Hi all! We know it has been a long time since we have filed our position report. We have a very important announcement about our cruising!

FIRST, we are loving cruising our Nor'Sea and have NO plans to stop any time soon.

As you all know, we have been trying to share our adventures with you as much as we can by updating our web site. But, the written word and still pictures are limiting.

I am also sure you know that there is not a lot of space on a Nor'Sea 27 for collecting souvenirs. So, when we departed the Bay area we took a video camera and still camera with us. Our type of souvenirs!

We are VERY excited that we have now found a way to share some of the video we have taken with you!

If you are interested, take a look at our new web page at:
http://www.svguenevere.com/dvd/
We now have two new videos available, "Guenevere's West Coast Adventure, from San Francisco to Cabo San Lucas Mexico"
and "Guenevere's First Summer in the Sea of Cortez, From Cabo San Lucas to Isla Coronados".

If you decide to purchase a copy, use the discount code WUTQ6RWW and get US$ 4.00 off the listed price.

You can see a 1-minute video trailer of both DVDs on the page for that video.

THANKS!


Now on to what we have been up to…

The Circus was in town! Wow, what fun! For weeks in advance, an airplane flew over La Paz announcing the arrival of the circus. Featuring Apollo the lion tamer. We saw trained horses and ponies, dancing girls, acrobats and high wire acts, dogs and clowns. It was a very full show. The highlight of course was Apollo. He came strutting out to the audience, very sexy and handsome. The girls sighed and swooned. He walked into the audience section and began to kiss some of the girls. It was pandemonium!! The lions' cage was set up very close to the audience
and then the lions were let in to the area. They slowly walked in yawning and stretching. The challenge for Apollo was to keep the lions awake enough to act mean. They were so fat and sleek and well kept. After the circus was over everyone was invited to have his or her picture taken with a lion. He was chained up but you could walk right up to it and touch it. They chose people from the audience to jump on the trained horses. They put a harness on them and as the horse trotted pass, they were to jump onto the back of a horse. Of course no one quite made it
and they were left to swing around the area by the harness. Very funny and everyone had a good laugh. Lovely girls came out in beautiful costumes and danced. For the knife-throwing act, they selected a man from the audience, and blindfolded him. They put a balloon high up between his legs and he just about passed out. After a lot of playing around, the knife was "thrown", but missed. What the "victim" couldn't see was that a man stood behind the backboard and quickly stuck a knife into the board. No knives were actually thrown. Everyone was laughing
wildly. When the balloon was finally popped, you could see the man was very relieved. It was all very good family fun and we really had a good time.


Carnival…
This year carnival seemed to be a bit more subdued than last year. It was a LOT of fun with loud music and the parades, but not quite as big here in La Paz as it was in Ensenada. We were told that La Paz had removed any vendors that they didn't think were selling "G" rated products. Here they are very family oriented. It was not as wild and crazy as last year. We still had a wonderful time with all the good food and drink.

Our good friend Allyson, from "Virginia Reel" and Jill got a fabulous Mole recipe from a local lady. They made chicken burritos mole a couple of time. Then Allyson decided to invite a few close friends from the marina over for a "Roll your own" burrito party on her boat. Before we knew it, she had invited about 50 people! Good thing her boat is a 65 footer! Allyson, Jill and a couple of other ladies worked below to feed all comers! We had everyone on the boat and it was a great party, till late in the evening. It's surprising how many people we meet and get to know around the waterfront! I lived for a year in an apartment building and hardly knew a person. Here, we have so many friends, and some we have not even met yet.

We just attended the La Paz Bay Fest. We had a GREAT time! It was sort of like a big three-day beach party. They had live music, games, cook-offs, seminars and boat races. We had Mexican government officials give a seminar about all things boating for foreigners. We had a sail boat race that was fun and Jill took first prize for here "Abreojos carrot cake". Abreojos, means, "keep your eyes open". The recipe for it came from a mistake made at a bed & breakfast we stayed at. Jill also won a prize for attending the most events. This after making the cake at midnight and a pot of Chile at 0500!

We also learned to play beach Bocce Ball. And we actually won two games. Of course we played against a team of young kids! It was a
fun game.

The blindfolded dinghy race was a riot to watch!

You can see a LOT of photos of the complete event at the Club Cruceros web site:
http://www.clubcruceros.org/Bayfest06/BayFest2006thumbs.html .

We also some how got involved in a road trip to a potter's house to purchase, what else, pots. Our first clue that this was to be an adventure was when one of the other cruisers ask us if we had packed a lunch and brought some water. We took two cars filled with people and took the road towards Cabo. We turned on to a dirt washboard road indicated by a map that was handwritten and indicated signs to watch for such as "turn left at the cow in the road". It was about a three-hour drive up into the hills. We made several false turns and had to back track. We came around a bend and there behind a fence, were a dozen or more ostriches. We just had to stop and get pictures. We met up with a cowboy on horseback and by the time we decided to ask him directions, he had crossed the road and disappeared down a canyon. This is the Mexico we thought didn't exist anymore. When we found the potter's house, he was away on the mainland so we were able to make an order and we were told we would have to return in 6 weeks to pick up the finished pots. The house had a separate kitchen made of sticks. This way it could catch any breeze and keep the cooking heat out of the main part of the house. We ordered a couple of his pots, as they are so beautiful! We decided that we had had such good luck finding the place that we would take a different way out of there. Well, we really got lost. We never saw another soul out there to get directions from. We really were in the middle of nowhere. We did find a sign that said "El Brinko", and sure enough, it was a dead end road. We finally drove down a dry riverbed to the main highway and we were on our way home. Now we just have to remember how to get back again.


During boat systems testing, as we were inspecting everything before we head out, we found that our windless would no longer pull up the anchor. That took a couple of days to trouble shoot. It was not an electrical problem, although that is what it looked like. It turned out to be the bearing on the motor. So we are waiting on parts to arrive for that.

If it's beginning to sound like La Paz is a fun place and hard to leave, you are not all that wrong.

For those who think cruising is all a carefree thing, we are very sorry to report the loss of a friend. Mark Sanders of "Blue Suede Sue" was killed delivering a boat back up the coast. We saw Mark and his wife, Sue (who was also aboard the boat) the day before they departed. It's very upsetting. There were 5 people on board and apparently, the boat ran aground. You can read about it at:
http://www.bajainsider.com/baja-life/general-information/mark-saunders-dies.htm
It reinforces how fragile life is. We should ALL LIVE IT to the fullest as best as we can! We know that conditions can change in a few seconds and the decisions we make can have a direct bearing on our safety. Some times you have very little time to make those decisions. Not only
skill but luck plays a part in the outcome of decisions made.

Till next time
Greg & Jill