SV Gallant Fox

Cruiser Humor

You sometimes find really funny things when you get off your boat and explore the shore.  Because occasionally, cruisers pull together "found items," transforming them into art.  Like this artifact, found amongst the ruins of the salt works at Punta Salinas on Isla San Jose in the Sea of Cortez:

Schnort.

m

Tomato Paste

You can’t get tomato paste in Mexico - or at least the parts of Mexico I have been to. There are a lot of tomato products in the store, but they all seem to be “puree of tomato with a lot of salt added”. You can get canned tomatoes, but they are very expensive - like $3.50 per 24 oz can or so.

MX cuisine does not have a lot of call for tomato paste - but I use a lot of it in making soups stews, and sauces. So I decided to make my own.

Tomatoes are pretty cheap in Sinaloa - tomato capital of Mexico. I can get a kilo of plum tomatoes in Mazatlan for about $1.25. So, here is the recipie.

Take 1.5 kilo of plum tomatoes, blanch them in boiling water for a minute and take the skins off. Be sure to score the bottom of the tomato before blanching - this helps the skins come off easy. Skin them, cut them into quarters and take the seeds and centers out. Throw the whole mess into a crock pot and cook it down for about three hours, let cool, then whip it up in the blender into a puree. Add a pinch of salt but not too much, since it will really concentrate down. Cook down for another 8 hours. I ended up with about 20 oz of puree. It's thick and sticks to the back of a spoon when done. Bag it in 5 oz portions and put it into the freezer.

Tomatoes have some natural preservative qualities, so the will keep in the freezer - and they don‘t take up much room at all. This paste turned out really good, but I used up all of my tomatoes - so I have to go to the store and get another kilo before I can get some great sauce going. Here is my tomato sauce recipe.

1 kilo to fresh tomatoes, skinned and seeded

½ onion

2 cloves garlic

2 TBS oregeno,

1 tbs basil

½ tbs rosemary

1 carrot, 1 stalk celery grated

Red wine or chicken stock or water - whatever is around

5 oz homemade paste

Sautee the veggies and throw it all into a crock pot, cook down for about 8 hours, mashing to tomatoes up for country style, or using a blender to make a smooth sauce for pizza.

And if all else fails, get a good friend to bring you a case of tomato paste from the North!

gb

Majestic Interlude™ - The Cruiser's Party Game

Naming a boat is more difficult than you'd think.  You want it to be a special name...a name unique to you...something that reflects your personality and background, but also suggests the romance, adventure and exotic locales that travel on the high seas offers. Additionally, it's better if the name you choose for your boat is easily spelled, easily pronounced, easily understood over the VHF, and (assuming you travel outside your home country) recognizable by any foreign port official, containing nothing offensive in any language.

Hoo-wee, that's a tall order.

It is a very interesting pastime to ask people how they arrived at their boat's name. Everybody has a story, and it's always a good one.  If you ever see "Two Pieces of Eight," "Curare" or "Integrity" anywhere, ask them how they got the name - you'll see what I mean.

However, the path to naming a boat is fraught with pitfalls because every human brain is wired like every other human brain. It is therefore almost impossible for any of us to come up with an original thought.  Consequently, in terms of boat names we find hundreds of "Chardonnays," "Second Winds," "Wet Dreams," "Moondances," and "Nereids."  How difficult does it get, to overcome the hive mind? What would you say are the chances that at least two different boats from two different countries are each named "Warren Peace"? (Answer: pretty good. They met each other in the Sea of Cortez this past year.)  Do a search on the US Coast Guard registration site for "Gallant Fox" and you'll find at least two commercial vessels out of Louisiana with that name.  A grimy industrial barge bearing OUR pristine name??  Quelle horreur.

Some folks resist the hive mind by naming their boats more complex things like, "Secret Might Be Blue,"  "Sailing Since Tuesday," or "Just a Minute." Nice names with amusing stories behind them, I'm sure -- but, potentially baffling to the average port captain in Panama.

