Beta engine released from Veracruz customs

Seven short weeks after arriving in the port city of Veracruz our new Beta engine has been released by customs and is climbing the mountains of Mexico in the care of  XCF Transporte Carga Consolidada.

Yes, she's riding the roads in a big semi tractor trailer and the crew of Traveler is dancing around in glee.  

I'm not sure why it took seven weeks, three money transfers, three FedEx document packages, and thirty eight email communications but it did and, fingers crossed, the new engine should be arriving at the yard in Guaymas soon.  We'll wait for our mechanic Omar to let us know it has arrived.  

In the meantime, we are doing odd jobs around the farm waiting for the fruit to be at just the right stage for picking.  When that time arrives, we be  working around the clock to get that stuff harvested at its peak of perfection.  This farming life, gotta love it.

I hope to have a picture in the future of Omar with the red Beta coming up on the crane.  This shot is of Omar lowering the old blue Perkins.

Work of many sorts

It's been a busy summer, too busy.

Obrador Revival at the Farmer's Market

We drove to Seattle and gave Connie's tenant his 30 day notice to vacate, finding the house and yard  in terrible shape.  We will never, absolutely never, rent to college age young men again.   I went to my old boss Brett at Harborview and he found eight weeks of work for me. So I spent the next eight weeks sleeping around Seattle at various friend's places and working Monday thru Friday, taking the bus to and from work.  Let me just note that Seattle's bus system now sucks!  I used to love it.  Now, with the budget cuts, the buses are packed and run late.  Each day I'd be crammed in there nose to cheek with some other poor commuter watching hoards of single occupancy vehicles roaring by.  Come on Seattle, get your transportation priorities straight!

Each Friday night, I took the bus or train down to Olympia to join Connie for the weekend.  She spent July working on the yard and getting ready to take possession of her rental house.  Then in August when the tenants moved out we dove into the most incredible mess and started sorting things out.

Ez and Tes at Lena Lake

Hundreds of pounds of garbage later we could finally start to see the floors and damaged walls.  We took pictures and filed an insurance claim for damages then Connie started scrubbing.  She cleaned for weeks then we started to patch drywall, and paint.  We hired a plumber to re-plumb the leaky water pipes, a roofer to put on a new roof, a carpet guy to replace all the carpet, a gas heater maintenance guy, a gutter installer, and various people to help with the yard and garden.

The Dirt Divas pitched in and helped fight back three years of encroaching blackberries.  The Divas are a gardening assault team who take on impossible organic challenges.  We had lots of help getting the yard cleaned up. Kathy and Michael Lubeliner attacked and eradicated blackberries and let us stay at their lovely house in Mud Bay.  Susan Tuzzolino, Susan Smiley, and Nancy Curtis kicked butt clearing noxious weeds.  Michael Olson even got into the act doing a dump run for us.  Ezrah and Tesla were there to help too. 

Meanwhile, I'm working 12 hour days on the weekends trying to keep up with Connie. Then I'd go back to Seattle for the work week and "rest up" while working at Harborview.  Speaking of Harborview, I'd like to thank my co-worker James Nau for pressing the "donate" button on our website here.

We're drinking beer bought by his donation right now!  Don't be shy, push the button just for kicks.

As September marched on we got the house almost rentable but couldn't find tenants quickly so we turned it over to a property management company last Friday. We had promised to be in California by the 15th.  We hopped into the Dolphin and with huge sighs of relief headed south. Our first stop was the Farm Boy Restaurant

Free at last!  At the Farm Boy Cafe.  We are finally on the road again.

just south of Olympia where we had a huge breakfast of biscuits, eggs, gravy, and hash browns.  See the happy looks on our faces?

We hot footed it down to Mendocino County and arrived in time to provision in Willits then head up into the hills to the farm where we were scheduled to start work the next day.  The Dolphin made it up the steep hill and we got our old scenic spot there under the Oak trees.  Now we are up to our ears in work, preparing for the big harvest.  It's great to be back and done with all the house remodeling we did in Tumwater.  Here, we just show up in the morning, do our work, then cook a good meal and fall into bed.  Simple.  Nice. Welcome.

