September 25, 2016-Round up all those Doggies

wingssail images-fredrick roswold
New Magma BBQ Looks Good, But...

We’ve got a round-up going, of sorts. That is, we’ve got a lot of stuff roaming around up in the USA and we’re trying to get it down here in Mexico. Problem is the shipping companies and the Mexican Customs just don’t work. If you send something via UPS or Fed Ex, it winds up in a Mexican Customs prison in Guadalajara and you will never see it again. So we are trying some alternate methods. We’ve pulled out all the stops to try to get all of our missing cows (stuff) to come into the coral (here on Wings) from out on the range (in the USA).

First of all, there is the new (used) spinnaker sold to us by Curt. “Just about new.” he said, so I sent him the money. Fine, money gone, spinnaker: nowhere. Then I arranged a drop. Son Ken met Curt at midnight near an abandoned railway station in Lynnwood, and after exchanging secret signals, Curt gave the kite to Ken. Then Ken met John, another midnight rendezvous, and John got the kite. John was supposed to bring it to Mexico, but somehow John missed his flight, for the last two months he missed his flight. Still no spinnaker.

Oh, did I say? John also has our mail package, which by now, is no longer the latest; there is another one looking for a courier to Mexico. (Hint: If you want your mail in a timely fashion, don’t try John.) Latest news: John will be coming in a few weeks. Right.

Then there is the new Genoa. Now this is a sad tale; the Genoa cost $5000. The factory delayed it for three weeks because they didn’t have the right color of cloth for the bag. See, I ordered light grey, which their up-to-date high end technical system said was, “In Stock.” Only it wasn’t. It was, “Out of stock”. OK I changed to dark grey, also, “In Stock”, only that wasn’t either. “Out of Stock”. But they had “RED”. I don’t want red! Oh alright, make the bloody bag in red, just send it already!

So the genoa and red bag got sent to San Diego, where Juan (not that John, another Juan) was going to pick it up and bring it to La Cruz. And since he was coming this way anyhow, please bring my new red bag, and my spare sail repair material too, OK?

“Sure” says Juan, and we did all the paper work, for Juan is totally legal. Great! But, you see, Juan’s truck is broken. But it will be fixed tomorrow. He will definitely head north with his truck and all of my papers tomorrow and bring all my stuff back straight away. “Tomorrow”. For two weeks, “Tomorrow.”

As of this day I have no idea where is Juan, or my paperwork, or my stuff.

Oh, also, the new Magna BBQ. Kelly agreed to bring that down. So I ordered it from West Marine with a delivery to Kelly’s neighbor. Yeah, I know, sounds dodgy, but Kelly, well, Kelly is pretty reliable. He DID bring me the new BBQ.

Thank You Kelly.

So how did that turn out? The BBQ is fine, except that none of the inside parts fit the outside. When I put it together it said, “Merry Christmas, our parts don’t fit.”

AND I BURNED MY FINGER trying to get all that ill fitting stuff properly aligned! DAMN!

Plastic Ice Cubes help burned fingers

So here I sit, no Spinnaker, no Genoa, no damned red bag, no mail, no repair material, but I DO have my BBQ and a burned finger.

Fortunately I also have some wine.

Welcome to the down side of Mexico, you cannot get stuff shipped here.

DOCK CARTS

Don’t let anybody tell you the marina security guards don’t have a sense of humor.

Normally it is a big pain to find a dock cart. Let’s say you come home from the super market with a trunk full of groceries and you need a dock cart to get those groceries down to the boat. There are never any dock carts to be found. You can walk up and down all the marina fingers looking for a dock cart. You might as well be looking for baby Jesus; you never find one.

But they do exist.

Last week, one morning, as I walked to the bathroom, I saw this sight.

Dock Carts Galore

10 Dock Carts!

Now where have these 10 dock carts been hiding?

And who, with a twisted sense of humor, thought it would be fun to put them all together on dock 7?

It must have been the marina guards; they did it as a joke.

But later, when we came home with groceries, no carts!

I asked the marina guard. “I Dunno”, he said.

Sure.

Fred & Judy, La Cruz, Huancaxtle, Mexico