In our experience, the boat names that overall seem to be the best combination of hip and universally practical, comprise single words, like: "Lucie," "Integrity," and "Sarana."  Multiple-word names can be very cool, too, but can go cattawumpus when you least expect it.  Example:  If you're sailing along on night watch, and hear over the VHF "Mango Mambo" hailing "Coconut Surprise"? You may find yourself getting hungry for no apparent reason.  Or you'll hear the names "Decade Dance," "Last Tango," "Piano Man" and "Banjo Jane," and imagine that someday they'll all get together for a really great jam session.  But for someone who wants something a bit different, what's to do, if they just can't come up with a name that embraces all the functionality, coolness and adventurousness they desire?

Have I got the solution for you.  It's a game.  Majestic Interlude™. Here's how it's played:

Get a group of your friends.  Give them copious beverages. When everyone is blotto relaxed and open-minded, give each of them a piece of paper and a pencil.

For Round 1, each person writes on their paper an adjective. Any adjective. Could be "yellow," "running," "majestic,"...you get the idea. After each player has written something, they fold the paper so that their word is concealed, and pass it to the person to their left to write down the next word, which is a noun - any noun, such as "magic," "potholder," or "interlude." After each of these players has written something, they pass the paper to the next person on their left, who then unfolds the paper and reads the two words aloud to the group as a proposed boat name: "Yellow Magic," "Running Potholder," "Majestic Interlude." Hmmm.

Now for Round 2.  First person writes down a noun.  A proper noun - place name or person's name is OK. (Exhamples:  "freak," "Mandalay," "van Gogh.") Folds the paper, passes to person on left. Second person writes a noun. Proper noun and place names acceptable. (Examples:  "magnet," "sombrero," "Bedford-Stuyvesant.") When done second person passes paper to next person on left who reads the results.

You can go for as many rounds as the beverages last or the group can tolerate. Adverbs and verbs! Place names only! Freestyle!

Whatever names come up can be fodder for general hilarity, or may actully be worthy of serious consideration. Think of the story YOU'D be telling, if after a Majestic Interlude™ party, you named your boat "Mandalay Sombrero."

P.S. I have dibs on "Freak Magnet."
 

m

Boats and Dreams

La Paz’s malecon stretches for a couple of miles and is interspersed with many examples of fine bronze sculpture. A visitor may admire life-size renditions of manta rays, fishermen and the vaquita porpoise (the world’s smallest, native to the Sea of Cortez - and sadly, a species which may now be extinct). There are mermaid sculptures and more. Many people say their favorite malecon bronze is the smiling old man wearing his makeshift paper boat, gazing out across the city anchorage to the Sea of Cortez:

I like this guy.

I like him even more, now that I’ve read the poem that accompanies the statue. Please tolerate this author's poor translation from the Spanish:

El Viejo…y el Mar?                                              (The Old Man...and the Sea?)

Tengo un barco de papel…                                  (I have a boat of paper…)

Esta hecho de una pagina                                   (It’s made of one page)

En la que escribi mis ilusiones.                           (On which I wrote my hopes.)

No tiene anclas ni tiene amarras.                       (It has neither anchors nor mooring lines.)

Quiero navegar en el,                                        (I want to sail the seven seas in it;)

De los siete mares; en el octavo,                        (In the eighth,)

Donde se, encallare en el puerto anhelado.          (I know I will eagerly run aground in the port.)

…ha visto alguien brillar la luz de su faro?            (Have you seen someone shine the light of your own

                                                                             beacon?)

