Us'ns: BurntFrog (RanaQuemada)

History Updated November, 2009

Ancient History Updated January 14, 2008

Friends of PATA logo


Picudo and Chivo


New sala curtain


SolMate's factory refurb


Juno race team


TRW-funded project boat


1st MX anchorage,
Islas San Benitos


Booby baby, Isla Isabela


Orcas in the
anchorage, Isla San Marcos


Gale


SolMate's crew


Gale and Bucky
moving to Manzanillo


Calle 2, #11


Chivo takes charge

Not-So Ancient History

Shortly after settling into our digs in Santiago, Stan and I volunteered at a spay/neuter clinic. We met a bunch of cool folks, and became hooked on the community and the cause.

If you were to wander over to our links page, you'd see that MJ has added alot of websites to her list of ones she masters. She's been pounding away at the behind-the-scenes chores while Stan has assumed leadership roles with the animal welfare charities.

By assuming the logistics functions for the spay/neuter clinics, we've freed up the medicos to concentrate on organizing more clinics. The PATA mini-clinic program is a huge success and growing. The high-volume clinic, too, is spreading its wings. We like to think that we've contributed.

We've realized our dream of becoming integrated into a Mexican community. That was the whole purpose of traveling to Mexico in the first place, and the main reason for selling SolMate and settling in Santiago. Work is slowly progressing on the Calle 2 house, though the pressure is off now that we have a kitchen sink and flushing toilet. These days our life revolves around the clinic, rather than the contractor, schedule.

That about catches you up on SolMatesantiago doings through 2009 ... our community involvement, oh, and our newest feline addition, Picudo.

Ancient History, the 2008 Version

Idly watching a couple of sailing dinghies beat past the Santa Barbara pier, we (Stan and MJ) wondered at the mechanics of sailing and decided then and there we'd like to learn how to make a little floaty-thing do dat. That was about 1994. We had stopped in Santa Barbara for lunch on our way home to Long Beach from a business trip, Stan representing the USAF, MJ representing TRW.

It didn't take many lessons for us to catch the sailing bug. Pretty soon we were bopping around Santa Monica Bay on daysailers and shuttling back and forth to Catalina Island on cruisers. We joined the Juno racing team on Dave and Carol's Express37; MJ crossed an ocean with an all-woman crew; Stan circumnavigated Vancouver Island.

By 1999 the joys of corporate American life were fading fast, in direct proportion to an increasingly strong urge to cruise. We bought a boat and instituted a ten-year plan to bail out. Our needy ole boat, a '76 Valiant cutter, required lots of work and lots of equipment, so Stan, also a TRW employee by 2002, finagled a layoff and became SolMate's full-time shipwright. MJ slogged on at TRW to support the habit.

Our third crewmate showed up on the dock just months before we hit the road ... a Maine Coon Cat dropped in the marina laundryroom along with his food dishes and blankie. There was no saying, "No!" to the boy, he blew in, took the boat by storm and we called him Gale.

In 2004 all the safety issues aboard had been addressed, and most luxuries, too. We scrapped the ten-year plan at the five-year point. For the next two years Gale cruised with us to the Channel Islands, the Sea of Cortez, south to Puerto Vallarta and back up into the Sea. He landed ashore with us in San Carlos, no worse for wear, but by the winter of 2006, the ole boat had started to shrink. All three of us were ready to try real Mexican life, life on land in amongst the natives.

SolMate was put on the auction block in San Carlos, but Sonora was too chilly for us. The Quayaq-ers sold us their Caravan, we picked a destination out of a cruising guide, and off we trucked to Manzanillo. By the time the boat sold, we were ready for more projects, so we reinvested our boat bucks in a fixer-upper in Santiago, a Manzanillo suburb, and went to work.

Today's project house is equal in complexity to last year's project boat - not QUITE! but the learning curve for maintaining a Mexican house made of cement and rebar is much like learning to deal with fiberglass and teak ... except if we screw this up, we won't sink.

Two things we managed to accomplish during our brief stay in San Carlos: MJ hooked up with an animal action group, the SBPA/Santuario, as their webmonster; and BuckyKat joined our happy little troupe. A little bit of an orange Tabby, she's the product of Santuario and grew up holding her own. We sometimes call her Butch the Bully, she plays so rough.

Our third household addition joined up in Santiago. He was discovered wasting away on the mean streets of Las Brisas, and we weren't sure he was going to make it ... but he's fine now, alive and kickin' as BK's own private chew toy. Except his survival instinct kicked in early in life and he more than holds his own with Bucky. We call him Chivo in honor of Stan's favorite futbol team, Chivas.

After two solid years of travel, it feels good to settle in for awhile. We're getting to know the part of Mexico we missed while out there cruising (where we experienced the wild side of islands and estuaries we'd never have seen if we'd been land-based). Our house projects have opened up a world and a culture we're having great fun exploring.

Sometime down the road we'll be ready to explore farther afield, again. Hopefully, by that time, we'll have convinced kids or friends that they'd just love to sit around the SolCasa watching cats play while we traipse around Mexico....