good morning...from the ocean

Good Morning everyone,

As of 1607 utc we are at 14*46'N 112*26'W 220*T sailing at 6.2 kts. The sky is actually cloudy , such a rare thing to see.

Life is good out here. We have had a nice and easy sail so far. Apparently, we shouldn't be sailing here but motoring. I think Uncle Bill is blowing us some wind to help save our fuel.
Everyone is settling in to routines of their own, and also the watches. Last night was one of our better ones. We had a light on out in the cockpit and that sure helped in keeping watchers awake! We had a gorgeous moon, looked like an orange slice- all orange and cresent shaped. the water here is so blue!! I took a picture, but just doesn't do it justice. Tons and Tons of stars! It's amazing how many there are , even saw the southern cross.

We are still sailing with The Dorothy Marie, and had a little sailors competition last night, and caught right up with them. Steve had us trimmed so well that we almost pasted them. They are a faster boat in light winds.... so it made for some fun. Sure like having another boat out with us. We talk on the VHF radio 4-5 times a day. They are great people and we really enjoy their company. Glen is the sax player, Sally a kindergarden teacher.

The kids are getting so good at talking on both the ham and vhf radios. They have their own check in (HAM) with another boat with a kid on board ( Tin Soldier) so they still have kid contact out in the ocean.
Have not been lucky with the fishing the last 2 days, hoping today is the day...... nothing out of the freezer, so we had better catch one if we don't want soup..

until tomorrow, this Orca III sailing on....................

march 29 update

we are anchored at Sacora Island ,this is a navy base. Had the Naval Captain and some military crew come aboard to check papers ect. We need to clean watermaker and readjust the reefing lines. They were great, no problems and even had a fellow who spoke English . We watched a whole bunch of humpback whales right in front of our boat and even a mama and babe. Kyle and I both saw one breech, everyone else missed it. lots of tales and wow , it was cool. The bay is so clear we can see 25ft down to
the bottom and lots of cool fish. Kyle is busy catching them, while they eat away his lures. caught a parrot fish, it has quite the beak. It is absolutely beautiful here. and the fishing is supposed to be excellent. We caught a yellow fin yesterday on route here, Steve tied it up to bleed it over the side, but a big wave stole him back to the ocean, bummer.
we will leave either tonight or tomorrow am back on route to French Polynesia.

Love you all,
Dionne Steve Kyle Maya and Emma

hi from the ocean

+we are having a great sail!! the wind came up in the afternoon ( 11knts out of NW) and we were doing 6knts. we are at 20*08'N 106*45'W currently doing 3.8 knts 262T we reduced our genoa for the night. The wind seems to have picked up more this evening.
seas are nice and calm, maybe 3 ft swell.
today was movie day - we watched The Waltons and then Steve and kids watched Star Wars II - while I did the watch outside. WE are checking in on 3 different nets ( 2 SSB 1 HAM) at different times of the day (1400utc, 2330 utc and 0200 utc.) so rest assured enough people know where we are. Dorothy Marie is right behind us and we talk throughout the day.
It's amazing how much on a schedule we are out here as far as the nets........ good to talk to boats ahead of us as we get a heads up about the weather.

we are settling in to the sailing 24 hrs a day. way better this time. even caught a couple of fish , but to small and threw them back, however we are used to catching that marlin, maybe they weren't to small?! haha....

I think Uncle Bill is with us ... I have a bird sitting on my mast that doesn't want to go away , we've tried everything including banging the mast and turning on the strobe , he is stay with us for now. He turned up during the star wars show as I was on watch by myself. He looks comfy up there. I think he is watching over us.......

hope all is well, love you!!!

Dionne

so long Mexico!! here we come French Polynesia

We are pulling out now form Yelappa. its 18:03 z (GMT,uct) that makes it 11:03 am La Crux, 12:03 Pm Puerto Vallarta and I think 10:03 Vancouver....
Yesterday both Steve and I dove on our boat to clean the bottom, my god things grow fast here!! We used the hoka pipe ( scub mouth piece , long hose and the compressor) first time for me to use something like that since I was in Australia, and it was kyle's fisrt time trying. Steve's first also.but we got her done!
here are the last photos of us for a while , loved Mexico miss everyone

Adios Amigos!

well we are off to Yelappa , scrub the bottom ( have to dive in the water to do this) and then tomorrow head off across the big blue sea. will keep you all updated as frequent as possible. We have two other boats going with us, and about 55 others going across, some have left already and some are leaving up to the end of first week of April .
Sending hugs to all and lots of love....... send fair winds and following seas our way, I'm okay going a little slower to be comfortable.
Can you believe we've made it this far?!! And a few of you thought we wouldn't even leave Vancouver this year.................. What a year!!!

Happy Easter to
Trivia time -
How many miles is it to the Marquesas from Puerto Vallarta? ( I need to know - hahaha)

Last night in Nuevo Vallarta

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Hey everyone, well we are still trying to fit all the food someplace. Maya and I went and picked up a whole bunch more fresh fruits and veggies. god there is a lot of food on board!!! don't think we will starve.
Steve has all things done including the engine driven bilge pump that pumps a whole lot of water!! makes our boat look like a fire boat! oh speaking of fire - Hey Nevil I met a fellow Vancouver fire fighter in PV "baby Hewy" Jack, says hi!!
we will be packing up the dingy tomorrow and a quick washdown of the boat, off to Puerto Vallarta for fuel and then spend the night in Yelappa. Looks like Sunday is the big day of departure. I will still have updates for the blog - just not pictures.