- Guillermo Gomez Mac. 2004

Boats and dreams, in their purest form.

m

The Fully Functional Propane Tank Cover

GB is so creative.  He's always coming up with new sewing projects for me.  We bought a small 4Kg propane tank in Mazatlan last winter to enhance our total propane-carrying capacity as well as to use specifically with the Force 10 BBQ GB mounted on our starboard stern pulpit.  We had been connecting the BBQ directly to the main propane tanks that ride in our aft lazarette, but with that scheme the aft lazarette needed to remain open, which has always mildly offended GB's sensibilities.  The new 4Kg tank is small enough (12" round, 7" deep, 17-1/2" high including valve and support legs) to ride astern closer to the BBQ, and can be connected without having to burn a whole tenth of a calorie opening a lazarette lid.  The tank is white and disc-shaped, causing Linda Erdman of Curare to remark:  "It looks like a giant Mentos back there."  It certainly does - and I'm happy with the Fox being the Freshmaker (TM) wherever we travel.

The tank would last longer, though, if protected from sun and salt.  GB said he wanted something that could keep the tank fully covered, yet allow him quick and easy access to the valve and nozzle so that he could hook up the tank to the BBQ whenever he wished, even for example if it were dark and/or he were already cocktail-enhanced.  He said it would certainly be a bonus if the cover could be removed and put back on the tank without having to go to the effort of disengaging the tank from the bungee cords that tied it to the stern pulpit.  Right.

All I can say is, thank heavens for Velcro.  I devised a Sunbrella cover that is sort of a rounded-top pillowcase with elastic at the bottom to cover the wee tank's body yet leave its support legs open for attaching to our stern pulpit with either bungee cords or rope.  Half of the rounded top is closed by Velcro when the tank is not in use.  When the tank is delivering propane to the BBQ, the Velcro is pulled open so that the propane hose can easily be attached to the nozzle and the valve opened - but the cover otherwise remains in place around the rest of the tank.  The cover need only be removed when the tank needs refilling. We've been using this tank to prepare scrumptious BQ meals throughout the Sea o' Cortez & while tied up at the Mazatlan docks.  Sweet.

m

Managing Mail While Cruising

By popular demand* and because I happened to have been studying the issue right before we headed out of the marina, here's a discussion about a couple of different ways to handle mail while cruising long term.

* Yo! Patrick!

First, an explanation of mail forwarding and a description of our particular mail-forwarding strategy as it has been up to now.

When we first moved aboard The Fox at Shilshole Marina waaay back in March 2003, like everybody else in the marina we moved our mail to Ballard Mailbox on Market Street. These nice folks act as your agent for receiving your mail and packages, and signing for certified mail and such on your behalf.  At your telephone or email request they will forward your mail to any destination - within the US or internationally. They have done an excellent job sending our mail to us during the past 6 years. The basic service we signed up for costs about $145 per year. Like other mail forwarders, Ballard Mailbox asks for an extra deposit (about $50) to cover the shipping expenses for the mail they forward to you. When your deposit is depleted, you replenish it. It is all quite rational and the Ballard Mailbox gang is professional and efficient.  For folks who live aboard a boat but don't intend to travel far and/or are still closely connected to a job onshore, this is all they need.

When forwarding mail to a location outside the US, Ballard Mailbox and places like them generally ship your flat mail via a DHL envelope. DHL is desirable because you pay for a tracking number that comes in handy if your precious mail goes walkabout.  When cruising, you periodically plan a stop at a marina ($$$) so that you can use their address to get your mail forwarded there as soon as possible.  It's been our experience that a typical DHL envelope gets from Ballard Mailbox to almost any reasonable cruising destination on Vancouver Island, BC, or Baja or mainland Mexico, within about 4 or 5 days.  (Packages are another kettle of fish - much more complicated. We'll just continue discussing flat mail shipped by good ol' reliable DHL in this here post.)

Difficulty: in 2008 DHL doubled their shipping fees because, they said, that big run-up in gasoline prices significantly increased their overhead. Of course, when the fuel prices dropped back down, DHL kept those higher fees in place.  Bastards. The bottom line to you, though, for getting your mail shipped to you outside the US? Is that if your experience is like ours has been, you'll be paying about $110 per flat DHL envelope. Yes, you read that right.  One hundred-ten US dollars.  Now, the folks at Ballard Mailbox will help you keep your DHL costs as low as possible by reviewing and sorting your mail with you over the telephone, getting rid of the junk mail and nonessential bulky items
that have accumulated in your mailbox.  But even with that help, assuming you can afford to get your mail shipped to you only once every four months, and further assuming that your average DHL envelope is like ours and contains less than 2 dozen separate pieces of mail -- you're looking at an extra $300 or more for shipping your mail to you, on top of your $145 annual base fee.

