One week later... (Friday- March 26, 2010)

We’re getting closer to leaving Mazatlan and making the crossing to the Baja... I can feel it! I can also tell when we’ve been in one place for too long. Jim and I are both edgy and unpleasantly cranky. Jim, who is more mild-mannered than I care to admit, becomes antagonistic and fault-finding. (For example, Jim misplaced something yesterday and began to go into high level rantings... lunatic like, blaming all of us, head spinning atop shoulders... only to have me discover the object lying where he placed it... and only one foot away from him at the time of his satanic possession. Then, he glared at me evilly when I suggested he take a deep breath). On the other hand, Me-Myself-and-I, who can occasionally let the negative roll off me like sugar water on butter, lately can’t take the tiniest criticism and fly off the handle at any slight inference of belittling. (For example, Jim asked me yesterday if I had eaten lunch. I don’t know about you, but if he thinks I’m fat then he should have the you-know-whaties to just come out and say it!)

In between dancing around our misunderstandings, we have a couple important things left that we just have to do on the boat. The first, we must align the engine... we can’t complete the engine work and test it until this is done. Sounds easy, but it’s not... too lengthy and boring to ramble on about. Second, the solar panels need to be mounted and supports built... sounds easy, but so far we haven’t been able to find the supplies... wasted lots of time so far searching. There are no reef points in the sail... must be done. We need to find antenna and then hook it up so we can use the SSB radio. We have an extra VHF radio and we need to install it in the cockpit. The larger Barient 28 winches that we cleaned and greased last week aren’t operating correctly... we took pictures and put all the parts back together again exactly the way it was. I can only surmise that they were put back together incorrectly while in possession of the previous owner. Now what? Did I mention the leaky hatch over Jim's and my berth needs to be repaired? Did I mention that we have no refrigeration? Okay... I'm going to stop now.

Perhaps we are not as close to leaving Mazatlan as we had hoped. Perhaps it is time to accept that reality and just take one task at a time. Today, I am going to try and find the schematics online for the Barient 28 and I am going to try and put it back together the right way. Tomorrow, I am going to look for a store to buy radio antenna. I am going to be a nicer person, too. I’m going to see if I can go through the day without raising my voice. I am going to visualize smiling. I’m smiling right now. It’s a frozen, plastic, fakey smile... but I am smiling nonetheless. Perhaps if I relax my lips a little it will appear to be more smiley and less snarly.