Here is our boat tied to the pilings , Maya after shopping today and Kyle coming to get us. Maya and I had to carry the heavy! grocier bags 5 blocks to the bus stop ( forgot to bring the hook and go) that was dumb!! allmost fell out of the bus trying to go up the steep stairs with all the loads and the heaviest being on my back ( Sandra don't tell Donna that!!)
The kids are all fluent on the radios and both Maya and Kyle are excelllent at the dingy driving. We need to work on Emma slowing down, seems she likes things fast!!

generator running!

yeah, we got the pump back and its all working. bought the last of the food and am trying to fit it all in. oh my god!! here are some pictures of yesterdays lovely trip on the bus.

up and running!!

compurter working - yeah!! have been running all over getting supplies, ect. the pump for the generator busted and so I have found a place to fix it. should have it back tomorrow am.
it has been very busy ,tense and crazy here, just like how we left Spruce Harbour marina- thankfully all is working out!! we have already got our Sarpes ( exiting papers ) form the port captain, and are on schedule so far to leave Satuday March 22 -
My friend of the Dorthy Marie ( Sally) came with me to find the diesel fuel injector guy in PV - that ended up being easy, getting the bus back , well we got our tour of the inner smaller town - quite the adventure. The photos are of us at the bus stop where we had to get off and then on another bus to get us back to where we started before getting one home. Oh the trials of Mexico, it really is backwards here.

still waiting on computer

hope to be up and running tomorrow. we are hoping to leave around the 20th of March, kids are great and Steve has been working like crazy to get the generator hooked up. The kids have been over at a fellows cruisers boat swimming in the pool in the marina. we went and stocked up at the new costco here.. more expensive than sams club and they already ran out of peanut butter on day 5 of being openned. (my whole reason for going) we spent $9400.00 pesos on food , and still need more stuff. there are about 55 boats jumping over to the Marquesas this year, a bunch have already left. will post photos soon

computer has bit the dust!!

hello everyone, welll sorry no photos today, our computer motherboard has just quit and we are in the process of getting another one and having someone get all my stuff trasferred over, they assure me I shouldn´t lose anything. we are back in Nuevo Vallarta but the docks are all full - we are on a piling , will take a picture and somehow get it on the blog (?) anyway , will be there until the computer is fixed and the generator is hooked up. our luck has not been the best today ...... although it could have happened when we were already out in the ocean , so maybe our luck is good!!!!!
Happy Birthday to Uncle Wayne ( 70) and Auntie Bon (72) sending hugs to all. I like how calm the marina waters are, but being here is just to busy with noise and people, like Yelappa!! good place to visit! we will be heading out around the 20th (of course computer being the thing we await!! navigational piece of equipment)

Iguana held by all!!

for those of you who questioned the girls holding the thing!! teehee the Mexican who passed him to us, wanted $30 pesos for each picture I took ( with my camera) we could hold him for free though, needless to say Steve only paid $30 for all of them to hold it while I took the pictures.

Back in Yelappa again........

Left from La Crux yesterday to meet up with our friends on the Dorthy Marie in Yelappa. Great here, jungle and trees all around. We spent the day swimming and drinking!! and then today more of the same ( although I am drinking water) Steve has hurt his back and got a great massage only $150 pesos ( $15US) for 30 minutes. we sat and swam all day. Its so tough out here - haha actually other than swimming pools we have not been swimming - only in Yelappa have we been .
We all got to hold he iguana - cool isn't he!!

back in La Crux

hey all got back here 2 days ago but have had real crappy internet. Sunday night we went to Anna Bananas to jam.Steve was up there playing away with our bud Glen on Sax. Was a great time!! Even better than at Philo's.
Just hung out and did boat work all day, Steve got the wash down pump hooked up and working. the kids and I did reading and playing games and the keyboard.
We had a great time in Yelapa and will go there again before we head across the pond.

Here's Orca Sailing - from our friends on Tillicum

20*29.3'N 105*26.7"W

We arrived in Yelappa yesterday around noon, tied to a mooring for the day ( or so we thought , ended up staying the night but we anchored)

We went for a tour to the waterfall on horses – actually only Steve and Kyle had hores the girls and I had donkeys, was good fun. This was the first time the kids had ridden a horse on their own.Saw the small town of Yelappa. There are no cars here. Just horses and quads . Absolutely beautiful!! Jungle jungle and more jungle . gorgeous flowers everywhere, butterflies and birds. And lots of trees, palms and others I don’t know what they are called. But I got my green and my trees!!

We all went for a great swim in the ocean swells, warm water !! the bay is very deep and has quite the steep beach – tells you that they get some good waves!!

We set a stern anchor for the first time, sat fine all night until about 6am when our friends of Tillicum woke us cause the stern anchor either let go or dragged, but we were slowly coming on them. So we had quite the morning resetting that. We are anchored both bow and stern as the bay is a very difficult anchorage because of how deep it is and not a lot of swing room. It’s a lot of work pulling that stern anchor. I sure appreciate the windless on the bow, couldn’t imagine pulling that one up!!Enjoy the pictures