$445 per year for mail.  Zowie.

Some people who cruise only part-time, or who often return to the US, can avoid costs like these by picking up their accumulated mail themselves directly from their mailbox; or by getting it forwarded to some cheaper destination within the US (like, a friend's or relative's house they plan to visit), where they pick up the mail and personally carry it back to their boat. But for full-time cruisers like us who are spending most of our time away from the US, mail forwarding is unavoidable - and at certain times, essential.  Some documents come to us via email (for example, our insurance carriers email their policies and other documents to us, so that we can print them out wherever we happen to be).  Unfortunately, other important papers come only via hard-copy snail mail.  Like, the annual US Coast Guard registration; all our health insurance info; GB's pension documents; and checks.  So we need to pay for a mail forwarder.

Needless to say, one of my tasks while having enjoyed Marina Costa Baja during December-January was to investigate more economical mail-forwarding alternatives. Luckily for cruisers, technology has developed over the past few years that enables mail forwarders to receive and forward your mail the old-fashioned way; but also to electronically scan it as it comes in. You get to view your scanned mail online, and direct your mail forwarder to hold it, throw it away as junk mail, shred it, or forward it to you - whatever you desire. I've looked at two such mail forwarders on opposite sides of the US (Earth Class Mail and St. Brendan's Isle), and they seem to charge a similar amount of annual fees ($240-$270 or so) for roughly the same kinds of services.  I'm sure there are more places like these two out there; and I'll wager they charge roughly the same. But they're interesting in that the goal with each of them is to give you the long-distance control over your mail to reduce its volume (and presumably, its cost for shipping to you) by about 70%.  Sweet.

I've liked the work Ballard Mailbox has done for us during the past 6 years, and I'm not sure the online scannig services xan do much better than they do -but the idea of an electronic scanning mail service still intrigues me.   There's just one problem setting up any mail forwarding service like these when you're outside the US like we are: The US Postal Service requires you to sign a federal form authorizing the mail forwarder of your choice to act as your agent before they can receive and act upon your mail as you instruct. And, your signature on this US federal form needs to be notarized. Which outside the US can only be done at a US Consulate. And, for the next several months we will be very far away from the nearest US Consulate. Ergo our clever plan to switch mail services is on hold until I find a notary in the same town as myself, either in the US next time I visit; or at a US Consulate in Mexico.

In conclusion: whichever type of mail service you choose - electronic or otherwise - there are some pretty spiffy options for you.  It's best to study those options well, and when you make a choice get it in place when you're still in the States.

m

FM-III Renewals in Mexico

The Mexican FM-III visa is a type of resident (long-term) visa that is one step up the food chain from the basic 180-day tourist visa everyone gets when crossing the border for the first time. Many boaters cruise Mexico for years on a succession of tourist visas, and it works fine for them. Other boaters prefer obtaining and renewing a one-year FM-III visa. Which option might work best for you depends on your long-term cruising goals.

Generally, if a boater plans to cruise in Mexico for only a few months per year and then berth their boat in Mexico before returning to wherever "home" is, a 180-day tourist visa may suit their needs just fine. Similarly, a 180-day tourist visa is all that's necessary if the cruiser decides to visit Mexico just once before sailing onward. However, if you want to stay in Mexico to cruise or do other travel for longer than 180 days, the FM-III visa may offer you more flexibility to exit and reenter Mexico at will; and even set the stage for eventually becoming a Mexican citizen if that's what floats your boat.

