I know you're out there reading this...

Because I have IP2MAP (the little button near the bottom, right hand side). IP2Map tells me where my last 100 readers are from, based on their IP number, then it puts them on a map of the world, like this:


then it lists the last 100 places in the world where you'all logged into the net (an abbreviated version here):

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN (UNITED STATES)
GUAYMAS, SONORA (MEXICO)
CAMARILLO, CALIFORNIA (UNITED STATES)
GREECE
BURLINGTON, VERMONT (UNITED STATES)
TOKYO, TOKYO (JAPAN)
ROYAL OAK, MICHIGAN (UNITED STATES)
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA (UNITED STATES)
BURLINGTON, VERMONT (UNITED STATES)
GUAYMAS, SONORA (MEXICO)
BEL AIR, MARYLAND (UNITED STATES)
COVENTRY, ENGLAND (UNITED KINGDOM)
BUDAPEST, BUDAPEST (HUNGARY)
EL CAJON, CALIFORNIA (UNITED STATES)
COVENTRY, ENGLAND (UNITED KINGDOM)
BATH, PENNSYLVANIA (UNITED STATES)
TOKYO, TOKYO (JAPAN)
HOPKINSVILLE, KENTUCKY (UNITED STATES)
ELIZAVILLE, NEW YORK (UNITED STATES)
CINCINNATI, OHIO (UNITED STATES)
CLEARWATER, KANSAS (UNITED STATES)
SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES (AUSTRALIA)
BURLINGTON, VERMONT (UNITED STATES)
VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA (CANADA)
GERMANTOWN, MARYLAND (UNITED STATES)
SLIPPERY ROCK, PENNSYLVANIA (UNITED STATES)
IOWA CITY, IOWA (UNITED STATES)
RENTON, WASHINGTON (UNITED STATES)
BRIDGEVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA (UNITED STATES)
LEESBURG, FLORIDA (UNITED STATES)

I guess most of you are shy, or feeling guilty for reading my blog when you're supposed to counting beans on your (or the company's) computer, because I don't get a lot of comments.

Maybe you feel like, "Gawd, he's a gazillion miles away, doing some things I want to do when I finally dump this stoopid job," or maybe, "Gawd, what a dumbo! He goes out and buys a wreck of a boat when he has a perfectly good sloop to go sailing in. Why isn't he lying on the sand sipping Coronas like they do in the commercials??"

Or maybe it's a BLEND (love that word!) of the two thoughts above, or maybe it's something totally unrelated and/or completely original. The sad thing is, nobody will really know until you put your teensy digits on the keyboard and type something in the comments.

Or maybe, you think, "Gawd. He doesn't know me from Adam/Eve!" I can help with that... I'll go through that list and tell you what I know about each place, so you'll feel more at home here...

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN (UNITED STATES)-- beer, not Corona, though
GUAYMAS, SONORA (MEXICO)-- c'mon, that's probably ME
CAMARILLO, CALIFORNIA (UNITED STATES)-- Home of Harbor Freight, on Hwy 101
GREECE-- unh...
BURLINGTON, VERMONT (UNITED STATES)-- I know, I know! Woolen clothes and stuff
TOKYO, TOKYO (JAPAN)-- Must be Maria, from Ferroever!
ROYAL OAK, MICHIGAN (UNITED STATES)-- Is this where all those guys with Westy's live?
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA (UNITED STATES)-- Garrison Keillor, mosquitos and ice fishing
BURLINGTON, VERMONT (UNITED STATES)-- see above
GUAYMAS, SONORA (MEXICO)-- More of ME
BEL AIR, MARYLAND (UNITED STATES)-- Oooooh. Sounds ritzy.
COVENTRY, ENGLAND (UNITED KINGDOM)-- Is this one of my old girlfriends?
BUDAPEST, BUDAPEST (HUNGARY)-- unh...
EL CAJON, CALIFORNIA (UNITED STATES)-- hmmm
COVENTRY, ENGLAND (UNITED KINGDOM)-- Can't give me up, can you girl?
BATH, PENNSYLVANIA (UNITED STATES)-- ??
TOKYO, TOKYO (JAPAN)-- I'll check on your boat for ya'.
HOPKINSVILLE, KENTUCKY (UNITED STATES)-- lost me there...
ELIZAVILLE, NEW YORK (UNITED STATES)-- Maybe you could clue me in?
CINCINNATI, OHIO (UNITED STATES)-- Hey! The original owners of the GF lived there!
CLEARWATER, KANSAS (UNITED STATES)-- unh..
SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES (AUSTRALIA)-- It's BEER, mate!
BURLINGTON, VERMONT (UNITED STATES)-- I don't blame you. Must be freezing up there!
VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA (CANADA)-- Could it be the crew from SOL MATE?
GERMANTOWN, MARYLAND (UNITED STATES)-- I know Chevy Chase, though...
SLIPPERY ROCK, PENNSYLVANIA (UNITED STATES)-- Home of the Slippery Rock State Teachers College, and Rolling Rock beer (I think).
IOWA CITY, IOWA (UNITED STATES)-- Good sailing there, eh?
RENTON, WASHINGTON (UNITED STATES)-- Home of Mr. Softy!
BRIDGEVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA (UNITED STATES)-- unh...
LEESBURG, FLORIDA (UNITED STATES)-- That rings a bell..

SEE? Now don't you feel at home?
I've done my part, the rest is up to you.

Captain Chlorophyll is Back

In my distant past, when we lived on an old chicken ranch in Northern California, I would don my grubbies and grab my weed eater and go out and whack weeds. After several hours of this I would return to the house, my body covered in tiny bits of green foliage, sort of like a Gilley Suit, or a survivor from a coleslaw accident.

I took one look in the mirror and said to myself, "I am Captain Chlorophyll, defender of well groomed lawns."