Our old spot under the oaks.

Connie harvesting tomatoes.

I want to thank my friends for putting me up in Seattle for eight weeks.

Week 1:  The Dekker's
Week 2:  The Tobiason's
Week 3:  The Dekker's

Week 4:  Julie's house
Week 5:  Aboard Emerald Mistress ( Pam and Bob Vizenor)
Week 6:  The Tobiason's
Week 7:  The Tobiason's
Week 8:  Chris Simpson's

I was going to review the various places I stayed, pointing out the benefits of each, and establishing a rating so that next year people could focus on how they could advance in the ratings but now that seems kinda silly.  Everyone was so kind and the beds were all comfortable and the showers hot.  A week (which is usually only 5 days cause I went to Olympia each weekend) seems like just the right amount of time to stay in one place.  There is enough time to catch up on things and have some good talks.  After a week when the beer and wine start to run out and the refrigerator gets empty I say thank you and goodbye, leaving only sweet memories and dirty sheets behind.

If you are wondering what's happening with Traveler and the new engine... well, so am I.

Today the engine is still being held by customs in Veracruz.  But we have hopes that eventually we'll get her ransomed and shipped to Guaymas.  In the meantime, all is good.

Travel'n Beta

Traveler's new diesel power plant started its life at the Kubota factory in Osaka Japan.  From there it traveled by container ship around the world to the Beta facilities in Gloucester, southwest England. Beta was started by some marine enginerds who's business plan was "to provide propulsion engines to suit individual requirements rather than to the specification dictated by the larger boat buiders." (From their web site)  They set out to capture the re-power market with a line of small diesel engines that are easily customized to fit all sorts of small to medium sized sail and power boats.

I've seen the Beta team many times at the boat show with their bright red engines.  They take the reliable Kubota engine and marinize it. Marinize (to adapt to the harsh marine environment), not Martinize (to run through a dry cleaning facility), which is what you might want to do with that old oily engine you have in your bilge.  Beta adds things like a raw water pump and a heat exchanger and they move the oil filler, filter, and change pump up to the front where you can get at it easily.  They also create custom engine mounts to your specifications so it will fit easily into your engine room.  We shall see later how well that works out for Traveler.

OOCL Mexico with Beta aboard.

Now that I've sent the nine grand to the Beta boys and they have finished the cute little custom engine feet, the beast is finally shipping toward Mexico. It's on the OOCL Mexico, a 963 foot long container ship flagged in Liberia. We snapped a picture of her leaving the UK.  If you look closely you can see the Beta engine strapped down on top of some containers.

Yes, it's a BIG engine.  43 horsepower, but only a third of what you's find in a little Honda Civic! Go figure. It looks even bigger here because of what is know as long distance light refraction.  We sometimes see this in Puget Sound when a large ship is on the horizon and it looks way taller than it actually is.

I've found a couple of web sites where I can track the progress of our big 43 horse Beta as the motor vessel OOCL Mexico carries it on a world tour before dropping her on the wharf in Veracruz Mexico.  In the old days wealthy families would send their fledgling offspring on the "Grand Tour" to round out their education. This European sojourn usually included Rome, Berlin, Athens, and  Paris, to give the traveler a taste of religion, science, art, and sex, in that order.

 But for Beta, we wanted to round out her personality in a more head down, serious, working-ethic manner.  OOCL Mexico has visited Antwerp Belgium, Bremerhaven Denmark, and Le Havre France before heading south for Veracruz. Let's see... she sampled beer in Belgium, pot in Denmark, and wine in France. Sound's like a well rounded education to me!

We'll be tracking her across the Atlantic and get back to you if there are any mishaps aboard, which there could be seeing how many thousands of ships there are going to and fro. Meanwhile, I'm here in Seattle working diligently to raise more cash. There are always unexpected expenses when the kids are off traveling the world.

