to turn off any of the four panels. Each one will be fused and besides being able to manage the amount of panels we are using each panel will also be fused. A novel idea hugh :). We have a Blue Sea Systems use panel but all the screws re different and the studs for the cables are different so of course we need to change all of those terminal ends.
Me back in the lazerett again.
 


Vallarta Adventures, with two large sail boats on the hard - 2013

 Looking over from  Paradise Village Marina at Puerto Vallarta Adventures or "Vallarta Adventures" you can see two sailboats up on the hard. They just got put there with a crane. This  is a big tourist tour business. They have at least a half dozen large catamarans and as many big rubber speed boats for charters.   

End of August 2013 - Currently in Paradise Village Marina in Banderas Bay Mexico

Shadetree boat awning systems pole broke - 2013

For no good apparent reason our forward Shadetree boat awning systems pole broke. One of the fiberglass poles just snapped. This happened before while we were in Barra da la Navidad but we thought it was something we did.

Cockpit shade scrren work

End of August- Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta Mexico

  Debbie made some good progress on the cockpit shade screen. Again we did some work at the papala.

 
Lining up the shot.
 
First of some whacks to make the whole.
 
Whacking it with the hammer is a mans job. Two whacks and the whole is done!
 
 
 
Lots of work to do but you get the idea. This is great comfort when anchoring and even at the dock.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Full moon pot luck at Paradise Village Marina - 2013

End of August 2013- currently in Paradise Village Marina in Banderas Bay Mexico (by Puerto Vallarta)
We had our "Full Moon" pot luck and it was fun. We did not get any pictures of the pot luck but here is the full moon.
Also last night we went to the Puerto Vallarta Yacht Club (Vallarta Yacht Club) here in Paradise Village Marina for a social. No membership required and they served free hors d'oeuvres and had happy hour. It was a good time and most of us who are summering over were there.  
Full moon.
 

Sunrise. Moon and sun out at the same time.

Nav Station pencil(s) holder

End of August- Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta Mexico
 
 We got tired of chasing pencils at the nav station and them being under stuff or behind things etc so we broke own and made a little holder for a few. Took only a little time from some old teak. Drilled a few holes and Debbie glued it up under the shelf. We tested it before mounting it to see if the pencils would fall out while healing but the seemed to stay put. Looks like a winner and now we wonder why it took so long to do this little much needed project :)

Debbie making cockpit shade screen, 92 percent shade - 2013

Debbie made patterns for the side dodger and bimini shade screen.

We had a pot luck with Antoinetta and Julio from Puerto Vallarta - 2013

End of August 2013 - currently in Paradise Village Marina in Banderas Bay Mexico (by Puerto Vallarta)
Antoinetta is from Puerto Vallarta Mexico and
Julio is from a small town a couple of hours south of Guadalajara.  
We had a cruiser's pot luck this Tuesday to celebrate the full moon and invited Antoinetta and Julio over. Antoinetta is the interpreter that helped us with our IMSS application. We became friends and Juilo helped us once also; he is her boyfriend. 
 After the pot luck we showed them our boat and it was the first time they were ever on a boat. We hope to take them out on the boat in the coming months before we start the new cruising season.
 We are spending the summer on our boat s\v Elegant'sea.

Deck cleaning - cockpit

End of August- Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta Mexico

 We have gotten as far as half of the cockpit being cleaned up and one half still to go.
This has been a side project and the detailing has gone good. The whole front deck is done now. We will be washing the sail cover and polishing the stainless and washing the non-skid decks too. The boat is feeling a lot nicer being cleaned up from years of project work.


Under Nav Staion getting orginized with fire extinguisher - but

End of August- Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta Mexico


 Debbie used 3M UV 4000 to secure the fire extinguisher to the top of the SSB radio. It is a good location and easy to get at. It allows access to the storage are that is behind there also.

Only problem is after a only days the whole bracket with fire extinguisher fell off. Hmm lots like some epoxy?

More wiring staked down and orginized

End of August- Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta Mexico

 
These are under the deck by the Navigation Station. We have a 1978 Islander Freeport and I think the 1979 have this access. In later models I believe Islander did away with this hatch. We ran wires from the back of the nav station in the lazerett to under the settee to the house batteries from this location and the other which was under the nav station desk itself.
 
