Puerto Vallarta and San Sebastian

Carol arrived exactly a week ago for a brief visit. While it was only a few days, we crammed in a lot: a tour of Paradise Village, nice dinners at the Fajita Republic and the River Cafe, plenty of margaritas, a tour of old Puerto Vallarta and the malecon, and a trip and tour to San Sebastian that included coffee and tequila tastings. (Somehow margaritas and tequila have become a recurring theme....) San Sebastian is an historic mining town in the mountains approximately midway between Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara. When the silver ran out, it evolved into an historic tourist stop and is now a UNESCO site. Most of the locals not directly involved with tourism are farmers and ranchers. Travel on horseback is common. Land 'ownership' is communal, as in Yulapa. While a family can sell their land, it must be approved by the community in a town meeting. We happened to be there when such a meeting was taking place. Quite interesting.

The night Carol left I experienced the first heavy tropical rain here. Got 1½ inches overnight. That of course led to more projects.... The deck awning had collected some water in a small sagging section, so I adjusted it. Looks better now and shouldn't collect any water. That was minor; the big accomplishment was solving a mystery that has plagued me since I first did my pre-purchase inspection of the boat. Rain water was finding a way to the top of the fuel tanks (which had nothing but solid deck above them) and presumably overflowing down and accumulating behind the stringers along the bottom in the engine compartment. The seller did not know how the water was getting there. After a couple of unsuccessful efforts to fix it, clearly I didn't either. Seven years later I think I figured it out. The cockpit coamings have shallow lockers in them and large louvered vents outboard to provide engine room ventilation. Rain water of course could get blown into the locker. Salar had provided drains for them, and put in screens to prevent clogging. Over the years the screens had become totally clogged, covered and camouflaged with dust and dirt. Water then would accumulate in the locker until it found a way out through, in this case, a screw hole. It then dripped onto a hose and ran down until dripping off onto the top of the fuel tank. After years of getting wet, the fiberglass bottom in the locker had started delaminating because the underlying plywood had gotten saturated. Removing the screen, keeping the drain hole clean and a new fiberglass bottom should cure the leak. We'll see what happens in the next rain....

The other boat project this week was to replace the broken handle on the head discharge Y valve with the new one that Carol brought. It broke because the valve was balky, so that meant opening it up, scraping out the hard deposits, cleaning, greasing and putting it all back together. It took several tries to get it back together so it would not leak (which would be a disaster), and it was altogether a disgusting job. But I got it done. And the marina guys just came by on the pumpout panga and pumped out the holding tank. So, I end the week with a sanitary boat.

Now if I could just get a good weather window, I could continue south. While the winds aren't the best in the next few days, they are tolerable. However, the swell is forecast to come out of the west and turn inland in the very spots where I would be anchored in coves that are open to the west. Swells from the usual northwest are not bad; from the west ????? I'll hang out here a few more days and see if things start looking better. But my patience is wearing thin....