Some Beta engines get to travel with the road show.

Further Reflections on Life Abroad

The view I wish I had from my swivel chair at work.

Ensconced here in Seattle for eight weeks, I'm enjoying couch surfing through the spare bedrooms of my friends while I do contract work for my old employer, Harborview Medical Center.  I travel light, carrying along my three pairs of pants and four shirts bought at Goodwill.  After one week staying in the house of one friend, I pack it up and take the bus to Olympia where Connie picks me up and I stay with her for the weekend. We work on her rental house trying to rescue it from the disaster caused by her good natured but clueless renter.  Then Sunday I take the bus back to Seattle and land in another friend's house and their spare bedroom for a week. So far, it is working out pretty well and the cruising kitty is starting to move in a positive direction instead of a negative direction.  I said I'd never go back to work. I was wrong.

Coming back to the States for these few months makes us think, and consider our decision to live abroad.

Typical cubicle / mariner trap

One reason we left to cruise the Mexican Pacific coast was because we thought we could do so cheaply, so cheaply that we could stop working and live off savings until I reached retirement age.  And that part has somewhat proven to be true.  I say "somewhat" because we have yet to meet our $18,000 per year budget.  Last year's expenditures were double that and so might this years become. What pushes us over budget is big ticket boat repairs and purchases.  Of course we didn't plan on all the boat upgrades and repairs, thinking our boat was more ready than she really was.

As for everyday living, we most assuredly have met our budget.  18k per year is $1,500 dollars per month.  We lived on less than that during those months when we had no large repair or outfitting bills.  So as we calmly drifted from anchorage to anchorage we lived lean. Maybe next year we'll not have to buy another engine or some other big ticket item.  Coming north in the summer to do some work is very helpful to our budget. Thank you, my employers; the work is much appreciated.


Coming north in the summer is also helpful to the psyche.  By the time June rolls around it is just too darn hot to enjoy living on the boat in Mexico.  I've told you how we became hot, cranky, and stupid from staying south too long.  When we hit those cool nights in the mountains of Arizona and Utah our bodies relaxed and our minds started to function properly again.  Connie started playing music again. I started smiling.

Oregon hills as seen from my folding chair last month.

After some thought, sitting there in my folding chair looking out upon the national forest in Oregon, I realized that an important part of my big sigh of relief was the loss of tension, the letting down the guard that we maintain all the while when in a foreign culture.  I love Mexico and most of the Mexicans I've met have been wonderful people: friendly, family oriented, honest people. But all the while in Mexico we are the outsiders, the visitors. We are not "in the know" about everything that is happening around us.  I've realized that the Mexican culture and the Mexican language is very complicated. And as an English speaker I'll never quite understand everything that is happening around me.  Here in the states I'm much more confident about what is happening around me because I've lived here for so long.  Sure, there are undercurrents of things happening here that I don't know, things such as illegal activities, private connections, different customs and laws, but for the most part I see things at their true and face value.  Back in the States, after a while, I relax and feel comfortable, thinking I know what's happening.

I didn't realize that I was carrying around this tension while traveling in Mexico but I realize it now.  Don't get me wrong, though. We are going back to Mexico and some year we will go further to Panama or the South Pacific.  But when doing so, the guard will be up a smidgen more than when I'm in the states.

Another thing I've appreciated about the U.S. is how clean and tidy everything is.  Private property is normally kept decent looking and the public spaces are spectacular when compared to most of Mexico.  In Mexico the pride is inside the property.  There is a wall around the property and everything inside is nice.  But outside the wall it can be dusty, dirty, rock strewn, and ugly.  Sidewalks can be treacherous and except for the town square, public places are pretty rough. You pay to pee and don't want to sit on the porcelain.  In the states, the public bathrooms can be wonderfully clean and modern.