We are still not done in this location but as you can see the wires are getting staked down and so secured and organized.

Chaos rains supreme here behind the Nav Station!
 
Debbie working behind the louvered access door to the lazerett where the wiring is. A lot of the time we have to wiggle inside this door to reach the wiring way up and back. Not an easy deal and to work in there is even harder. Really need four hands so another person handing wire ties and screws etc from up top is a help but it still is a, well - it makes for a limited time that day for type of job.
 
Those are Debbie's hands stripping a wire and will put a new
terminal end on them after she shortened them.
 
Debbie securing some wiring through the lazarette.
 
Smiling and it is about 94 deg and 86 percent humidity
with the breeze not yet here as it is mid morning!
 
We also by-passed the switch and breaker for the wind generator
so we can test it and see if either one is bad. Not enough wind yet for the test.

Progress is being made though!

 

 
 

Sunrise at Paradise Village Marina in Banderas Bay, Mexico - 2013

  Often we or I get up and watch the sun rise as it is late in rising here at 7:50 AM, at least compared to San Diego, CA   😀

End of August 2013 - Currently in Paradise Village Marina in Banderas Bay Mexico

Cockpit fans - Caframo "Ultimate" 2-Speed Fans - 2013

 A long time ago we read that putting fans in the cockpit is a good idea. I went ho hum sounds OK but no big deal. We had a couple of extra DC fans so we finally installed them.  Darn are these or any fans great in the cockpit!

Solstice Trekker Duo kayak test with racks - 2013

August-2013 - Currently in Paradise Village Marina in Banderas Bay Mexico (by Puerto Vallarta)
Shown here with both seats in the Solstice Trekker Duo kayak.

Been busy

Middle of August- Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta Mexico


 Yes we have been busy with ripping DVD’s. We are also downloading movies and then we catalog them all in a program so we can watch them at will. This we like to do while cruising but while we are cruising we have had limited FREE WiFi and high speed internet.


Movies cataloged in Window movie software called AllMyMovies


We first shrink them some with DVD Shrink as they go on the hard drive. A better way is to convert them to an AVI or MP4 file but it takes more time. At a later time I can use DVD Fab 8 Qt or another program to convert them to AVI or some other format. Debbie's Kindle Fire will play the MP4 format movies.

On case 4

 A dock mate gave us four cases of DVD’s and asked for digital copies and so of course we can keep them also.

 As I have said before we hook a HDMI cable to the computer and attach the movies on our LED 27" TV. Not too shabby for a 36' sail boat!

As for this blog, it has been taking a back seat to the movie issue until we get them all cataloged. At present we have 682 movies and counting. A lot of old ones and a lot of new ones etc.
Also we are running out of photo hosting space and do not intend to pay for hosting pictures. This is the second place we have run out of space.
Blog spot is the first one
Photobucket is the second.
We are looking for a new place.

On this post we are trying Google Picasa.

 Also we are having another pot luck here for the full moon :)

August weather here in Paradise Village Marina Banderas Bay, Mexico 2013

Beginning of August 2013- Currently in Paradise Village Marina in Banderas Bay Mexico
 Paradise Village Marina new electrical cables.
Well, I talked to our neighbors who have a 42' sail boat and a window AC unit. They said that after the four days of cooling the boat down it does do a decent job of making the boat livable. They keep it on low and run it 24\7. They bought the smallest and least expensive one at Home Depot.

New Neighbors in the Summer at Paradise Village Marina - 2013

Beginning of August 2013 - Currently in Paradise Village Marina in Banderas Bay Mexico (by Puerto Vallarta)
 Our fairly new neighbors are,Paul and Celeste on the Beguine - a 42' Valiant.
 We had been talking by email and they said they were in the Sea of Cortés (Gulf of California) and it was 90 deg at 7:00 am and got hotter all day, no breeze and absolutely nothing to do. We said come on done to Puerto Vallarta whee is is hot but there is lots to-do and there are breezes. So here they are. A year or two later they went on the Pacific Puddle Jump.

Starboard paddleboard (kayak) racks

Beginning of August- Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta Mexico

 Here is the Starboard paddle board on the kayak racks. We have the kayak cover on it now. Debbie is going to make a cover for the paddleboard but we are looking for fabric first. We enough Sumbrella (white) but it is heavy and so we would like some water proof nylon or similar.