Last Day On The Hard- Kai

Hi everyone. Nothing too interesting happened today. So we woke up very early this morning, much earlier then i was ready for, and began our homeschooling, however i was not able to do much since the internet was not working, but I did my art and read a bit of Romeo and Juliet for english, which was torture. I highly recommend not reading it, since it's not very good. I also don't recommend watching the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, since it is equally as bad.
So after that work, my father demanded that we scrub the boat down in the sweltering heat. I also had to do a bit of work with my dad on the anchor chain.
Unfortunatly, no skateboarding was allowed that day, so nothing very fun happened, except for our farewell to the little puppy, Peanut. We were very sad to say bye, and i'm sure she felt the same way about us leaving. I believe I heard a soft cry of sadness come from her as we left.
So once all the work was done, the big machine came, picked us up, and put us in the water. It definitly feels a lot nicer to be floating in the water, instead of in the smelly yard. For dinner, we had some pasta, and then I was told to do the dishes. Tonight i'll be watching a movie on my computer but im not sure what yet. Bye.

A Week on the hard - Peter

We have been here a week. The  first few days were a blur while we adjusted to being back at the boat. There were a couple of other boaters in the yard that we knew when we arrived, but in the days since we have got to know just about everybody here. New people are arriving at their boats daily, and everone goes out for tacos at the roadside taco stand up the road in the evening. Everyone is getting ready to put their boats in the water and we are all heading the same in the same direction. Once we sail out we will probably bump into people we have met here in anchorages all the way down the Baja.

Kai and Liam are both doing well with their home schooling. They both got into the routine almost immediately. Their days are spent doing their school work, skate boarding, and making meals. They get their own breakfasts, their own lunches, and since we have been here they have taken turns making dinner. And every now and then they help with with boat jobs. Four days of work and we now have a working windlass once again. That was my job and it took all my time, as well as help from half a dozen other boaters over the last few days. Not sure what I would have done without the help of the community here.

Liam sanded the prop on his birthday, and Kai scraped the hull. Tonight Kai is making dinner, and tomorrow they will wash the boat down. At the end of the day the boat will get put in the water, and we will be a floating boat once again. Then everything changes again.

And for the record, the ungodly hour that Kai and Liam are forced to get up is asfter the morning cruisers’ net at 8:30. And the “big tip” I gave the taxi driver amounted to $1.50 Canadian…

Boring Blog - Liam

This blog is going to be rather short today, to tell you the truth not much


has happened besides boring work since the last one I posted. I guess Ill

start with Peanut, since the first day at the marina, my brother and I have

played with the marina dog who is said to be named Peanut. Shes a vicious

purebread Guaymas mut hound, that chases my brother and I back from the

washrooms and tears apart our garbage and grocery bags, shes also about a

foot tall and a foot long but thats not important. Aperently ever since she

was a smaller puppy then she is now the people living and working on their

boats have taken care of her. Besides this the last couple of days since we

have arrived have been pretty plain, I have been forced awake every morning

at an ungodly hour by my dad to get started on my homeschooling which takes

a couple of hours, but once Im done I get to look forwads to my cup of

instint noodle soup. After my brother and I are finished homeschooling, and

ofcourse our noodle soups, we leave the boat (AKA the work trap) to go

skateboard at the boat repair shack, because of its smooth cement surface.

Tomorrow will be the same as today, except I may have a couple dozen new

mosquito bites, so thats basicly it for now.



Good bye, Liam.

