Last week alone

Monday 14th September 2020
This week is about getting the boat ready for when Kathy arrives, so to avoid doing any cleaning I decide to head off to the chandlers and pickup supplies, I manage to purchase 40 metres of 5/8″ 3 strand nylon to use as warps to tie the boat up with. Later as the cleaning beckons, I spend time splicing large eyes into the rope which I have cut into 4 x 10m lengths. I need plenty of rope as if a hurricane does come this way, it’s all going to be about the rope. I replace all my braided ropes with the new lines and get my old ropes soaking in a slightly soapy bucket of warm fresh water. They can soak for a few days and hopefully will lose some of the salt that has made them quite rigid.

It’s Kathy’s birthday today, and as a gentleman I wouldn’t dream of revealing her age, lets just say a lot of things are free for her now. We chat on the phone for a while, I had a present delivered to her by Amazon a few days ago, but the card and present I sent from La Paz hasn’t arrived yet. I sent it three months ago, and I think I now understand the look the postman gave me when I said I didn’t want the more expensive tracked service.
My government back home has just this minute passed a law (at least it passed first reading) that makes it legal to break the law. Whilst at the same time asking the public to snitch to the police on any neighbour that might be breaking the law by having more than 6 people in the garden. What strange times we live in.

Tuesday
I start cleaning up the boat, leaping into any distractions at the first opportunity. I’m not sure how, but I seem to have about 20 micro USB phone charger cables around, which is odd as I use the Apple connector.
In the evening I walk down the Malecon for some exercise and to see the Pre-Independence day celebrations. It’s lively tonight and there’s fireworks and a big formal do in the town square, which I just manage to miss.

Miercoles, Septiembre de 16th – Independence Day
Yes it’s independence day in Mexico.

“Mexico, once known as New Spain, was a colony harshly ruled by the kingdom of Spain for over 300 years. The native population was oppressed, farm land and personal wealth was confiscated and only Spaniards were allowed to hold political posts. Finally, a Catholic priest in the town of Delores named Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla had enough.
On September 16, 1810, he rang his church’s bell and delivered a speech now known as the Grito de Delores (Cry of Delores), demanding the end of Spanish rule. This started the brutal Mexican War of Independence, which lasted over a decade. On August 24, 1821, Spain withdrew and officially recognized Mexico as an independent country. Today, Father Costilla is known as the Father of Mexican Independence. Mexican Independence Day has been celebrated every year since that momentous day on September 16, 1810.”

So I celebrated by washing some clothes and tidying up. Later I walked down the Malecon with Arturo and practised some Spanish. he got jumpy when a very agitated couple passed us both frantically talking down the mobile phones. He overheard them talking about guns, and stopped and asked the next couple if something was going on. They told him there had just been a shootout in a bar nearby. We carried on to the main square which was busy with families and kids jumping in the coloured water jets that have just been installed.

Thursday 17th
More tidying up, the boats looking smart inside, but the varnish has just evaporated off the rub rails outside. So far all the flights are still on schedule.
In the evening Arturo buys me a birthday dinner at a local seafood restaurant, which is very tasty.

Friday 18th
Up early and off to Mexico city, Kathy has left Manchester and started her journey. All these flights are going to require a lot of recycling to undo our carbon contribution. Besides the flights we are pretty good on the eco front, Kathy is vegan, I don’t eat meat, our only transport is bicycles and the boat, which I try to sail as much as possible. Also we generate most of our power from the solar panels.

It was a surprise to land at a cold and wet Mexico airport.

The hotel at Mexico is smart, but eerie with so few guests. Everyone at the airport and the hotel are very covid aware, masks everywhere along with gel and disinfectant foot mats. They ask me at the hotel check in desk if it’s my birthday, I had to think for a minute and confirm it is. They must have thought, poor old man, checking in to a hotel all alone on his birthday, which was fine as an hour later they sent up a complimentary birthday cake/dessert dish for me which the chef had prepared. Very nice, thank you NH Hotels T2 Mexico airport.

I get an early night and before I sleep I watch the news breaking of the Supreme court judge Ruth Ginsberg’s death. It’s a major story in the states, and I had been hoping she would survive a bit longer. She was a great lady from everything I have heard. Of course if the election race wasn’t already crazy, this throws another major spanner into the works. I have two english language tv stations on the hotel TV, this is a luxury for me, one is CNN (Anti Trump) and the other FOX news (Pro Trump) so flicking between the two I see the problem with the world so clearly, one channel stating it could be unlawful to delay the new appointment, and the other claiming the opposite. One saying the republicans are being incredibly hypocritical as they blocked the appointment under Obama, and the other saying it’s everyones duty to get this done quickly and there is no comparison with the past. At the same time back in the UK Boris has just announce the 2nd wave has arrived on our shores, as if the French or Belgians slipped it in overnight when nobody was looking. At the same time the top scientists on the subject are being ignored. What a crazy situation, whatever happened to reasoned logic and truth.

Saturday 19th
I’m up at 2am as flightradar24 says Kathy’s flight is nearly an hour early, and will land in 10 minutes. I’m confused as the map puts her over the gulf of Mexico which has to be 90 minutes away at least. Aeromexico has the flight delayed by 20 minutes on it’s arrivals page, so I go back to bed. At 3:30am I’m up again and sitting outside the arrivals area. Kathy appears after having her bags searched and we are finally reunited. It’s great to see her again.
We manage a couple of hours sleep back at the hotel and then it’s back to the terminal and a lot of flapping around while a paramedic interviews us for covid history and to take temperatures, I saw him using his oximeter on the passenger ahead of us. We had to fill out online questionnaires for the track and trace system. It all takes a little time, but nobody is arguing or complaining, it seems that a developing country like Mexico has a better grip on Covid than the UK, at least at the airport, it’s a different situation out in the public, especially in the city itself (CDMX). Kathy had to fill in paper forms at the UK on both her flights here and her round trip to Milan, but nobody collected the forms, so a bit pointless. Presumably the government know where everyone is, where they have been and who they have met anyway, and if not they could just ask Zuckerberg.

Back on the boat Kathy unpacks lots of goodies for me, from replacement credit cards, to USB dongles, a Raspberry PI hat, books and a decent supply of quality chocolate. She also brings me a present of a huge block of Parmesan cheese from Bobbie and Bruno in Milan, Thanks to you both, the European cheeses here are a little lacking.

Sunday 20th Sept
Kathy wakes me to point out that when she put the kettle on the mains power tripped, this happened when she first came out to the boat in Malaysia, causing some trouble in the marina as the whole pontoon lost its power and other boaters started shouting at each other, while we kept our heads down. The power supply is rated to allow the kettle/aircon/toaster to co-exist, but I think if the hot water heater is also on, then we could be pushing our 30A limit. Anyway, groggy eyed I crawled out of bed and onto the pontoon where I could see the cutout trips were intact and the power was good to the sockets, what was unmissable was the stink of electrical burning and the very charred and hot plug.

I’m not really sure why this has happened, I thought everything is rated correctly, if the current was too high the breaker should have tripped, so I’m assuming the connection inside the plug or more likely the connection between the plug and socket pins was poor, anyway I cut the cable back and replaced the plug. Everything is back and running, and the plug isn’t getting hot as far as I can tell. Something to keep an eye on.
Back on board I cook poached eggs on ciabatta bread, something of a Sunday morning tradition we haven’t been able to do since Kathy left 8 months ago.
Kathy has a lazy day while she gets over her jetlag and I potter around doing odd jobs.

Paul Collister.