Settling In

This is the beginning of my third day in La Paz and things are slowly getting back to normal. 

With the Aduana thing behind me I was able to make two foray into town yesterday for food shopping and a badly needed haircut.  It was a real pleasure to once again bicycle around La Paz in the sunhine wearing shorts and T-shirt.  The haircut, which included trimming of my eyebrows and around my ears, cost a princely 50 pesos, or just over $4.00.  At the Bravo Market I purchased a kilo of fresh tuna and a variety of vegetables, and later at Issste I picked up rice, bread, and a few other things.  Reaching for that loaf of Bimbo bread was like meeting and old friend. 

I could and probably will do some eating out, but I generally prefer to eat the basic and simple meals that I prepare on the boat.  Last night I boiled white rice with a carrot and a sliced onion, fried some fish in olive oil, stirred spaghetti sauce into the rice to give it flavor, and there was my meal.  Desert was dried raisins.

By now I have made contact with most of my friends at the marina.  Bob Carroll visited the boat for an entertaining hour yesterday and I've had coffee on two mornings with the guys at the cafe.  This morning I handed to Ken two large containers of "Johnny's Seasoning Salt" which he said would last him 4 or 5 years. 

I've become aware of the physical toll that those recent colds have taken on me.  It's going to take me a while to feel normal again.  Maybe it's an age thing.  Bob told me that the bug hit La Paz at about the time I left for the USA.  That explained why the cab driver bringing me from the airport had a very familiar chesty cough. 

This afternoon I will try to install the alternator.  Fortunately I took some pretty good photos when I hastily removed it before flying out.

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I read this morning that Jeanne Socrates is anchored in Calleta Martial, on Herschel Island, just ten miles due north of the Cape to get some well earned rest.  She has put out only one anchor with 50 meters of chain in 10 meters of depth, though she has a stern anchor ready to go.  I hope that she has good protection from the Williwaws.

Naturally I am relating Jeanne's travails with my plans to round the Horn at about this same time next year.  I hope that for me things will be different.  Mark reminded me that I had commented that Jeanne was closing in on the mainland much faster than I would have.  She reported that she was only 58 miles from the nearest point in Chile.  That would have been at the edge of the shallows and inside the "squash" zone where the northwest winds encounter the mountain barrier and are concentrated along the west coast.  I plan to stand off at least 150 miles from the coast before making my turn near the latitude of the Horn.

The other issue is the design of the boats.  I was told this morning that Jeanne's Najad 380 (http://www.svnereida.com/about/about.php) has more freeboard that my low-profile S&S 39, with its curved deck and tumblehome hull. Our boats have similar length and beams. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the specifications of my boat to compare ballast ratios, though I think that her boat weighs about 1.5 tons more and don't think that it has a tumblehome hull.