March 19, 2005 - Van, TX (Mexico)
Yeah, we enjoyed the cantina a lot. Inexpensive good food, and very inexpensive drinks. Arlene & Bill O'neal on the left, and Jerry & Susan Lilja on the right. And then in addition to them in a lousy picture are Thea & Henk Meinster and Bill Nelson, Barb & me, and Carol Nelson.
Ah, yes. The biomedical engineer, lumber salesman, and computer support guy all working hard. And talking about working hard. We were "fixing" Henk & Thea's bent steps.
And the rewards were worth all the labor, even if we did make a mess in the process. Thea makes a wonderful mocha/latte-like drink.
And since we were so successful at fixing the steps (they work better than new, of course) we attacked my voltage booster. It was constantly tripping us off line, and the voltage was a good solid 125 to 133. Well, as it turns out, that was something we shouldn't have messed with. Henk and I had bought them a few weeks earlier at Quartzsite. I'd been using an old Hughes auto-former that was a combination thing they made for a very short time. It had 50-amp plugs, but was only working on 30 amps. I'd heard about Frank's Electronics unit and liked what I'd heard. Henk bought the 30-amp version because he has a 30-amp rig, and I bought the 50-amp version. And Henk's was working just fine. So, we compared the two of them, and made some changes with the adjustable diodes in mine. And it performed even worse. So, once we got here to Van, I called Frank (of Frank's Electronics) and he gave me fits for messing with it. I sent it back to him and he replaced one of the boards he claimed went bad because I messed with the adjustments (from Barb, he's not mentioning what his "messing around" with this thing cost us I notice!!!). We'll see if it works when I get it back, and I'll mention it here, and if I'm happy with it I'll post his numbers for you.
And the girls are off on a shell hunting expedition.
We found a whole lot of things that were started but never finished, or that had been finished but were no longer in operation. How'd you like to park along side these little shelters, right on the beach, and enjoy the sand, sun, and surf? Well, you couldn't. It's closed. And what a shame, too. And it took some work to get that plane in there too, I'll bet.
What kind of bird feeder is that, anyway (fourth picture, lower left)? With a ramp? Or is it a bird feeder at all? Who knows. The stained glass windows in this little church sure were nice.
And here's the four of us fishermen getting ready to take our chances. Remember Daniel who wouldn't come off his $35 each price? Well, I offered him $25 each since we now had 4 of us, and he agreed to $30.
The tide is out. Waaaaaay out. So they tied the boat to the truck, we jumped (or in our case, crawled) into the back of the truck, and off we went. The panga just slid along the sand like it knew what it was doing, heading to the water.
And then the truck stopped short of the water, they untied it from the truck, the truck went and backed up to the side of the boat and we stepped from the truck to the boat without getting our feet wet or sandy. Then the truck backed up to the back of the boat, and pushed us into the water. Simple, efficient, and rather elegant. The pipe rack in the back of the truck is to keep the bow high so it'll ride the sand without problem.
These are the only pictures you'll see of the fishing trip. Once we'd had our 20 minute or so ride to the fishing grounds, we were busy. The trip was a kick, even if we hadn't caught any fish it would have been worth the money. The guide put the bait on and took the fish off, and shooed the pelicans away when we were bringing fish in. And did we ever bring them in! Calico bass, rather small, but a good eating white fish. And the pelicans would occasionally get one we'd already caught, and then it was a tussle getting the fish back. Most the time the pelican would give up, open his mouth back up and the fish would pop out. But occasionally he'd get caught and the guide would have to hang on to the upper bill to unhook the bird while getting pummeled by the birds wings. All in all, a great time. I speak enough Spanish to get something to eat and make it to the bathroom, and the guide spoke about as much English. But we did enjoy getting the names of birds, fish, etc.
That milk carton was nearly full of fish, and while the filleting wasn't the best in the world, it sure beat doing it ourselves. We gave the guide the $5 we'd saved from Daniel, who is there unloading the boat. Apparently Daniel owns several of these boats and hires the guides. He just makes the arrangements and pushes the boats into the water. You can see that now the tide is in, and we just came roaring in to the beach, with the guide pulling the engine up at the last minute. Again, we stepped out of the boat and didn't get our feet wet.
What we have here in this last series of shots is the San Felipe garbage disposal system. These moochers, all varieties of them, would flock around and fight over the carcass of the fish as they were being cleaned. Noisy as all get out, but sure was efficient. Notice the missing props on the engines? Well, the first thing Daniel did when the boat stopped, was go around and remove all the props. I guess it keeps people from "borrowing" his boats when he's not there.
And, of course, since we all knew each other from Christ's Church in Federal Way, WA, we had to get this shot to send to the pastor there. Carol Nelson did the enhancement on the shot, and someday I'll learn how to do that kind of clever stuff too. And I just realized I'd been spelling Bill and Arlene's last name wrong. Dang! Sorry 'bout that.