5C's Que Pasa

Some things are changing…..

____________________________________________________________________________________

Per Murray Page and The Mazatlan Messenger on April 19. 2011

Going to Stone Island? Put on your Life Vest

Requiring passengers taking the pangas to Stone Island to wear life vests has been a hit or miss situation for a long time. That may be changing. The Harbor Master will be imposing fines of from 2 pesos to 8,000 pesos for failure to have passengers not wearing the required life vest. Some of the boatmen have said they daily request their passengers to wear the vest, but many refuse and they shouldn’t be penalized for that.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

I am glad that they are making a decision on the the vests.  Some days we were asked to wear them, other days not, but any time we were in a panga and asked to put it on everyone did.  Some days even when not asked, locals did put on their vests.

What really bothered me was when the boat had already pulled away from the dock and the boatman asked us all to put on our life vests……so picture this we are now moving towards Mazatlan and suddenly half the boat stands up to get the vests off the upper racks….so the boat starts to sway as people are moving about and struggling into the vests, the boat is increasing speed….really safe, eh!!

We aren't exactly just putting along.

Often you will see the bike owner "standing" at the prow holding his bike.

Hmmm....not sure if wearing a vest will restrict my hand expressions!

Check out the Spanish word of the day…….I love it!!  Describes me perfectly on somedays!  The word is a keeper!

The morning started out with low clouds and showers.  A bad omen, perhaps.  Yesterday was the annual Valley Wide Trade Show/Business After Hours being held here in Lake Country at the Gatzke Orchards.  By the way as well as having fresh fruit, produce, there is a cafe, cabins for rent in the orchard and now RV sites in the orchard.  I just live down the road and didn’t know all that!!  People were coming from Kamloops to Penticton and as it was being held in our own backyard so we did a display.  By 4:00PM the weather picked up as did the wind but it all turned out fortunately.

This is a great place to visit while here in the Okanagan!

A wonderful place to host such an event, right in the orchard with the lake in behind!

Many wineries were there trying to promote their product.

We had many stop by our booth and check out the photos and brochures. The interest was not in commercial photography but more in Colin's wedding photos. I worked the booth while Colin took photos of the event.

Cute shoes but how did she manage to walk?? Look at the heels on the pink ones!

The theme was "Fresh from the Farm" and this lady brought her rabbit along. Talk about multi tasking, filling in a form, talking on her cell and controlling her pet!!

Ziplines!! Opening June 1 here in the Lake Country area. A family affair!

Oyama Zipline Forest Adventure promises to add a great deal of fun for all of our summer visitors.  With 6 ziplines, 3 towers, rope bridges and more, I wonder if I dare try?

We were home shortly after 8PM, tired and very hungry.  Who should be there to greet us at the door……………

...the girls, but oh no!!! Look at Caeli's face, she must have been bitten by something, either when we had her out just before we left, perhaps a bee/wasp or a spider in the house. Thank goodness I have Claritin on hand and after 1 1/2 pills the swelling started to go down. I just could not have handled an emergency vet visit!

I think that answers the question of what happened yesterday. Hope you enjoyed the read!

One of our friends has a leaky washer problem in his RV.  We have a leaky lawn!

Every fall we have our irrigation system blown out but every spring it is a gamble re the reconnection process.

The PVC pipes get cold, old and brittle.  This spring ( what spring) has shown to be a banner year of problems.

The beach site for some reason has no pressure so we have had some water rerouted which means we now have

to manually water a certain section of plants. By the way that ‘we’ reads as ‘Colin’.  We just are not in a position

to tear up the entire lawn and re do the irrigation system.

Here on the house site we have seen our landscape guys day after day after day, hour after hour after hour and many many

attempts at creative repairs.  Even Colin got involved a few times.

This first break once repaired, proved to be broken way under the pavement.

Should we take the chance or do it the hard way, ??mucho mas pesos???

Let's try here....

Just cut it...

..this just might work!!!

We fixed it!

…Now I wait for the bill!  Since the irrigation has been repaired we have had one day of 21C temps and more rain.  I remember two years ago, it was 38C in May!!

I want to go on record here…..I MISS Mexico.

We have all been griping about the weather, well I am adding a new element.  The cost of food!!

Remember these tomatoes that were being sold door to door on the Isla….

So today I went to the store and I paid 50cents for one small tasteless tomatoe!

Note the difference in weight but they were both the same price. .50 cents!!

I’m going to plant tomatoes in my flower beds this summer….that is if summer ever comes.  Yes we are back to clouds, showers, rain and winds at 30km/h gusting to 50!!  Enough already!!

This very small and likely tasteless avocado cost me $1.00 today.

……and I refuse just simply refuse to discuss the cost of fuel!!!!  Enough said.

I have finally done some compiling of various figures to come up with the facts of our trip to Mazatlan last fall.  We left October 23, 2010 and travelled directly south from Kelowna through Ely, Nevada, to Nogales and finally to Isla de la Piedra, a distance of 2558 miles!  We arrived back home via San Carlos, Sonata (Lukeville), Lake Havasu, I5 to Vancouver and finally Kelowna via the Fraser Canyon ( because of snow) arriving April 8th, 2011 with a driven distance of 3108 miles.

Total miles travelled 5666.

Fuel consumed:  755 gallons or 2857 litres

Cost of fuel: very roughly $2797.00   I used the CAD and USD at par and added the pesos in at 10 to 1 so not an exact amount but close enough for us.

RV repairs along the way:  $495.00

Propane:  $67.83  We left with a full tank and returned with a full tank.

We were gone 167 nights and of course the biggest expense was camping fees.  We spent 20 nights on the road coming and going and most of those we boondocked.  However in order to get an insurance refund on the 2 vehicles we need proof of the last night in the USA heading south and the first night in Mexico and vice versa for the trip north so in all we spent $150.00 while in the road.

On the Isla we stayed at Tres Amigos RV Park in a spectacular ocean front site.

This is what we left behind (photo by Hugh O)........

...in order to have this as our view!!!!

We think we have found paradise.  Tres Amigos has various pricing, from ocean front to fourth row and from monthy, weekly and daily rates.

Our costs for 5 months ocean front:  $600.00/month USD =  $3000.00

Electricity is additional, you pay for what you use, so we paid:  $409.28

Internet is per month and for 5 months we paid: $75.00

A grand total of $3484.28USD…………divided by the 147 nights we stayed there = $23.70USD all included!

Now some might think that is a great deal of money but we think it is a bargain!!  Prime ocean front property with electric and internet for less than $24.00 per day!!!

Last year we had a third row spot which all included cost us $14.22 per day.  So for only $7.54 more per day we couldn’t have been happier.  As it turned out, we had made a great decision and can hardly wait to head south again.

We did spend money on other things like laundry, $1830 pesos ( less than 183.00USD) for 5 months.  What a treat to not have to do laundry all winter.  Such a deal.

We chose to do a great deal of site improvements such as stairs to the rv, stairs to the beach, soil, pots and plants:  $4570 pesos, all of which will be used again next season.

The biggest expense was eating out which we normally don’t so so much but my new attitude is that you only live once:  $8000 pesos….yikes!!!!!

An unexpected expense which I had not planned for were the pulmonias, once we took the lancha from the Isla to Mazatlan we needed transportation:  $2240 pesos!

Those are the facts and nothing but the facts!!

Where else would you get margaritas delivered with your pizza?