Busy Bees
What has Due West and crew been up to this Spring? Never a dull moment aboard Due West that’s for sure. For starters (no pun intended), we had hoped to get out cruising for a couple of months. But best laid plans…the universe apparently had other plans for us this spring…
Santa delivered the heavy batteries inside the boat; batteries ready to be installed; and “Michael P” engine with the new white Balmar alternator (bottom right of engine)
New Alternator, Batteries, and Starter, Oh My!
Santa brought Due West five brand-new LTH deep-cycle batteries for Christmas. And our new Balmar alternator (which had to take several trips to our machine shop to be custom fitted), along with some new adjusting brackets to fit it to our Perkins M50, was finally ready to be installed.
Our batteries are accessed from the galley (kitchen), and the engine is in the middle of the salon (living room). So, doing projects like this is quite disruptive to our daily lives. Think “house renovation” for a few days when you are already living in 350 ft.² of space! As you can imagine, it’s much easier to do big projects like this when we’re off the boat for our summer housesitting gig, or at least one of us is away.
And in this case, that one would be Heidi being away, since Kirk is the boat mechanic, electrician, plumber, carpenter, painter, (and chief cook and bottle washer too)! What the heck does Heidi do around here anyway?! (Besides working with her clients, she’s the COO and Tetris Queen of Due West, daily household admin, appointments, bills, taxes, IT, and computer/phone tech support, plus family nutritionist.)
When she’s not working, Heidi loves grounding (Earthing) at the beach or on the grass. When lying under coconut palms, beware of falling coconuts—FACT: they kill more tourists globally than shark bites!
Kirk tackled the battery and alternator installation project while Heidi got off the boat to visit family. We were so excited to get our trusty “Michael P” engine running and charging again, and get out sailing…with new batteries and an alternator installed. MP started up once, ran great, then the starter groaned, but wouldn’t start again. Ugh! Our 40+ year old starter had given up the ghost. With a B.O.A.T., it’s always something (break out another thousand)…LOL.
Unfortunately, Mexico does not have a StartMart! So we need to have the starter motor rebuilt… We got the names of a couple of Mexicans who rebuild starters, but so far they’ve all been too busy during peak tourist season to get back to us (because they also work on all the tour and fishing boats). Tourist season is now winding down, and we hope to get the starter repaired soon.
In the mean time since we haven’t been sailing, here’s how we’ve been filling our spring— in addition to the daily tasks of normal life like grocery shopping, laundry, doctors appointments, etc (because contrary to popular belief—we do not live on permanent vacation—this is our lifestyle in a tropical location.)
Tikka did NOT want her Mama to leave, but Heidi had a great time visiting her own Mama Jean… along with her sister Kari. The girls went through old family photo albums and found some great gems, like this “ice cream secrets!”
A Family Visit to Arizona
Heidi took a trip to Arizona with her sister Kari to visit their parents, Jean & Pete. They’re both doing very well in their late 80s. Heidi and Kari worked on several jigsaw puzzles with Jean and helped with their continuing downsizing of “stuff”, going to family members or to Goodwill. (Getting them ready for their recent move with more assistance.)
Busy Bees
Although we do keep busy, we were not the busy bees in this case. We’ve been buying local organic honey and propolis from MJ since we first arrived in Banderas Bay eight years ago. So it was a wonderful experience to take a tour of her organic bee farm, along with our friend Sam. MJ’s hives are on a granja (“gran-ha” or farm) about 30 minutes outside of PV. Luckily, we were able to take an Uber there, since neither Sam nor we have a car. MJ works with local farmers and puts her hives along the hedgerows and forested areas of their property. She has several different varieties of native Mexican bees and honey… and we learned a lot about beekeeping, bee habitats, and honey collecting.
The farm also had lots of other animals, including horses, dogs, and geese. MJ is currently off to the University of Costa Rica, where she’s getting a master’s in Apiculture (beekeeping)…who knew you could get a masters in that?! Her partner, Gabriella, is taking care of the bees and honey while MJ is away. If you’ve ever been gifted a jar of honey from us when we’ve come to visit… or purchased honey at one of the local markets when you visited us, that was from MJ and her bees!
Purple Flags On the Beach
When you come to Vallarta, it’s good to pay attention to the colored beach flags and know their meanings:
Green – safe for swimming
Yellow – larger waves, use caution
Red – big surf and strong undertows, beach is closed, NO SWIMMING
Purple – dangerous/venomous animals (this includes jellyfish, stingrays, sea snakes, and saltwater crocodiles!) Yes, we live in a tropical paradise!
On the day we took this beach walk, no purple flags were flying. But as keen naturalists, we always keep an eye out for any cool critters, and this particular day, the beach was covered with dead and dying Portuguese man o’ war and blue buttons. So we spent our beach walk, finding driftwood to mark their presence so that others would not step on them.
A couple of beautiful but deadly Portuguese man o’ wars (foot for scale!), and a blue button (about the size of a bottle cap)! January was cool enough to wear jeans for a couple of weeks, which was a first in 9 years.
According to ChatGPT, the Portuguese man o’ war (Physalia physalis) looks like a jellyfish but is actually a colonial organism made up of specialized zooids that function together as one. Famous for its brilliant blue-purple float and long stinging tentacles, it drifts across the ocean surface, mainly in warm waters. Its tentacles can stretch up to 30 feet, and as Heidi can attest, they deliver a venomous sting that can cause welts, intense pain, and in rare cases, serious allergic reactions. While rarely fatal, stings can trigger breathing difficulties, heart problems, or even anaphylaxis in some individuals.
Despite their beauty, it’s best to admire them from a safe distance. Even after they have washed ashore and appear dead or dried out, the sting can still be potent and cause skin irritation, muscle cramps, or more serious reactions.
The balloon-like structure is its gas-filled float, called a pneumatophore, which sits above the water to catch the wind, like a sail, and help it drift across the ocean.
The blue button (Porpita porpita) is a tiny bottle-cap-sized, eye-catching marine creature often mistaken for a jellyfish. With its flat, iridescent blue disc and delicate, radiating tentacles, it floats on the ocean surface and occasionally washes up on shore. Though it looks exotic, it’s not dangerous — it’s a harmless hydrozoan and not a true jellyfish, although some people may experience mild skin irritation from contact.
Women’s Wellness
In addition to wellness coaching her private clients, Heidi spent several months last winter creating all new content (including creating, recording, and editing 9+ hours of video coursework and handouts/worksheets) for her recent Revive & Thrive 9-week Group Wellness Coaching program for women, which wrapped up in March.
Heidi’s make-shift recording studio and her assistant Tikka!
It was super successful with 10 women making great strides towards their wellness goals like sleeping better, exercising more, finding foods that love their body back, dropping pounds to reverse insulin resistance, and so much more. The next session starts in September. If you’re a woman who’d like to resolve your wellness concerns naturally, I’d love to have you join the waitlist here. Your body will thank you!
Just after that, Heidi co-hosted a group of women friends at a wellness retreat here in Vallarta—including yoga, meditation, dousing with pendulums, SoulCollage art, drumming, playing wood flutes, massages, making a beach mandala out of found objects, yummy food, and great camaraderie. They are already looking forward to the next one.
It’s A Cat’s Life
Tikka remains as cute as ever, although she is slowing down a bit in her tweenage years (in human years, she’s only about 60, so she shouldn’t be slowing down that much!) And unfortunately, without Tosh around, she is not very inclined to go outside and explore around the deck anymore. She has become quite the couch potato! We are still debating getting her another kitten friend to keep her busy and occupied. Stay tuned…
