A super fast trimaran stopped by...

 This is Mighty Merloe.  I saw it coming into the marina and I skiffed over to say hi and they invited me aboard.
It is a beautiful boat, 60 ft by 60 ft, a true square trimaran.

Travels to Ticla

 Ticla is pronounced TEA-CLAW.  Imagine a capitol letter T, then imagine that a river is flowing down the upright portion, and a large crashing wave is clawing down the outer corners of the top of the T.  It is a wonderful place to find yourself.  My friend Wes (pictured with the yellow board) and I drove down for a short trip of four days to visit this place and surf it up during the last swell.  We got up early and took off away from Puerto Vallarta, up into the mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental.  This is the mountain range that protects Puerto Vallarta from the hurricanes from the south, and as we climbed up the windy road, we found forests of pine trees growing near the top.  A very different view than the sweaty jungles down near the water.  I took the GPS out and got a height of 2900 ft at one point.  Then we descended back down to the water, working our way near places that I had been before when I sailed down in 2011.  As we got near Chemela we found the evidence of Hurricane Patricia, the strongest of storms EVER, and lots of broken brances and torn roofs, even 6 months later.  We kept on driving, until we got past Manzanillo, which is the furthest south I had been before on the coast, and then got to a place where the mountains come to the sea, just like in Big Sur or in Chuckanut drive.  It was really beautiful, with some views down to the water and not much traffic.  Shortly after that we arrived at a river and followed it down to the town of Ticla.  It is mostly white people, tourists who come to surf, living in Cabanas and camping out.
The river is full of birds and fish and an Otter, I wasn't sure the species and didn't get a picture.  I saw a new duck for me, the Blue winged Teal.  I think I want to go back.  The wave is a better wave than pretty much any wave in Bandaras bay, and I felt way safer, despite the large size, because the bottom is all cobbles and no urchins.  In Bandaras Bay (puerto Vallarta) the bay doesn't get big waves all the time, so things grow on the rocks and those things hurt the feet.  Surfing in larger waves is really good for building confidence, because there is so much power available to make speed with, and also because the water is deeper.  I hurt my rib everytime I went out, but it heals very quickly, or I can recover at least.  I intend to rest for the next week, now.  

A Crested Caracara...

 Some Black Legged Stilts...

 Surf-side view from the river...

 The Blue-Winged Teal...

 And a new bird, not sure the species, a Chachara or something....

 And a few shots of me surfing...

 And from the kite in the morning offshore breeze

Surf Observer

 I've been trying to be a surf observer.  To watch and document, but not participate.  It is very hard.  Sometimes I feel like this iguana, all old and broken down with a bunch of spikes all over my head, and a saggy neck and scales.  And the inability to surf.  (see note on last post about ribs)
Here are some of my photos...

The first break is the deepest

I've broken a bone.  The first one for me, and this one hurts real bad.  Probably all of them hurt bad.  I broke my number 9 rib, which if you count on a friend from the top down, you'll get to it.  It is a few up from the floating ribs and I'm not quite sure the size, but I think I've eaten enough pig ribs to get a feel for the dimensions.  But probably smaller than a pigs.  Sounds tasty, right?  So here I am in Big Sky Ski Resort, in Montana, and we've been skiing for a few days, and we decided to go up to the top of the highest peak.  It was a long ride up with the Gondola, and when we arrived at the top we could see it was quite steep all around.  The south slope is the most gentle, but still a black diamond run.  I've done several black diamond runs and wasn't worried about the steepness, but as we began our descent, I noticed a lot of rocks.  It wasn't that the snow was deep and a few rocks stuck up, it was the snow was really thin, and rocks were underneath and everywhere.  The snowboard crunched and scraped from the rocks every few feet and I went over to a patch of untouched powder to get into deeper snow.  It wasn't deeper, in fact.  It was just the same, but not packed down, so I would sink into it and then hit the rocks.  I tried to go slowly and then turn and go slow again, but on one of the turns, I sped up a little (you have to speed up in the turns, because you point the board downhill for that short time) and then I fell.  I've fallen many times, and usually I slide a little bit, but this time, hidden in the powder, a rock was lurking.  It felt like a pillar kind of rock and I hit it with my side.  It hurt a lot, but when you feel the muscles tensing up and the pain diminish you know that it is worse than you think.  I tumbled a little, then came to a stop and lay back in the snow.  When i moved, I could feel a crunch.  Not a good kind of crunch, like the crunch of a bag of unexpected chips that you forgot you had in your pocket and discovered when you were hungry.  Not that kind of crunch at all.  So I figured I broke a rib, or two.  Lindsay was far down the hill, signaling for me to come on down and asking if I was all right and I eventually called her and said no.  She called the Ski Patrol, who arrived on scene and did all the Wilderness First Responder checks (things that I learned how to do last year) and put me in a sled and slid me down the hill.  That part was not fun.  It was a bumpy ride.  They also put me on oxygen, since I had trouble breathing and it was something like 11,000 ft.  Kind fellows.  Then they got me to the ambulance and to the hospital where they did an ultrasound to check for bleeding (and my spleen) and then an X ray to look at the bones.  I can't show you the actual X ray for me, because they didn't give it to me, but here is one I found online.  You can see the rib has a slight jump to it, and that is what you see with mine.  Not much else.
I'll be taking it easy for a while until it heals, hopefully in 4-6 weeks.

