Brown-Out in Bucerias

Something's up this morning. We were having our usual, leisurely morning...including a "Slow Carb Diet" breakfast, after yesterday's weekly allowed "Cheat Day."

I was doing some handwashing in the sink (there are some clothing items I just won't trust to the local laundry, which bleach-stains our coloured clothing, but makes our whites turn a faint brown...) when the water stopped running.

We turned on the gravity-fed rooftop "tanaka" which is the back-up water reservoir in times of emergency. John was letting the other residents know to conserve water (no unnecessary toilet flushing or bathing) when the power went out completely. I then heard a short siren burst in the neighbourhood, like what you'd expect to hear for a tsunami warning (not an ambulance or police car siren), so deduced there was some kind of local emergency.

Word on the street (quite literally, our neighbours were all out on the street comparing notes) is that we were having a "brown out." No word as to the cause, and the power is already coming back on in blips, so no need to panic.

I am happy to have laptop battery power and a 3G aircard that lets me bypass our condo's unreliable internet so I can write about our day of "luxury sailing" yesterday. It was great - Vallarta Adventures really does things right. We highly recommend their junkets.

We spent a gorgeous day on board a beautiful 47' Beneteau, with delicious food/drinks, attentive service from Carlos, and great sailing by skipper Javier. They actually remembered us from our sunset sail with them a couple of weeks ago.

We nabbed the bow area again and relaxed. We saw at least six grey whales and were treated to some breeching, blowing, one jump, and four full fluke flashes (where you see their entire tail as they submerge). Just an awesome sight.

We were off of Bucerias for the annual "blessing of the boats" and could see all the local boats in along the town's shoreline where the local priest blesses them. Of course, this involved lots of incendiary explosions (Hello, people - daytime fireworks are just lots of noise and smoke!) and we were happy to be out on the water well away from the firecracker-happy crowd.

We anchored at "Piedra Blanca" (white stone), which was a very romantic moniker for a guano-covered outcropping of rocks just north of La Cruz. It was fascinating to see this area from water - quite a lovely enclave of cliffside villas built above a nice private beach. You can't see any of this from the road, of course, so we've been unaware of this little nearby Eden.

We reluctantly disembarked at the end of the day and headed over to Chrysler PV where our transmission was being worked on while we sailed. We knew to arrive after 4:00 pm (we're quick learners) but the car was still on the hoist.



It's supposed to be finished this afternoon, so we'll head back to town later today by hitching a ride with our neighbours who plan a CostCo run.

Todo bien. (It's all good.)