Heading south to cruise Mexico's coast is not all beautiful beaches and cheap fish tacos.  I'm glad we had the experience and enjoyed it so much that we're going back in the fall.  But I realize that the 1st world countries, while expensive, have a lot to offer too.

So, as in many things, moderation is the way to go.  We'll spend six months in Mexico and six months in the states for the next couple of years until we head across the Pacific.... or some other place.
We'll get the best of both worlds.

My advice for those who are planning on heading south is to figure out what you'll be doing during the time when you are not in Mexico.  Make sure you have a nice place to visit, a place where you can relax in your folding chair and breath in the cool, moist air.  As we get better at this "snow bird" mentality Connie and I are looking for summertime options.  A cabin in Colorado, an apartment in San Diego, a house in Tumwater, a yurt in New Mexico?  You gotta have a place to go on vacation from your vacation!

Oh yeah, don't forget to budget in a new engine or two.

Fly North!

There is no signal up here in the pine woods of Kaibab National Forest.  No signal on the phone.  No signal for internet.  But there is a small chipmunk playing in the cold fire pit and it is 70 degrees in the cabin of the LRV.  I’m sitting at the dinette table in our little Dolphin RV.  This is the “land” RV as opposed to the “water” RV which is Traveler.  She’s 800 miles away south of here and 8000 feet in elevation below us, all covered with tarps, her thru hull valves shut, her water tanks clean and empty.  We have abandoned our Traveler, fleeing to higher elevations and the coolness that comes with it.     

Connie and Omar, celebrating the removal of the Perkins engine.

We were on the hard for two weeks prepping the boat, removing the broken Perkins 4-108, and arranging for a new Beta engine to be shipped from England.  We found Omar Garza to help us with the engine.  He'll be there when it arrives from England and can install it for us while we are visiting the northwest.

 By the time we arrived in Guaymas we’d been in the oven that is late spring Baja for about 10 days.  We’ve learned our limits as to how much heat we can take.  My comfort level for sleeping is set at about 85 degrees.  We’d not seen 85 degrees for more than two weeks and we were not only dehydrated but cranky from lack of sleep.  I’d wander around the boat in the middle of the night with the temperature gun in my hand shooting the laser pointer at things and remarking, “95 degrees on the cabin floor” or “90 degrees on deck”.  Connie and I stopped sleeping together because our combined body heat only made the bed hotter. 

We drank water by the gallons, amazed at how fast the 5 gallon carboy emptied itself.  And we became more stupid every day. Connie stopped playing music because it was too hard.  We’d wander around in a daze, resting often, taking twice as long to complete tasks as normal.  Finally, after getting somewhat finished with the necessary paperwork on the new engine we decided we could leave.  Our to-do list was short.  We’d leave on Wednesday. The last few items were tough.  In cooler temps they’d be a breeze but in the heat every task seemed insurmountable.  I sat on the floor removing the inspection ports on the two stainless steel water tanks.  Each port has 16 bolts.  Four ports means 64 bolts to remove.  It took forever.  Exhausted, I went up top to tell Connie that I’d finished, hoping that she’d take over and start cleaning out the tanks.  She did and emerged an hour later soaked in sweat, her joints creaking, her muscles bruised from the contortions necessary to reach every surface of the two 75 gallon tanks.  I went below and installed the covers, tightening the 64 bolts one at a time, emerging covered in sweat, stiff and sore from crouching on the floor.

Free camping on Kaibab National Forest road 246E

The final item was to tarp the boat. We covered the teak decks with various tarps and tied them low down on the stanchions.  Connie wrapped the lower part of the mast with another tarp to keep the ultraviolet rays off the coiled lines.  We stumbled around, argued, cut small pieces of line, and finished with the tarps by sundown before climbing down the ladder to hide from the mosquitos in the hot LRV.  Cooking was out of the question, it created too much heat.  The next morning we grabbed a few more items off the WRV, jumped into the LRV and headed north.  It was already 95 degrees in the cabin of the pickup truck.