The Taxi Ride From Jesus- Kai

Today was another day of work on the boat, but we didn't spend the whole day working. We woke up after a long and cold, cold night, and quickly ate up our breakfasts. By brother and I began our home schooling, while my dad worked away at the engine and the battery. At certain points my brother and I helped out around the boat, like taking out the garbage, helping make sure the engine was still working and even helping with the pee bucket. While we were running the engine, some old man made a joke by saying that the boat would go faster if it was actually in the water. It was a very amusing joke.
After we were done all our work, we decided to eat lunch. I had a tasty noodle soup, while my brother ate three hot dogs, and my dad ate a plain old sandwich. I decided to do some art before we headed into town, since I was unable to skateboard after bruising my tail bone from falling a few days earlier.
So we caught the bus into town and walked around a bit, getting lots of attention from the locals, i'm sure, with Liam's blonde hair, my shorts, and all of our sandals. We found a nice little restaurant to eat some tacos and bean juice, (Yes, bean juice. It was actually pretty good.) and then headed to the groceries to buy a bit more food.
We decided to take a taxi back, instead of the bus, since we had groceries, and weren't one hundred percent sure were to catch it. So we loaded up the groceries and began our way back. Right away, the driver began to talk to the three of us in the little english he spoke. He said that his name was Jesus, which is pretty common in Mexico. His english was actually pretty good, since there are almost zero gringos in Guaymas. However, he did make a few mistakes, such as telling us that his son was forty seven, when he was only about forty, but besides that, it was pretty good. Once we arrived at the boat, my dad decided to give him a large tip, since he'd been so kind.
That night I continued my art, and know it's movie time. My brothers watching Monsters Inc. and I will be watching A Clockwork Orange.
Bye

A Tale of Two Dogs - Peter

We arrived at the US / Mexican border at about 4 PM. The bus pulled up to fenced off buildings and stopped. The US border guards, dressed in bullet proof vests,  tasers and guns at their hips came aboard and spoke in Spanish. The only thing I understood was ‘compendia’?, which of course I did not. Then they brought the dog aboard. Wagging its tail it sniffed the two young women seated behind us. They and their luggage were swiftly taken off the bus and did not come back. After half an hour or so the bus was allowed to move ahead into Mexico. The bus stopped. A guy in an old uniform of some kind came aboard and spoke in Spanish, then started moving up the ail. People were handing him change. When he got to our seat I said ‘no intienda’, to which he responded ‘tip’. I gave him ten pesos and he continued on. He got off and the bus rolled on. That is odd, I thought, when are they going to take us off, ask for our passports, look through our luggage, etc. I asked if anyone new if we were going to stop. The only person on the bus that spoke English was a woman at the back and she said ‘yes, soon’. OK I thought. I don’t want to be in Mexico without the proper papers. But we were. The bus never did stop at the border, except for the one lone border guard who came aboard asking for a tip. Fortunately half an hour later the bus stopped at a check point and I was able to convince someone that we wanted documents. The bus was held up for almost an hour while they reluctantly did the immigration paperwork for us.

We arrived into Guaymas near 11PM, and after almost 48 hours of travel we awoke the next morning on the boat.  We were greeted by a happy, little puppy sitting at the bottom of the ladder and chewing on bone. Well fed and a flee collar around his neck I assumed he was from one of the boats in the yard. It was as though he new there were kids on our boat and had been waiting for them to get up.  We did the survey of the yard, met some of the other people working on their boats, the whole while the kids played with their new companion.

We learned that his name is Peanut, and that he is one of the stray dogs that lives in the yard. Someone had put a flea collar on him and everyone new him. He was the yard puppy. Over the course of the day we saw other creatures lurking about. One such fellow was brave enough to venture close to our boat. No one in the yard knows this guy. No treats are thrown to him, and I doubt that anyone has named him. The kids and I have decided we’ll call him Riley (as in dark rye bread), and have taken to feeding him over Peanut, who clearly is not in need.

There is an analogy here somewhere between no one caring if you are crossing the border into Mexico, and no one caring if you are an ugly dog, but I have to go unplug a toilet so I’ll leave you to ponder it.

Leaving Canada-Liam

After about three years of waiting for this moment to go back to the boat, it finally happened, but at five in the morning. We walked out to the taxi as the ice froze my face, and then once we arrived at the bus depo, we waited for around an hour. The bus ride was only around three hours, and the lake was covered in steam and fog, which gave off a very unique look. 

