Limbo is a depressing place to live. I found that it was getting harder and harder to get out of my bunk in the morning and carry on with daily life. I had a few minor repair and improvement jobs on my agenda but I lacked the will to get into them - with one exception. Repair Laelia's head.
For the landlubbers in the audience, let me explain about "the head." It is the nautical equivalent of a toilet. On a small to medium size sailboat, the head consists of the usual toilet bowl but instead of a tank holding water to do the flushing, the flushing is accomplished by using a hand operated pump. Now, a pump has moving parts that operate under considerably more stress than the few moving parts of the common land based toilet. There is a cylinder with a piston in it that supplies the pumping action. There is a flapper valve that opens to suck "stuff" out of the bowl when the pump handle moves up and then closes to keep it from flowing back when the handle moves back down. The "stuff" is pumped uphill a two or three feet to get it above the waterline so it can flow down hill into the ocean or the holding tank. To keep the "stuff" in the output line from flowing back into the pump, there is a check valve. The check valve is a piece of rubber shaped like a flattened baby bottle nipple. It doesn't move much but the part that does move is critical to keeping the "stuff" from flowing back into the head.
I was strongly motivated to make this repair despite the obvious grossness factor. Without getting too graphic about it, let me just say that it was not flushing properly and some "stuff" was draining back into the bowl and smelling worse every day. I spent one longish morning disassembling, cleaning, replacing non-metal parts and reassembling Laelia's head with the temperature in the cabin getting will up toward 90 degrees and no breeze to either cool the cabin or dispel odors. Disassembling the moving parts revealed a coating of "stuff" on the check valve in the output line that allowed "stuff" to drain back into the bowl instead of being held safely out of sight and out of smelling range. The problem was exacerbated by the coating of "stuff" on the flapper valve that kept it from closing fully.
Much to my relief, when I finished cleaning and reassembling the unit, it worked as it should. No more back flow. No more odors.
The remaining small jobs lacked motivating factors anywhere near as compelling as the head repair. I began hiding out from the uncertainty in my life by burying myself in a mountain of paperback books. I read a lot of science fiction by Poul Anderson, Hitch 22 - a memoir by the late Christopher Hitchens and miscellaneous other paperbacks. I had loaded up two shopping bags with used paperbacks on one of the last weekends in Placerville. As I read these books, I took them ashore in La Paz to Club Crucero (the local cruising sailors yacht club) and exchanged them. I was in no danger of running out of hiding places.
But that still left the night. I was having trouble sleeping - wondering how all these loose ends were going to come together. By far, the most upsetting was not knowing where I stood with Judy. Email has been both a blessing and a curse as we tried to figure out where we stood with each other. The printed word does not carry tone of voice or facial expression magically embedded in the text. There were misunderstandings and uncertainties that just would not go away. Finally, I could not stand it - I bought a ticket to fly home. I booked a flight with a return date of May 13th which should give us almost three weeks of face to face time to see where we stood. It should also be enough time for the sail maker to complete the new sails and ship them to me in Placerville.
The least expensive flights out of La Paz to Sacramento go by a roundabout course that requires almost 24 hours of travel time and would get me into Sacramento at 1 AM. Not wonderful! It turns out to be better to take a flight from San Jose del Cabo near Cabo San Lucas. It is cheaper and requires only one stop at Orange County (John Wayne International).
To get to the airport, I found a bus/van that went directly from La Paz to the airport with one rest stop - a total of about three hours. The trip down Mexico Highway 1 turned out to be quite pleasant. Once out of La Paz, Highway 1 is fairly narrow, two lane, winding road. The scenery is mostly desert but very interesting desert. There are scattered small towns that pop up in the middle of nowhere. There is no apparent reason for their existence - but there they are. Each of these small towns had a series of speed bumps to keep the traffic from speeding through town. Why bother with expensive traffic lights to regulate traffic when a nasty bump in the road will do the job?
The San Jose del Cabo airport is a fairly typical modern looking airport with a moderate amount of traffic. I suspect most of the passengers are going to and from Cabo San Lucas which has become something of a hot spot for "with it" young travelers. There is, of course, the Mexican equivalent of TSA at the airport. I donated a nice pair of scissors from my hair cutting kit to the very pleasant young man who pointed out that I could not take them in my carry on luggage.
Clearing customs at John Wayne International was a matter of standing in line for about 15 minutes, presenting my passport and being waved on through with no further ado. I had almost three hours to sit and read a big chunk of "Inside Outside" by Herman Wouk - an interesting and sometimes hilarious account of a young Jewish man growing up in New York in the 20s and 30s struggling with his religious identity, a romance with a non-Jewish show girl and a stint as a gag writer for radio shows. I covered another two hours worth on the flight from Orange County to Sacramento.
I will have to admit to feeling trepidatious as I joined the herd of passengers moving from the airplane to the baggage area. Judy greeted me with an almost shy smile, a hug and an enthusiastic kiss that led me to believe that she was as happy to see me as I was to be with her again.
The following days have reinforced that. We have done a lot of talking about what we each want when (not IF) we are back together. I can't say that we have all the answers worked out but we are committed to being back together and picking up where we left off as best we can. Obviously, we can't and shouldn't ignore the events of the past couple of years. We have learned that we have difficulty communicating on some issues in our relationship and we both want to work those out. But all those things that brought us together in the first place are still operating - reminding us that we DO belong together.
An interesting challenge has surfaced. Judy put the house up for sale. It is located on two acres of what used to be a plum orchard just outside Placerville. We both have come to the conclusion that it is more than we want to try to keep up with. Additionally, Placerville, while picturesque, is lacking in activities that interest us. Judy had planned to move to Sacramento to a smaller house near her son and his family. In less than a week, she accepted a nearly full price offer on the house. This provoked a panic since she had not yet found a house she liked in Sacramento. Fortunately, her son Doug knew a realtor who he promised would find a house for her - quickly. And she did. Judy fell in love with a house with a wonderfully landscaped, peaceful back yard on a small lot and made an offer. The house had been on the market for less than 24 hours. Her offer was accepted and shortly after that, the seller's realtor called Judy's realtor to let her know that the seller had received two more offers - one full price and one above asking price. The market is hot in Sacramento!
I had planned to return to La Paz on May 13th - three days before closing on the house in Placerville. I am now planning to put off my return to La Paz until sometime around July 1. Judy has been able to work out a 30 day rent back that would give us some time to get the new house in shape. The house was built in 1977 and is in excellent condition but it needs a lot of updating - new flooring, new interior paint, etc. Not unsurprisingly, she was in a bit of a panic about getting the work done as well as the packing and moving. With the two of us working on it, it will still be a crunch but it will get done.
That is where things stand at the moment. All the nitty-gritty stuff surrounding real estate transactions is grinding forward. No great surprises so far - just irritating little things. The inspection on the Placerville house revealed that the three water heaters in the house are not strapped for earthquake safety as required by California building codes. That's not all that surprising given that each heater is about 10 gallons and is quite short. Nonetheless, there are no exceptions! If we don't strap them, FHA will not approve the buyer's loan.
Sailing home from La Paz will be an interesting proposition. The hurricane season officially begins in June although it is fairly unusual to see a hurricane in Baja before August. The tropical depressions and hurricanes that form in the Gulf of Tehuantepec can give rise to southerly winds that can make it easier to sail up the coast - or turn it into a nasty, potentially fatal, hair raising experience. It will require that I closely monitor the weather and duck for cover if bad weather is coming.
The trip is not over - and the remainder promises to be "interesting."