The land gradually rises on the road from Guaymas to Nogales.  We paused just south of the border to take stock of our supplies, looking for fruits, vegetables, and meats that could not cross into the U.S.  Connie boiled the potatoes and beets and we cooked the little bit of raw meat we had in the freezer.  We were searched, as always, at the U.S. customs and came away without a problem.  By late afternoon we were in Nogales, Arizona pigging out at an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant.  By nightfall we were in the Walmart parking lot luxuriating in the 75 degree evening. Ahhhhhhh..75 degrees, Isn’t it just wonderful?

Thursday, early, we drove into Phoenix and the air conditioned apartment of Connie’s sister Diane.  I sat on the couch with the computer on my lap and Connie made shell wind chimes and jewelry with 6 year old Ava, her grandniece. Friday we drove out of the 100 degree city and made our way up to the high elevation town of Flagstaff.  Friday we braved the desert again heading north as always and found a forest service road up in the Kaibab, north of the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  We camped in the pines, experiencing a cool night under blankets, stars overhead, and complete silence.  After visiting the north rim we found another isolated spot in the Kaibab and here I sit, full of pancakes, watching a chipmunk digging in the dirt. 

Lesson learned:  When it gets too hot, go someplace else. 

Coming down out of the national forest.  Grand Staircase Escalante in the distance.

On entering the states Connie reminded me to stop before turning right on red. We don’t do that in Mexico, we just look and go.   In the states you don’t have to bring your own toilet paper into the bano.  In Mexico they pump the gas for you. Mostly, not so in the states, and there are no kids waiting to wash your windows for a couple of pesos.  In Mexico you greet everyone you meet.  In the states people look aside or down at their feet, or they get that tight-lipped, almost smile on their face as a slight acknowledgement of your presence but a warning to not presume conversation.

We’ll come down out of the Kaibab this morning and try to find internet so I can check to see if we need to be in Seattle by the first.  I’ve got job prospects there.  Maybe we can do some work and make enough cash to reimburse the cruising kitty for the 9k we just sent off to the U.K.  In the meantime, it feels great to be wandering the back roads, taking our time, living cheap, and experiencing that delicious feeling of slipping on a fleece sweater when the sun goes down.

Best of all, Connie has started playing music again.

Dependent on the Wind

It becomes all too obvious to us that this sailing thing we are trying to do is not a task taken lightly.  We have to actually depend on the wind! 

Monkey is our navigator and has a little nip once in a while.

Late spring winds can be really light, strong and strangely fluky in the Sea of Cortez and Traveler is a big fat barge that needs ten knots of wind just to give her positive steerage.   Four hours of Sunday sailing brought us only eight miles from San Juanico to Punta Pulpito.  Seven hours sailing on Monday merely found us off of Punta Medano Blanco where we knew we’d not make it the 21 miles further around the corner into Concepcion Bay.  We’d already fought ourselves 14 miles upwind and the day was getting long.  Shawn and Heather’s guide book had no mention of anchorages along this lonely coast, but when we rounded the little headland Connie spied a sailboat anchored near shore.  We got out the binoculars and checked it out.  Sure enough, there was a good sized yacht swinging at anchor. 

I went below and dug out the guide I have on board by Captain Rains. Sure enough, she mentions an anchorage at Punta Medano Blanco!  With the dying afternoon breeze we coasted two miles into shore and rounded up into a slight indentation in the shoreline.  There we dropped the hook onto a sandy bottom and were happily set for the night.  We’re finding that having multiple guide books is quite advantageous out here.  For the Sea of Cortez we use:   

• Shawn and Heather’s Sea of Cortez (2009)
• Captain Rains’ Mexico Cruising Guide (With updates in 2011)
• Jack Williams’ book, Mexico Baja California (1988)
• Charlie’s Charts (2009)

We like Shawn and Heather’s book because of the beautiful color charts and multiple waypoints.  Accurate waypoints are a life saver in Mexico as the paper and electronic charts can be more than a mile off.  We use the paper and electronic charts to get the general lay of the land then when we get within a couple of miles we look to the guide books for the exact latitude and longitude and I program those waypoints into the little Garmin chart plotter.

