After a summer back on the Island, we left home in early October, headed back to our boat in Puerto Penasco, Mexico.   Our plan was to jump right in to get the boat sandblasted, complete the paint job and get her in the water by early November.   You know what the say about the best laid plans…

Things got off to an inauspicious start right off the bat – while at dinner at our hotel in Vancouver on October 2, I commented to Owen that it was strange that we had not yet received a notice to check in to our flight.   I opened the West Jet app and nearly had a heart attack – the flight that I was absolutely positive was booked for October 3?   The flight that I booked all hotel rooms and rental cars around?   That flight?   Ummm – turns out it was actually for October 4!!!!   Ooops – after a few desperate attempts to change our flights to the 3^rd, we gave up and added another night to our hotel reservation in Vancouver.   We also called our hotel and car rental company in Phoenix to beg them not to mark us as no shows and to confirm that we would be there – just 24 hours later than planned!!!  

After a quiet, rainy day hanging out in our hotel in Vancouver, we were finally able to fly out to Phoenix a day late.   We arrived late evening and were surprised to realize that, in the chaos of making our connection in Calgary we had actually already checked in to the US!!!   We gathered our luggage and then headed to the car rental.   I had been a bit concerned about taking our car to Mexico and had made a call to Budget ahead of time to confirm that I would in fact be able to take the car over the border.  Of course, when we went to collect the car, they advised that we were not permitted to do so…. After a few back and forths and thankfully being able to provide the name of the person who had told us we could, we were able to get our car, and our Mexican insurance, and head to the hotel with just enough time for McDonald’s drive through dinner before falling into bed!!

The next day saw us trying to accomplish everything we had planned to do in 2 days all in one day – of course the stops we needed to make had us hitting nearly all of the communities surrounding Phoenix proper, and winding our way on and off of countless on and off-ramps – driving in that city is not for the faint of heart!!!    We managed to make it to the fabric store, West Marine, Home Depot, Target and Costco before heading back to the hotel after dark.  

Our last day in Phoenix we made a stop to pick up our paint and, with our car literally loaded to the ceiling, we headed for the border.     We were pleasantly surprised to be waived through the border with almost no questions and an hour later, arrived at our rental apartment in Puerto Penasco.   We unloaded the car into the apartment and then headed over to check on our girl.    Unfortunately, we were not immediately able to get our hands on a set of stairs to get up to the boat, so were only able to reassure ourselves that she was still standing and still where we left her – sadly now buried about 4 boats deep at the back of the yard.    We did a quick grocery shop and stop at a local barbeque chicken place and, after 3 very long days, were relieved to drop into bed.

We were able to get a staircase early the next day and hesitantly went up to check on her – I admit to having fears of finding the boat infested with bugs, or finding some sort of vermin skittering around but, other than a pile of sand inside, let in by the hatch that we mysteriously left open, the boat looked really good.   We next hunted down the boatyard manager to discuss when we would be moved to be sandblasted – this was our first hint that we might have a long wait.   The answer was something akin to “well there are a lot of boats to move to get you out and no where to put them – oh and we are currently storing boats in the sand lot, soo…..”    Given that we had been making the arrangements to have this done since January, reconfirmed in May and then followed up with messages as we prepared to return to the boat, we were less than pleased.     We tried to make some sense of the boat and then, succumbing to the heat, returned to our apartment.

We drove back to Phoenix the next day to return our rental car, dropping it at the airport.   We grabbed an Uber from there to a shuttle that would take us back to Mexico, and were back at the apartment by about 10pm that night.

Did I mention the heat – the first few weeks we were back in Mexico, it was regularly 40 – 42 degrees (104 and up for our American friends).   Our walk to the boatyard was about 15 minutes and by the time we would get to the yard, we were swimming in sweat.   Every day found us trying to accomplish tasks, only to need to escape to the air-conditioned cruisers’ lounge until our brains cooled enough to think again!!!  

Owen decided to start working on the dodger (we left Canada with the dodger finally assembled but merely coated in a layer of house primer) – it needed to be fiber-glassed and painted.   Here was another point where the heat was a battle – everything we were working with was drying or kicking off so quickly we had to work in really small sections or lose a bunch of product.     I worked on trying to get the boat cleaned up a bit, a tough job given that I was still navigating around bins of food, our sails, boxes of paint and a kayak!   We didn’t want to move items up onto the deck because we would just need to move them back when (and if) we got sandblasted.

