Sail Further

For fellow cruisers who plan on putting in at Marina El Cid: if they assign you to slip A15 you might want to check if they've dredged it lately. My draft is 6' 3" and at low tide I was careened. As you can see wxtide said that the lower, low tide was -0.8ft on Nov. 23.

The gentleman on my left is Miguel Hernandez, proprietor of Electricidad Delta. He helped me troubleshoot my engine's tachometer. Afterwards, he invited me over to his brother's home where they have their weekly fish fry. Delicious. Miguel does excellent work, is punctual, and is nearly fluent in english. I definitely got the impression that he takes pride in his work. His contact information:

It looks like Barra de Navidad took a direct hit from cyclone Jova. Sad to see the destruction since it seems like just yesterday that I passed through there. The charming restaurants and hotels that line their beachfront are devastated.

To: southbound_group@yahoogroups.com Sun Jun 5, 2011 2:52 pm (PDT) I wasn't able to find much information on Marina Fonatur La Paz in Rains' Mexico Boating Guide or the Noonsite website so here's a summary of what I learned: They monitor VHF 74. Hail them as Marina Fonatur or Marina Singlar (even though their website says they're called Marina La Paz or Marina Turistica La Paz). I was able to contact them once on VHF 16 but VHF 74 is a better bet. The "Geographic Location" waypoint they give on their website is NOT where the marina is located. It's about 2.2nm NE of the marina. It's the waiting area where a pilot boat will come and lead you in.

I plan on laying my boat up "on-the-hard" in La Paz, Baja California Sur, for hurricane season. To hedge the peso-denominated expenses I went long the Mexican peso exchange-traded-fund: FXM. Deutsche Bank recently published a study of assets that currently have the most speculative interest. I was surprised to see that the Peso is the most "crowded-trade" in their study (MXN ... you can click on the image to embiggen): I don't think this bodes well for the Peso in late-June when US dollar weakness is expected to reverse with the end of the Federal Reserve's "quantitative easing" program. To cover or not to cover US dollar shorts??? (and of course what to do with the lateral play: commodities).

I posted this message to the Yahoo southbound cruisers group. It got rejected because I didn't delete the original e-mail I was replying to (sailors using HF for e-mail are pretty bandwidth starved). The topic was really old so I thought the original e-mail would be useful for context. I'll post it here instead. I would still recommend visiting the Grand Bay Marina as long as you're forewarned about the expense. The amenities at the resort are pretty amazing. There's an ATM that dispenses US dollars at the Paradise Village Resort Mall in Puerto Vallarta so it's possible to load up on dollars before heading to the Marina in Navidad. > From: "southbound_group-owner@yahoogroups.com" > Subject: Message not approved: Grand Bay Marina -- Barra de Navidad > I have an update on prices at Grand Bay Marina. > If you're a cruiser on a budget I'd give the Marina a wide > berth. Charlie's Charts (12th Ed., c. 2009) quotes a daily rate > of...

And now for something completely different: San Jose, CA 1997 This is the "bringup" team at Exponential Technology, Inc. We are popping champagne corks to celebrate booting MacOS on our x704 microprocessor first silicon. This was Jim Blomgren's startup before founding Intrinsity . Intrinisity designed the A4 microprocessor powering the iPhone 4 and got bought by Apple last year. I guess I should be kicking myself for not going to work there in 1998 when they asked me to...but twelve years until cash out, who has the patience??? (this moment in computer history brought to you by the Telcel Banda Ancha 3G cellular modem. The modem is made by ZTE, a mainland China company. With all the recent talk about "back doors" and "kill switches" it kinda makes you wonder...)