Shawn and Heather do a fantastic job on most of the major anchorages.  However, Captain Rains’ book has more not-so-popular anchorages mentioned and we find this helpful when we are running out of options.  Jack Williams’ old book is fun to read as he sprinkles in some history as he describes what this coast looked like back in the 80s.  Charlie’s Charts is valuable also with detailed drawings of bays, anchorages, passages, and prominent points of land.

Most mornings we wake just before sunrise, as the light begins to fill the cabin.  One of us will get up in time to switch on the HAM radio at 07:45 and tune it to the Sonrisa Net at frequency 3968 when Gerry gives his famous weather report for the Sea of Cortez, Mexican Riveria, and outside Baja.  We’ve been listening to Geary for two seasons now and have come to rely on him as does everyone cruising in these waters.  Boaters with a HAM license can check into the Sonrisa net and get detailed weather routing information from Geary.  He’s located in Concepcion Bay just south of Mulege and has a little house on the beach at Burro Bay.

Geary in his radio shack at Burro Cove

We decided that we MUST do the pilgrimage to Burro Bay and pay homage to this famous prognosticator.   It was a long haul around the outside of Concepcion but the genaker headsail made it very pleasant.  The wind built as we rounded the cape and I learned AGAIN that we should douse that big sail when we see the first signs of white caps.  I fought the sock down around the sail, hanging on with all my weight, and then rolled out the genoa as we beam reached into the big bay.  At first we thought we’d take advantage of the good wind to reach on down the bay to Burro but two miles down I spied the flat water up ahead and just knew we’d be hating life trying to make the seven more miles to the anchorage.  So, over Connie’s objections, we tacked around and ran back to the anchorage at Santo Domingo.  Ahhh!  Anchor down at last.

These little sea catfish swarmed the shady side of the boat.  Very easy to catch, and tasty!

The following day, with a dinghy assist, we made it to Burro Bay and spent a couple of days there in the sweltering heat.  Connie and I found Geary in the local bar there in Burro Bay.  We brought an offering of a bottle of Trader Joe’s wine and told him our story of engine woe.  He drank his coke, smoked his cigarettes, and nodded sagely then took his wise self off on an errand swinging the wine bottle beside him.  Connie and I finished our beers then hustled back to the boat, our homage paid, our duty done. Check that one off the list!  

Lunch in Mulege - Eating out is a treat after a week at sea.

By this time the daily temperatures were reaching 97 degrees.  It was over 90 degrees in the cabin so Connie slept out on deck while I tossed in the sauna of our stateroom.  I can sleep if it is less than 85 degrees but anything over that and I’m not happy.   Connie is a human heater and needs fresh air for sleeping so she roams the hot boat at night looking for a cool spot.  We met some folks in the bay, Suhwa and Jerry on Calypso and Joy and Captain Ron on Intima-Sea and we all hired a taxi to take us into Mulege for shopping and lunch.  It was a nice day, in a good small Mexican town.  I can see why people come down there from the states.

Traveler under tow.  Flat seas are normal in Bahia Concepcion.

The next morning Intima-Sea took us in tow through the glassy water and dragged us back out to Santo Domingo where the wind built beyond belief as we tried to tack into the bay.  Ahh.  Cool, fresh wind. 

We jumped on Sunday, that is, we started across the Sea of Cortez bound for Guaymas.  After catching the slight southerly out of the mouth of the bay we were becalmed for a couple of hours.  I took the opportunity to finish sanding the guck off the short section of deck that we’d stripped of teak the week before. 