Whenever the yard needed whacking, I would warn the 1st Mate that Captain Chlorophyll would be making an appearance. Today, the desert needed it.

So, behold my work... It's been said that a redneck is a person who cuts his lawn and finds a car.

This is what the Captain finds...

Fortunately, the insects were off eating something else, (I haven't seen Miguel's German Shepard for days), so the work was just hot and sweaty and slightly less painful.

A new (permanent?) home for BLISS

I went out to the GREEN FLASH as promised and gave a pint of blood to the local insect population before scampering back to the house with a five gallon paint container filled with polyurethane foam to act as a temporary mooring buoy.

Then it was off to the bay in the dinghy to move the boat one last time. We've been on four different moorings in as many months, until we heard that Vincenzo, owner of the charter boat BRAVO was the guy to see about putting in a mooring. Two weeks and $500 later, we now have a home for BLISS.
Vincenzo (do they call him Vinnie?) will relocate the mooring if we want, so that's a good thing. He tells me the mooring consists of a block of concrete four by six feet, three feet high.

Next up, I'm going to see if I can find instruction online on how to build a proper mooring ball.

It's Alive!

After a week and a half of turning wrenches, reading manuals, spraying high temperature paint, cleaning parts, asking questions online, removing gunk from my hair and getting all the doorknobs in the house covered with dirty grease (yuk!), our 1986 Westy camper runs just fine.

This vehicle sat in our Errorzona RV storage lot next to out 27 foot motor home for about a year and a half. The mice moved in and left their calling cards everywhere. They didn't chew on the wires (that I know of) and when I discovered their presence, I left them a couple of box lunches (MousePruf). The bait was all gone when I returned 2 weeks later and the boxes themselves chewed up. So I left a couple more. I found their little mummified bodies curled up next to each other in a cabinet filled with shredded insulation (awwww...) when I cleaned out the van.

The 1st Mate and I jumped into the Westy and took off for Algodones Beach for a test drive. The van passed with flying colors (except maybe the temp gauge showed it warming up to 2/3 of the way, but it's 100 degrees today) and my joy has no bounds, 1st Mate grinned until her face hurt and I owe it all to my higher power and the guys and girls on the Vanagon and Westy discussion group (click on the title above to go there) on the internet... and to the 1st Mate who allowed me to turn our carport into a mechanic's workshop.

I had decided to clean and paint all the parts I could as I dismantled the motor, (like I had done with the diesel on BLISS, our Morgan 33 sailboat) and I'm glad I did. It makes things easier to see and work on when it's not all that same dirty grease covered with dust color. I'm pleased with the way it came out, but the proof will be in how long it runs before it breaks.

Now I have the "garage" to clean, and put away all the tools, and get out to the GREEN FLASH with my machete and a weed eater. The boat is living in a jungle after all the monsoon rains. You know, a sailor's work is never done. Thank God.

1st Mate for President

Tropical Storm Julio moves on

Looking north from the GF the remnants of TS Julio blanket the mountains.







The 10-15 inches of rain we got in the last two days pressure washed the hull interior so I don't have to now.









But it means I'll have to get out the machete and the weed eater.
... and I did mention that tarps just don't cut it sometime ago.







Here's the FLASH looking like the Ghost Ship.







back to the blog...
I spent the day picking up after TS Julio drove through the area, flooding roads and filling them with debris. I climbed up through La Jungla and pumped the water out and drilled holes in areas where water was trapped, so that it could drain to the bilge pump. The generator warmed up fine after awhile, and put more juice into my battery bank.

Ecoterrorism
I also started my war against the stinging ants around the area. They were building rather large mounds under the plywood scraps lying on the ground. I wanted to try using BIO-BLAST, a naturally occurring spore that attacks termites, ticks, and ants (I think ants, anyway) and turns them into more food for the spores. The small ants feel like mosquito bites, the larger ants feel like getting hit with a BB gun, or stabbed with a large sewing needle (like a #22). The nests are around and under my new workbench, so they have to go.

Sun Protection
I have some Sunbrella awning material I may sew up for tarp over the workbench, and some heavy shadecloth I found for a couple of bucks at The White Elephant in Green Valley, Errorzona.

What's next?
Well, I sent a check off to Michigan for the 15kw Westerbeke generator that will provide the electric half to the diesel-electric side of the equation, and I'm learning about variable frequency speed controllers for AC motors before I plop down the bucks for the drive motor. I got a bid on uShip.com to bring it to Nogales, AZ to where my friend (and landlord) has a warehouse. Then the process of getting it down here and installed and soundproofed...

Also...
I am searching the internet for diesel fuel tanks that may fit the boat (I'd like to have about 100 gallons or so onboard). And I'm still researching foam core material- I'd like to find somebody in AZ who has some in stock I can play with. In the last trip north, I managed to bring down the last of the electrical connector supply I purchased at an 80% discount from a Radio Shack that was going out of business (that was 4 years ago, before I ever thought about a boat project like this). I've learned to always trust my instincts.

Lazy-not!

Just because I've been staying away from the Flash until we get a weather break, I've been busy. We drove the pickup north to Amado, Errorzona, where we've been storing our 1986 VW Westphalia camper. The camper has a remanufactured engine with 500 miles on and a blown head.
So, we purchased a towbar at Harbor Freight, some magnetic trailer lights at Walmart, and dragged it down and put it under the carport at the front of the house, where I've been installing the replacement head.

And to make things a little more interesting, and to help in sorting out all the visual clutter in the the engine compartment, I've been cleaning and painting parts. It is. IMHO, the nicest looking non-functional motor in Mexico. The last of the parts (I hope) are here and perhaps I'll get this vehicle running again. I really love driving this car-
BTW- there's more pix to come on this car.