A Close Call for Bill's Brother

Bill's brother Barry lives on his boat in San Carlos- a few hours south of the Arizona border. A few weeks ago he had a restless night, and later wrote Bill that he felt a 'heaviness in his chest'. Bill advised him to go to a local doctor right away. That doctor indicated that he needed to lose weight, eat right, stop depending on Zantac, etc. Wisely, he decided to go to California for a thorough check-up with his regular doctor. A week ago he saw the doctor who told him he was having a heart attack RIGHT THEN... needless to say, they hospitalized him and wound up installing three stents to solve the problem! He is now back on his boat and is looking at some drastic changes in his lifestyle in order to reverse the heart problem. Fortunately, he did not have any permanent damage to the heart itself. It is scary to think of what would have happened if he had not gone to his doctor, living alone like he does. Well, Ace is there, but I don't think his dog training lessons included CPR! Photo shows Barry with girlfriend Cindy on his boat.

Oh Boy, Not Again!

I am sitting at the breakfast table in Indio! Wednesday morning Bill turned on our water maker on the boat since we were on anchor and needed to replenish our tank. About three hours later he raised the hatch door to turn it off and was greeted with water squirting everywhere! After emptying out all the soggy items we had stored nearby he had me turn it back on- briefly- while he watched for the source of the leak. It turned out that the salt water under pressure had pitted the brass head of the pump and finally a pin point hole had broken through. We returned to Santa Rosalia on Thursday, regrouped, packed a few things and headed north in our truck, carting the broken water maker pump. We arrived in San Diego early Friday morning and took our sick baby in for inspection, only to be told that it was a goner. Fortunately, the store had a used pump in excellent condition for half the money of a new one! We came on home to rest and check on the house and the mail. Now we are getting ready to head south yet again. We should be back on anchor by the end of this coming week, right where I took the photo of a neighbor's sailboat, shown above.