Sept. 15, 2015-Big Motors and Taco Fest

Big Motors

wingssail images-fredrick roswold
Big Motors

I’ve always been impressed by the size of the outboard motors on many of the sports fishing boats seen around the marina. Big V6 Mercury Verados and bigger V8 Yamaha’s with 300 or more horse power are common, and I know from my powerboating days that one of these would be sufficient to push a 30 open boat at 30 or 40 knots and out on the water they are usually seen chuffing along with wives and kids going about 25. So why all the power? Ok, there is a safety issue at work: dual motors gives a “get home” security if one fails. But if it was just about safety how about two 175 hp motors? Nope you never see that. You see twin 300’s or twin 350’s. I guess it’s just machismo. Apparently no self-respecting Mexican boat owner would settle for less than two huge motors as long as his buddy down the dock has two. So we see rows of these boats with dual monsters on the back.
Top Dog

But I was blown away to see the yellow Everglades 32footer with THREE Yamaha 350 V8’s on the back. Now that’s some lot of power, 1050hp, $60,000 worth of motors, and they weigh 800 lbs each! I have no idea if the owner has them set up and prop’d to extract all that power, but if so I’d image we’re looking at a 100mph fishing boat. Hardly seems likely.
But it’s toppable.

Wow!
When in Malaysia I spotted in Telaga Marina a big rib purportedly owned by Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s Prime minister at the time, which went one bigger.

Taco Fest

Blue Dress

Puerto Vallarta staged a taco festival in old town last Sunday where local restaurants set up booths to sell samples of their tacos. It was going to be free admittance, featured some folk dancing, and lots of good Mexican beer would be on hand. The taco prices were to be 10 pesos ($.55) so we thought we’d go and sample some of our favorite Mexican street food, drink some cervesa, and shoot photos of the dancers. It was also a good excuse to go to old town, which we love and don’t get there too often.
Well, we’re glad we went, the expedition to old town was nice, but the taco fest was a bust. First of all it was packed and the lines were 20-30 minutes long. Even then they could not keep up with the demand. We picked the place with the shortest line, and got what we deserved: second rate tacos. Plus it was an unbearably hot evening, the sun absolutely stung us, and there was no place to sit down. We fled to a nearby bar, ordered two pints of Modelo, and sat in the shade until the sun went down.
Oh, the dancing? Well, it was pretty nice, but the light was bad and the photos were pretty much impossible. One thing I could have done was to shoot photos of the crowd and the taco cooks, but the heat just put me out of the mood. We went home early.

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Fred & Judy, SV Wings, La Cruz Huancaxtle