 

We had heard about the snow storm currently hitting Boston, which was a threat to us, because our connection flight to Phoenix Arizona was Boston. But when we got to the Buffalo airport, they told us that instead of our flight being delayed or canceled, it was actually advanced by around three hours, but still had to wait those three extra hours in Boston. The flight was less then an hour, and the flight to Phoenix was five and a half hours, so it was around eleven once we arrived at our hotel in Phoenix, feeling like one due to time change.

 

The next afternoon at twelve thirty we got on the Tufesa bus, and left on a ten hour ride to Guaymas where our boat is currently kept on the hard. But along the way, when we stopped at the border, or should I say when we didn't stop at the border things began to go wrong. The security came on and told us something in Spanish that we had no clue what he was saying, so we didn't do anything. After that the bus pulled away, without having to get off or fill out our immigration documents. This began to worry us, because if these documents weren't filled out, we would illegally be in Mexico. My dad asked a lady that spoke little English where we would get these documents done, she thought we were asking where to get food, so she just casually answered next stop. Once we got to the next stop my dad found out that if we were to not get these documents done we could be fined, or kicked out of the country. But luckily at the next stop we were able to get the documents filled out, but held up the bus for around half an hour. We arrived at the boat late at night, and since the next morning, we have just been fixing up the boat and getting  it ready.

 

So now I have to go clean my bunk, its already filthy believe it or not, and then I'm going to watch a movie, Liam.

The Arrival - Kai

Hello, everyone. As you may or may or not know, the three brave men have decided to continue on our trip through Mexico, aboard the beutiful Outrider.
Our trip began at five AM, on January third. We caught a taxi and drove to the bus station, while my dad had a nice chat with the driver. Once aboard the bus, we drove to Buffalo, which took about three hours. Very nice views of the lake were seen during that drive.
Once in Buffalo, we got our heavy bags and entered the airport. We didn't have to wait very long to board the plane, so that was very nice. The plane was pretty small, since we were only going to Boston, so my brother and I were very surprised to see TV's on the back of the seats. We dicided to watch the Naked Gun 3. It was very entartaining. Once we arrived in Boston, we had to wait about 4 hours for our flight to Pheonix, which I spent attempting to figure out how to download the correct software to allow me to watch my DVD's. Once on the plane, we watched Modern Family and South Park for the duration of the flight. At one point, we even noticed Toronto out the window, which meant we'd just gone in a big circle. We eventually landed, and then caught an airport bus to our cozy hotel. I happily went to sleep right away.
The next morning, we ate some free food at the hotel buffet, which kind of sucked, and then succefully got the right the software for my movies. Before we left, some guy came and gave my dad a nice, fiberglass guitar, which is now the boat guitar. I guess my dad didnt like the mariachi guitar we bought on a previous trip. After all that, we got a taxi to the Tufesa bus terminal. My dad had another nice chat with the driver. Before we got on the bus, we bought our first real Tacos of the trip, even though we were still in Pheonix.
The bus we got on would take us to Guaymas, where our boat was, however it would take ten hours to get there, but that wasn't a problem, since I was now able to watch my movies. I decided to watch the classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, as it's my second favourite movie. I don't know what Liam watched. Probably something bad. Half way through my movie, my batteries died. I spent the rest of the ride listening to my Ipod and watching the movies dubbed in spanich, being shown to the passengers. The trip wasn't so bad, except for a little confusion at the boarder with our passports, but that problem was quickly figured out. Once in Guaymas, we caught a taxi to our boat, but my dad was no longer able to have a chat with the driver, since the driver spoke nearly no english. Once on the boat, we all went to sleep. I had a very pleasant sleep. The next moring, we caught the bus into town, ate lunch, bought some groceries, and then came back. we spent the remainder of the day cleaning up, getting things organised, and then finding some concrete to skateboard on. For dinner we had some delishes bean tacos, and then I began to ride this blog.
Thanks for reading. Bye.