The Wet Edge

WELCOME ABOARD!

To everyone who signed up, a HUGE thank you for joining Project Shellback!
We had a massive few days of traffic on the blog and about a hundred names on the list so far...
It's going to be a great crew!

(And a special thanks to our friends, Emily and Marcus-who rebuilt the blog and made it look spiffy and added all the nifty new gadgets and designed our logo and who will continue to be tech support while we are out of range. None of this would have happened without you guys...Huge hugs for everything!)

So...Are you ready?

Because we sure are-sort of!

It's a busy few days in Puerto Los Cabos.

G-ma Sara came down with two HUGE duffle bags of gak for us.

Boat parts and scuba gear, a new lightweight engine for inventing a hydro-generator, bags of seed for sprouting...

We packed and stowed and shopped for produce.

Grandma helped and was a total trouper, taking the kids, so Jon and I could go like fiends.

I have stuffed so much STUFF, into every conceivable spot on this boat.

It does make one realize, just how much we consume and WHAT we consume.

"We need garbage bags..." i think, then realize...

for WHAT, exactly?

Where will I put that garbage?

Am I going to throw it in the sea?

Well...no.

Okay...So what am I buying and what kind of trash will it make?

These days, instead of looking at ingredients- I look at packaging.

For the past year, we've been able to seriously cut down on our waste but -we could still burn what paper we had on shore and even small pueblos will take your trash for a fee-they will then also burn it, or dump it, in the desert-so you still need to think about what you are going to buy and how you are going to rid yourself of it.

Everything we use... ends up somewhere.

I suddenly thought about how many times I yell at my kids in a week, telling them not to leave all their stuff lying around.

"You guys just leave your stuff on the floor, the second your finished with it!"...

Grrrrrr.

But so do I, right?

Not literally, maybe, but it ends up on the Earth's floor, just the same.

I'm finding a good rule of thumb is, if you can eat or use it , the instant you want it, (unless it's fresh produce),

it's probably going to end up being bad for the environment.

So now, the boat is stocked to her hatches, with (carefully considered) foods and water, diesel and gasoline...

The dingy has been deflated and strapped to the foredeck.

We have shaken out the storm sails and checked our systems again and again to make sure everything is groovy.

We bought a few new fish lures...

We are finally, ALMOST ready to untie.

One final check out with the Capitano de Puerto and then a stop to refill on our propane tanks...

It looks like we will head out either later this afternoon -or very early the next morning.

Yesterday, we puttered outside the breakwater for a little look-around the area.

Sara made a movie of me coming in and out if the water in my wetsuit and a half second after I got out, a baby Thresher shark jumped clear out of the water!

I have decided that I really like baby sharks.

I don't know how I will feel about meeting their big brothers or sisters-
but the little guys sure are neat.