April 1, 2018
My sister-in-law Cindy has wanted to visit Strikhedonia for a few years and her 60th birthday seemed like the perfect reason. I mean really, who doesn’t want to spend their birthday on the beach, sipping margaritas, and eating lobster? No one. We worked our way into the trip with an afternoon by the pool at Paradise Village. I’m still trying…
March 28, 2018
I really like Yelapa; a couple waterfalls, tons of cool artwork around town, beach side chairs and umbrellas, Sasha our adopted stray dog. It has been my most visited place this year, making eight trips bringing lots of friends to enjoy this slice of paradise. I struggled on whether to write this post but after a few bad experiences and…
March 24, 2018
Joining me for the last few days in Barra were Aaron and Marketa. They were even crazy, err adventurous enough to come to the St. Partrick’s day festivities. When flaming explosives were nearby, and Marketa and I ran for cover, Aaron would rush to get closer to the action. Clearly this was going to be a fun trip north. Our…
March 18, 2018
Insanity, that is the best word I can use to describe St. Patrick’s day in St. Patricio. How else can one describe a crowded town square with everyone chasing bottle rockets, spinning balls of flames, and toros? This was my kind of celebration. The trip to St. Patricio (neighbor to Melaque and a few miles from Barra de Navidad) began…
March 17, 2018
It was a bit like being a kid getting to summer camp, excited to catch up with your friends. Arriving in Barra my crew probably had a good laugh at me excitedly pointing out cruising friends as we came into the lagoon. Truth be told, I felt guilty because it would be a few days until I could make the…
March 6, 2018
After a month in Puerto Vallarta, I was ready for new scenery and exploring new places. My friend Harrison, his mom, and Stumbles (her AT trail name) flew in for the trip south to Barra de Navidad. A bit less time to explore due to Harrison’s schedule and my parents visiting Barra, but we still managed to squeeze an incredible…
February 27, 2018
Admittedly I have a habit of making things a bigger challenge than necessary. This carried over into flying four of my employees and their spouses down to visit the boat. Rather than give myself a few days in between guests I booked them back to back and even overlapping. So February was a bit of a blur. It was interesting…
January 18, 2018
They say standing rigging has a 10 year life expectancy. I thought bah humbug, it should last much longer. Well I was wrong. Strikhedonia has two sister ships in Mexico, we are all 2008 models and last spring one of them, Moon Drifter, found a crack in a swage. This led to the replacement of their standing rigging and brought…
January 4, 2018
Really? For awhile the back light on our chart plotter had been flickering when dimmed for night passages. And after crossing to Mazatlan I found that it had completely died. Turns out from a bit of internet searching this is a common failure due to a poorly designed high voltage power supply circuit for the florescent back light lamps (called…
January 1, 2018
Whew looking back at 2017 was a another year of firsts; Farthest North in the Sea (Bahia Los Angeles), Sail plan for downwind sailing (Double headsails), Thanksgiving away from home (La Paz), Visit to the Southern mainland (Mazatlán and others), Teeth cleaned in a foreign country, and many more. We just keep finding more things that we love about Mexico.…
December 23, 2017
Something I had been looking forward to all season was my daughter Anna and her friend coming to visit. Anna spent two years in West Virginia and became good friends with Ande before moving to Montana. A trip to Mexico was a perfect way for them to reconnect and enjoy the warm sun/ocean, in addition to blowing off some steam…
December 22, 2017
I shake my head at the vast number of cleaning products we have on board. And I’m speaking of just for the outside of the boat. It seems really fucking ridiculous but it is what it is, and it takes what it takes. Schedule: Washing/Cleaning/Metal polish – When out cruising it is often 3 – 4 weeks since we are…