Back in December 2007, we considered our options and applied for FM-III visas in Mazatlan because we intended to travel around Mexico for at least two years, with a maximum of only one trip per year back to the US. Timing was also a big issue for us, as our original 180-day tourist visas were set to expire in March, 2008, right in the midst of cruising season when we expected to be in remote Baja anchorages, unable to exit and reenter Mexico for the purpose of getting a fresh 180-day tourist visa.  After studying a little and getting input from other cruisers we submitted to the INM (Instituto Nacional de Migracion) the requisite heaps* o' FM-III forms, supporting paperwork and passport-style photos; paid the fees (US $339.00 for the two of us); and got our fly FM-III visas in about a month. Considering this all happened during the Christmas and New Year's holidays - which in Mexico, means closure of government offices from about December 23 through about January 6 - the INM is to be commended for its efficiency.

During 2008, those FM-IIIs came in handier than we'd expected, as we found ourselves making a total of three trips back to the US, only one of which had been planned; we saved a bit of money we otherwise would have had to spend on short-term tourist visa fees, and our expiration date for our visas remained the same instead of changing as would have been the case with every new tourist visa. Another benefit of an FM-III is that upon returning to Mexico, you enter the (usually) shorter, faster line at Customs & Immigration for "Mexican Nationals." Ever so convenient and cosmopolitan.

Our FM-IIIs were set to expire on January 10, 2009, so following the recommendations of expats everywhere we started the renewal process 30 days earlier in December 2008 - again, bumping into that long government holiday closure. Our clever plan also had us renewing the visas in La Paz instead of in Mazatlan as we had originally done. Because, you know, we were out cruising and generally enjoying ourselves, and La Paz was conveniently located a couple hundred miles closer to where we were cruising than Mazatlan. What could possibly go wrong?

Well. Our FM-IIIs had been issued in Mazatlan, in the state of Sinaloa. Now here we were, renewing them in La Paz, state of Baja California Sur. Imagine an immigrant in the US being issued a resident visa in Oregon, then trying to renew it a year later after they've moved to Mississippi without notifying the authorities ahead of time. Of course paperwork will be involved, you silly goose.

Another wrinkle in our renewal process is, Mazatlan has a kick-ass INM office. You walk in, and find a giant poster on the wall with a list of everything you are expected to produce to get your FM-III visa. There's a hyper-convenient copy store almost next door to INM Mazatlan where you can get much-needed help completing the heap* o' forms and (naturally) makin' copies.  You get bonus points if you return to INM Mazatlan with the completed paperwork in the order it's listed on the poster. (As an ex-bureaucrat and lawyer and all-around Little Miss Smartypants, I aced this part.) In Mazatlan it is all business and very much to my liking. Plus the INM officer who processes the visas is a fellow who is very genial and easygoing as long as you Follow The Rules and Be Polite. One expat we'd met in December 2007 told us that INM Mazatlan renewed his FM-III in 4 days.  INM Mazatlan had spoiled me.

And yeah, we weren't in Mazatlan for our renewal.

Inspector Clouseau would say that the differences among states and INM branch offices in applying the federal visa regulations, are all part of life's rich pageant. Now, the INM officers in La Paz are incredibly good at their jobs and professional to the core, but their office could sure use more organization. I know if I were the one having to spend all day talking to non-Spanish-speaking hippy-dippy boat-gringos who can't fill out the most basic of forms, I'd draw up a giant poster of the rules for everyone to see and make them Follow Those Rules. But not so, at INM La Paz. There are no rules posted. No lists of required documents or how many copies of which forms they want. You just have to somehow know what's needed. INM La Paz will work with you to make it happen, God bless 'em, but they deal with a lot of boat-gringos, who all need the same help and are ahead of you in line.

As you may have guessed, prior to our visit to INM La Paz Little Miss Ex-Bureaucrat-Lawyer-Smartypants (me) studied what I reckon are the two most informative FM-III sites around (thanks, http://rollybrook.com/living_in_mexico.htm and http://www.inm.gob.mx/!) and got the gist of what was needed for an FM-III renewal**.  Long story short, it's everything that was required for our original FM-III applications.  In our case, because we were no longer in our originating location of Mazatlan, we also needed to include a notice of change of address, and an address confirmation from wherever the heck we were now. Luckily for cruisers, most Mexican marinas are familiar with the FM-III process and have two form letters that do the trick.  Basically, the marina is an established local business that is qualified to vouch for your address (which is, of course, theirs) by confirming to the INM that you have a moorage contract with the marina. They're sort of like your landlord.