  I looked up to see a sailboat heading across Traveler’s stern and jumped to reel in the fishing line we had streaming out behind.  When the boat was about 100 feet away it lurched to port as the pilot realized that he was seconds away from ramming us.   The good thing is that he brought a good east wind with him that we rode the rest of the day and into the night.  After sundown Connie took her shift at the wheel and as I tried to sleep the winds built and built.  By midnight we were in 20 knots of wind that bowled us along at 7.2 knots.  Did we have the main reefed?  No.  Did we have the Genoa rolled in?  No.  Will we ever learn?  It appears not.

As the wind stayed constant the waves built as Connie tried to sleep and I rode the rocking cockpit into the night.  We went so fast that our arrival in Guaymas would be in the dark… if we maintained our speed…so I tacked around and retraced our track for 45 minutes before tacking around once again back on our original course as Connie came back on at 03:00.  An hour later I woke to slatting sails and found us in a topsy turvy sea and a windex that rotated around without any clear directional purpose. No wind.

Finding Havana Club in the little store.

Connie finally got us moving and fought us nearer to Guaymas in the morning dawn.  We were both pretty sleep-deprived by that time and I opted to close Bocochibampo Bay as a good shelter to the building morning southerly.  And again, from dead calm, to light winds from the north, then south, then east we found ourselves bowling along at seven knots reaching into our anchorage.  Becalmed for 15 minutes, we crept around the corner and sailed gloriously into Bocochibampo Bay for a perfect anchoring maneuver and a celebration of breakfast Bloody Marys for all! 

We collapsed into deep sleep only to waken when some boaters got our attention as they drifted by with engine problems.  We gave them water for their radiator and some tools then sat on deck in a dazed condition after surviving an all-nighter close reaching our way across the Sea of Cortez.  By bed time that evening the winds had shifted to the north coming off the hot desert.  Temperatures climbed and by midnight our thermometer recorded 100 degree air streaming into the boat.  The coolest place Connie found was sleeping on the floor.  I shut the windows in the master cabin and opened up the floorboards bringing in the “cool” 88 degree hull temperature; another bad night’s sleep.

Celebrating the crossing with a special bottle of wine.

In the morning we tacked out of the bay and fought a 2 knot current around the corner, arriving in the Guaymas bay late in the afternoon.  We then tacked our way into the harbor, heeled over at 7kts. in 14 feet of water,  up and around to anchor in 8 ft of water just off the Guaymas Seca where we had an appointment to haul the boat in the morning.  

Another hot night and we got Traveler moving across the water with the aid of the dinghy and assistance from our new friends on Island Wind; thanks Heather and Ken!  We negotiated the shoals and made it to the travel lift ways.  Then we met the crew at Guaymas Seca.  The size of the lift made it necessary for us to either dismantle the radar post on the back of the boat or take off the roller furler and headstay from the front of the boat.  We opted to pull off the headstay.  

To take the tension off the headstay Connie loosened the backstay by turning the turnbuckle.  Then I took a piece of line and tied a loop through the bow roller and the shackle above the furler head.  Then I took a screwdriver and inserted it in the loop and turned it round and round, twisting the loop of line, kinda like you do when you tension a fence.  This drew the forestay closer to the deck, bending the mast forward so I could slip the pin out and free the furler.  Clever huh? With the forestay and staysail stay off, the lift could get centered on Traveler properly. 

See how the front of the lift is aft of the forestay?

Soon Traveler was airborne and rumbling across the dirt yard.  There is nothing so strange as seeing your marine home way up in the air rolling across a yard at 1 mile per hour.  The hull is so enormous!  Now we are up in the air, on the hard, with our first actual showers in three weeks.  I’m clean, sunburned, dazed, fat and happy.  It will take a few days to get my energy (and mojo) back so we’ll try to take it easy as we prep the boat, arrange for a new engine, and get ready to bus south to Mazatlan to pick up the little Dolphin RV.

Thanks for following us this last season in our water wanderings.  Next up will be some engine replacement stuff and land based travel notes.  For those of you in Seattle and Olympia, get your spare bedrooms ready.  We are coming!  (That’s what she said.)  lol

Can you spot her?

Scott's birthday present to himself.