Sail Further

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert A. Heinlein

What could be worse than sailing your half-million-plus-dollar J/160 yacht into a reef?! Probably having Latitude38 tell all their readers in great sordid detail that you did it... Blast Wrap-Up December 5, 2011 – Banderas Bay One thing everyone learned from this Blast is that you can't mess with the offshore reefs as much as three miles to the east of Punta Mita. The reefs are great for creating waves to surf, but bad for bouncing off of with boats. Sailmaker Mike Danielson guided the J/160 Blue at the very edge of one of the reefs in search of a smidgen more wind. They gybed just short of the reef, but fouled a spinnaker line in the bowsprit, fell off, and slammed into the reef. They struck so abruptly that the bowman flew right off the front of the boat, looking just like Superman in the old television show. We saw it with our own eyes. It took about 15 minutes of banging before Blue was able to get free of what will surely become known at Mike's Recife Azul, and...

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).