Virgen de Guadulupe

The Virgin of Guadalupe. 

From Wikipedia:  In December 1531, Juan Diego saw a vision of a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, surrounded by light, on the slopes of the Hill of Tepeyac.  In his native language she asked.  From her words, Juan Diego recognized her as the  Virgin Mary.  Diego told his story to the bishop who instructed him to return and ask the Lady for a miraculous sign to prove her claim. The Virgin told Juan Diego to gather some flowers from the top of Tepeyac Hill. It was winter and very late in the season for any flowers to bloom, but on the hilltop (which was usually barren), Diego found Castillian roses, and the Virgin herself arranged them in his tilma (peasant cloak). When Juan Diego opened the cloak before the bishop on December 12, the flowers fell to the floor, and in their place was the Virgin of Guadalupe, miraculously imprinted on the fabric.

A very small parade came down the street in front of the marina just at sunset.  The Virgin of Guadalupe is the patron saint of Mexico and her images are everywhere;  in homes, on buses, even on bathroom air fresheners.  This is one of the most important saints' days in Mexico. 

 The music?  You might think something serious or religious.  No.  "Jingle Bells" and other Christmas songs.

 Only one float and, here, everyone was quite serious, quiet and respsectful.

 There was quite a large procession following the parade.

Around Guaymas this week

Sharon from CaST Away showed me some of her favorite shops on Monday.  This bakery is great!  My favorite is a bread stuffed with cheese and ham, but they also make excellent cuernitos (horns) which look like big crescent rolls filled with cream cheese.   I made two more trips here this week on the pretext of introducing other cruisers.  By Friday, Dick asked me to please stop. 

This friendly guy sits on the sidewalk selling shrimp cocktails in small styrofoam cups - also delish!

This Christmas tree on the malecón is made from plastic water and soda bottles.  The bottoms are cut off the bottles, the sides are cut into strips.

The neck of the bottle is stuck into a chicken wire framework.  Some of the bottoms were painted blue or green and glittered up a bit to look like ornaments.

Spent lightbulbs were decorated as additional ornaments.

Palicio Municipal:

This week in the marina

A haircut for me by Susie. Susie is a licensed esteticista (beautician). She and her husband Ron live on a sailboat that is lucky enough to be moored in the shrimp boat yard. Ron has a friend and occasional sailing partner who used to work as a shrimper and still has connections.

A group of school children came to the marina on a field trip to release balloons with  messages attached. 

Dick's yard sale with customers.  One man's junk is another man's treasure.

We heard Rafael, one of the guards (checked shirt) call out to a friend, "Yunke!"  I think this is a Mexicanization of our word "junk."  I've seen the word yunke to denote a car salvage yard.  In drove his friend and gone was our old dinghy outboard engine.  Dick will now be rowing our dinghy.

L-R: Diane, Fran, Doug.  It was Fran's birthday and her husband arranged a little party in the cruisers' lounge.  Outside, there was a huge Mexican wedding taking place.

The children from the wedding kept coming up to the windows or door to see Santa Claus.  Mike from Tazmo has his own costume and goes to local schools each year. 

This girl had the biggest smile you can imagine and came back several times for a hug.

Boat update

We bought a used light-air sail before coming down to Mexico but it wasn't exactly the right size.  The new sail is on the bottom, the genoa is on top.  The leech (bottom edge) must be cut down so it fits onto the roller furling and it needs to curve nicely toward the clew (the point about where Dick's left foot is) and

the hanks must be replaced with luff tape.  This is a hank, located on the luff, or leading edge of the sail, it allows the sail to be clipping onto a forestay (metal line) for raising and lowering.  But we don't use the hanked-on system, we have a roller furler.  The sail won't be raised/lowered, but rather rolled up around the forestay. 

Everything along the luff had to be taken off or apart.  Here I got to dig out these stitches with a garden tool.  Dick will have to replace/redo the cringle by hand.  The cringle is the loop at the head (top) of the sail. 

Drawing the nice curve along the foot:

Here I'm "basting" the luff tape with onto the sail with double-sided sticky tape.  The tape loved the sail but didn't want to stick to the luff tape.  Next time (although I really hope there won't be a next time) I'll use a stapler. 

A close-up just before stitching two rows of zig-zag.  The corded edge of the luff slips into a slot on the roller furler.

Janice from Gitana has a Sailrite sewing machine and has some sail repair experience.  She offered to do the sewing, with my help to guide, lift, and pull - at not cost.  I will help her when she makes repairs to their jib sail.

Meanwhile, this week, Dick attached permanently the metal framework onto the nacelle to firmly hold the outboard

and began sorting through the stuff that goes onto the boat from the stuff that he will try to sell or throw away.

This week in the marina

I looked up from the sail work we were doing and saw this dinghy being rowed to the dock.

As it got closer, I could see one person rowing, the other bailing water:

There is an effort for boats to leave this marina, especially from the workyard because the rates increased by 61% on August 1.  There was no notice given to current occupants until arriving for the current sailing season.  The word quickly spread from friend to friend usually by email.  Daydreamer launched today, John and Diane's 51-footer.

But when will the next boat be launched? The travel-lift

 has some problems.  This oil leak has been fixed several times

 Sunday night cocktail party in the computer room aka cruisers' lounge.  While conversation occurred on one side of the room,

 Patsy led a sing-along for the ladies.

Note the extra clothing everyone's wearing. It's been darn cold here for the past week.

Avery and his big sister

Avery at 6 weeks:

Sophia, the pink butterfly:

Thais, thanks for the pictures. Aunty Paula will be so happy!

Making pita bread

Sharon from CaST Away came over to our boat to show a group of us how to make pita bread (or naan).  This is the perfect fresh bread for boats that have no oven - like ours :)  She said she felt like Martha Stewart. 

Her audience:  (L-R) Fran, Diane, Janice, Susie. 

Sharon prepared the dough and let it rise for a couple of hours, then it's cut into 8 portions, each portion rolled into a ball, then rolled out into an 8" circle.

After another short rise, the flattened portions are put onto a hot griddle and flipped back and forth.  It begins to puff up to become almost a sphere.  Here Sharon is reaching in to get it out of the pan because it popped a little hole and steam began to escape.

Like all freshly-baked bread, these pitas were so delicious. We had them with butter and jam. Yum! Thanks, Sharon.