January

 Its been a nice january so far.  El Nino conditions supposedly mean that there will be lots of swell coming to Mexico, but up until this month those promises were not coming through.  But January, that wonderful month of gift giving, seems to be providing with waves.  As a result, and in no way an apology to a certian Seattlite complainer, I have been delayed in my blogging.  Too much good waves and no time to write.
So, what have the Altairians been up to this month?  You might not ever have asked that question to yourself, but in my conceit I will show and tell you all about it.  First of all, the weather has finally begun to be more like the "normal" winter conditions, with a thermal wind every day and great sailing conditions.  The water is getting cooler now, so I am ususally cold when I am in the water, unless I am swimming hard (and surfing hard) the whole time.  Sitting around gets chilly.  A wetsuit is too warm though.  We've made some friends with other boats, and one such invited us to go for a walk from Sayulita (a touristy town to the north) to another town further up the coast.  We had a nice time walking on the beach,

 On the way we found a ton of little beautiful jellyfish-like thing, the Portugese Man of War .  They look so cute we thought we should give one a little kiss...  No we didn't.  They are really painful and toxic stingy, so we watched out where we walked.  I made a little video of one that is moving its sail around.  I guess the helmsman realized he was aground and tried to turn the boat, but needed to change sail during the process...


After a bit further walking we came upon the river that flows down through San Pancho, and explored the life around it.  There was a Green Kingfisher perched in the trees, watching for fishes...

 And some firework flowers, or whatever they are.  Also, but not pictured, there was a small flock of Whistling Ducks.  Not the Fulvus Whistling Ducks, but the Black Winged kind.  Still, I am closer than ever to finding my first Fulvus Whistling Duck.  I eagerly await the day.  I didn't get a good picture so that is why you don't get to see them.

 After the hike, a few days later, I was challenged to a sailing race!  The beautiful Shamaness and I took off on a 4 hour sailing race around some islands and back to the anchorage where we started.  I like that they are willing to do impromptu racing like this.  Shamaness is a much heavier boat, but also longer, than Altair, and consequently, in light air I would have the advantage, but in lots of wind she can go faster.  There was plenty of wind on this day, so I was nervous.  Also, there was a good amount of waves, and a heavier boat can take the waves better than poor little Altair.
Initially, I had a spinnaker up and we were running nearly the same speed, with Shamaness ahead by 100 yards.  The wind shifted and I had to change sails (which took me a few minutes by my self) so I fell further behind.  Then at the corner around the island I put the spinnaker up again and gained to near even, and then in changing sails for the upwind run lost about 400 yards.  For the long upwind leg I chose to go a bit lower to the wind and it paid off, and I won the race by 30 seconds.  It was marvelous.
And last night I had a campfire on the beach, to watch the sun go down and roast a little bit of sausage.  There is a lot to do down here that is nice and peaceful, including surfing.

Dreaming

I've been dreaming about a different boat.  Altair and I have gone many miles that she hasn't always wanted to go, and I have been frustrated by a number of things in my boat.  I've come up with a list (and checking it twice) of things I'd like to have in a dream boat.  Would you like to hear?

1) Space for toys.  Altair is small, and so there isn't much space for anything, but I have found that in pretty much every boat I've seen cruising around, the original designers put a bunch of space in for people, but not for toys.  Altair was designed to sleep 5 people!  I think there needs to be a reality check there.  In this picture you can see the different berths for people to sleep in, and I have changed the boat around a huge amount in order to make it more usable for cruising. I made the double berth in the front into a storage spot, the Setee berth on the port side (upper in the drawing) is all part of the galley, and the starboard settee is now a bigger berth for two.  In addition, I have a kayak hanging off the port side of the outside of the boat, and three surfboards hang off of the railing on the starboard side.  Then we have a dinghy that goes on the front deck.  So toys basically have taken over the whole boat from the outside view.  Ericson didn't include a place to put things (like a dinghy) in the original design.  OK, so I want more space for toys.