Because INM La Paz doesn't post their requirements, despite our best efforts we showed up a bit deficient in supporting documentation for our renewals. But, INM La Paz was OK with me filling out a couple of forms by hand right there at the counter, instead of leaving the INM office and finding someone to type the forms like INM Mazatlan requires.  I also had INM La Paz guys filling out parts of other forms for me, when my Spanish failed completely (the physical ID form asks in Spanish for the shape of your nose and mouth, general body habitus, skin color... equals awkward). Can you even imagine, say, a DMV official in the US giving that level of customer service to anyone? Let's hear it for the gamers at INM La Paz.

After the INM La Paz officials assured me - twice - that our FM-III applications were complete, they told me oh, by the way, they still needed us to submit new passport-style photos. They explained that the old photos included in our original FM-IIIs had been taken in Mazatlan instead of La Paz, thus they were no good. (???) Whatever. We taxied to a photo place, then returned to INM and submitted the pics along with the bank receipt confirming we'd paid the renewal fee of $189.54.  We'd finally made INM La Paz happy and we had our two renewals in the pipeline two days before close o' business for the holidays.  INM La Paz told us to just come back to pick up our renewed FM-IIIs, "whenever," after INM reopened on January 7.  (As opposed to INM Mazatlan, which gives you a specific date and time at which Your Visa Will Be Ready And You Must Appear. I miss INM Mazatlan.)

But check it out: we drift back to INM La Paz on January 8, expecting nothing, right, and our renewed FM-IIIs are there, waiting for us. We put our thumbprints on the Thumbprint Form (more prints, from more thumbs, than the original application took, which ehh???). We fill out another form I don't recall, and then it happened: we got our original FM-IIIs back with the first year's renewal spot on page 11 duly stamped, authorizing us to remain in the Land Of The Hot Sun for another year.  Boo-ya.

The new-photo requirement I mentioned earlier still baffles me, because INM La Paz took them, examined them, stuck them in our renewal file, and then, when our renewals were complete...returned all the photos to us, unused....Say what???

To conclude: it was more awkward renewing our FM-IIIs in La Paz than I believe it would have been in Mazatlan, mostly because Mazatlan posts written rules to follow and La Paz does not.  In hindsight, though, the renewal process in La Paz was pretty painless. For another take on how the renewal process can vary from state to state, check out Curare's experience renewing their Mazatlan FM-IIIs in Puerto Vallarta.  Thus, my suggestions to those who follow me are these: consider your cruising goals, get an FM-III if it suits your needs, then do what it takes to keep it because it's worth something. Best practice is to keep renewing at the same address/in the same city as you started in but it certainly is not required.  No matter where you are when you renew, assume that you will need all the documentation, every year, as you needed to get the FM-III to begin with. But that's fine: Mexico welcomes you, and the INM officials in the field offices work hard to get you what you want. Give them a little smile, a lot of respect, and enough paperwork to choke a goat.  You'll be fine.

And another thing: carry a moistened towelette with you, the better to wipe the ink off your thumbs.

* No, really. Heaps.

** For an average renewal, if you're in the same location as that which issued the original FM-III, you need: the FM-III application form; a full photocopy of all pages (including blank ones) of FM-III and passport; 4 passport-style photos (2 front, 2 side; lots of places that do this service); original plus 2 copies of letter requesting renewal of FM-III; 3 months' bank statements showing the requisite income; marriage certificate (if applicable); and proof of address (for cruisers, a marina's form letter confirming a moorage contract suffices). If you renew in a different location, you also need a letter requesting the INM to recognize a change of address - again, for cruisers, many marinas have this form letter.

m