2) An Engine Room.  Altair has the engine crammed under the stairs and if there is a problem, the oil drains down into the bilge to smell up the whole boat, any exhaust leaks go into the cabin to asphyxiate any humans there, and it is really noisy.  I can imagine an engine room that has its own bilge, lots of noise reducing insulation and a separate air ducting that keeps any smell or carbon monoxide away from the living space.  A CO2 fire system could also be installed and if you set it off, it would flood the engine room with CO2 and put out a fire, but not make the entire boat un-livable.  So I want an Engine Room.

3) Easy to put things away and go sailing.  I like sailing, so I want to be able to do that, and quickly.  Right now on Altair I have to put the dinghy away (or leave it behind) and that is a pain in the butt.  Also, the surfboards on the side are not the most seaworthy, and it would be nice to have them safe from getting hit by big waves.  The solution is really the first goal: Space for toys, but easy to get in and out from.

4) A diesel Electric system.  I want to have an electric drive motor to push the boat because it is easy to maintain...  There isn't much to break on an electric motor.  The diesel generator can then be put in an engine room and into a box to keep it quiet, and out of the way.

Ok, so I have these goals, and I have been thinking about a design that would accommodate them.  First of all, a super wide transom has the benefit of having lots of room in the back to put a dinghy garage (a little compartment in the back that you can stuff all your goodies into)  Here is an example of a wide transom: (from http://www.bernard-gallay.com/Images/bateaux/Sailing_Yacht_Open_60_DCNS_003.jpg) 
Also to note is that there are two rudders on this boat (an open 60 race boat) and so there is lots of room in between the two rudders for stowing stuff.  They aren't using that room at all on this open 60, but just keeping it open for walking around.  I would make the cockpit nice and high, and have a cave under the cockpit that would be completely watertight and have a nice big wave-proof door on the back and lots of fun watertoys inside.

Forward of the cockpit I would put the living space, in the shape of a rectangle, with a wall (bulkhead) that completely seals off the space in front and behind the living space.  So there would be three sections to the boat; the Aft compartment which includes the garage, the living space in the middle, and the forward section which would include the engine room, the head, a storage room, and then the chain locker (as you go forward).  The Engine room would be right over the keel, centrally located and well insulated from the living space, and also it would have one of those waterproof doors to go to and from the living space.  The head (bathroom) would be next to the engine room, and have a shower and also a waterproof door, so you could take a shower and not worry about steaming up the boat or filling the bilge in the main cabin.  I would hope the bilge in the main cabin would stay completely dry.

I'm working on this design and thus far I have a plan for building it out of aluminum, so it would be all chunky and lots of flat surfaces, but I can also imagine it being made of fiberglass.  Unfortunately, I don't want to build it myself, nor do I have the funds to do so.  I'd rather find a hull that is acceptable for my goals and modify it to work, but I don't know if that is possible, since this wide transom design with two rudders is a more modern idea.
Here's a screen shot of the basic shape, but there are no rudders, no keel, no deck, no cockpit deck, and not back garage door.  It wouldn't have a giant open cavity on the back, but that is just for showing how big I'd like the garage to be.

Fire twirling in Virginia

 I'm not in Mexico right now.  In fact, I'm not really that close to the ocean at all...   We flew up to Lindsay's hometown, in Richmond, Virginia, for Christmas.  It is packed full of food and family and last night.... Fire!  I got a few pictures and figured I could share them.

Yelapa and birds

 I've been told by an old Alaskan veteran naturalist that "to become a birder is inevitable."  If you spend enough time outside you will start to love the birds and get a pair of binoculars slung around your neck.  Any avid reader of this blog will know this happened for me years ago, but I went to Yelapa yesterday and sought out some of the birds that wade and flutter around the river over there.  The river was full of water and fishes.  And birds.  Here are a few photos.
Before going to Yelapa we sailed (and motored) out from Punta Mita, across bandaras Bay, to near Cabo Corrientes.  The water out there is super clear and we saw tons of fishes, with about 80 ft of visibility.  We also swam with dolphins on the way across, just jumped off the boat and swam for a while with them.  They were a new kind of dolphin for me, a "ragged toothed dolphin"
Now there is a hurricane coming and I am hanging out near La Cruz to be close to the marina in case we need it.
The birds:  Black Necked Stilt.  Then Magpie Jay, then Yellow Grosbeak.