Nearly every day we checked in to see what the progress was in getting us moved – only to realize that yet more boats were being moved into the sand lot (in an attempt to get to boats that were actually trying to go in the water) and in fact it seemed that as many boats were being hauled out to be stored somewhere as were going back in! 

Getting packages delivered to Mexico is a challenge to say the least – items apparently regularly get stopped at customs and, if they make it past there, don’t always make it to their intended destination.   As an alternative, because Puerto Penasco is so close to the Lukeville border crossing, the Gas Trak at Lukeville will accept and hold packages  – you drive to the border to pick them up and are generally back at the yard within a few hours.   We were waiting on the parts for our water maker along with orders from Sailrite and Defender.   Once we knew most of the packages were there, we rented a car and drove up.   As is the custom in the boatyard, we offered to pick up packages for anyone else expecting items to be there – as a result, we returned to the border with our car again piled to the ceiling – only to again be waived right through.   We did stop on this trip to go in and get our FMM (our tourist Visa) – we had not received one when we first arrived, nor when we returned by shuttle – as Puerto Penasco is an Arizona party town and people are often just going for short periods, the border crossing is very casual and FMMs are not generally issued.   We would need it to check in and out of ports though, so we did need to go and get that dealt with.

As the days dragged on and we continued to languish in the back of the boat yard, checking often to see when we might be moved, we became increasingly frustrated and frankly ready to be out of the yard and the town.   We lived through Razor fest (a gathering of what can only be described as toothless wonders speeding through town in their Razors and other ATV’s – generally with a beer in hand, music blaring and no concern for the safety of anyone who may be walking around).   That was followed all too shortly by bike week – a gathering of 8000+ motorbikes, none of which had mufflers – even at our apartment which was away from most of the areas that the bikers were gathering, we could hear them roaring up and down the main highway all day and all night.   

Finally, three weeks after we arrived, and three days later than the tentative date that had been suggested, our boat was moved to the sand lot – it is exactly what it sounds like – the sand in the lot was ankle deep.   The sandblasting was to start Monday – it did not.  On Tuesday, we watched as they moved a 50’ Beneteau to the sandlot for storage while they again shuffled boats.    We were pretty sure we were again going to wait to be sand blasted but, after a couple of hours to get the equipment actually working, they actually blasted our boat, with this poor cruiser parked only about 50’ from our boat!!!   We felt terrible, but at the same time, we needed the job to be done.   We did shut things down only about an hour and a half after they started the first day as the wind was pushing all the sand and rocks from our job onto the Beneteau.   The second day we got nearly a full day of blasting in and they finally finished before lunch on day 3.   

Each day, as soon as they were finished, we would start to apply primer – we needed to get the bare metal covered immediately and then, once we had a coat of primer on, the next had to be applied within 24 hours (otherwise we would need to sand).   We started with a “high build” primer (4 coats), and followed that with a sandable primer (2 coats).  After that, we needed to sand the boat in an attempt to reduce the orange peel texture that was left after so many coats.   We used 60 grit sandpaper which would only last about 10 minutes before it stopped cutting.   We were having to put huge pressure on to even touch the texture and we were working in half hour shifts as any longer than that, our arms were nearly falling off!   That round of sanding took about 5 days and by the end, we were exhausted!!!  

During this time, we were watching friend’s boats being launched and becoming increasingly discouraged that we would ever get back in the water.  We were also making new friends with other couples stranded in the sand lot and welcoming other friends back to the boatyard.   The entire experience would have been so much worse without the wonderful people also stuck is some level of purgatory in the boatyard as well as the awesome staff in the yard!!!

At some point in this process, we had moved all of the extraneous items out from below deck, piling everything up on deck under cover of tarps.    Even though we were done sandblasting, they still blasted two more boats in our yard immediately after us and, the yard next door was blasting a big party boat, sand and rocks were literally raining down on our boat all day every day.    We finally moved back to the boat six weeks after arriving in Mexico (having extended our rental by two weeks).   While were happy to not have to do the walk to and from the apartment every day, I was less pleased about the idea of having to walk half a block down the street to go to the washroom or (ewww) use the outhouse that sat immediately under our boat (that was only a middle of the night thing).    For reasons we don’t understand, they started to leave the puppies in our yard at night (they are nearly a year old now but we still called them the puppies) – and they are still very much puppies.   I was making a dreaded trip to the outhouse one night only to have Riply throw herself at the door of the outhouse to remind me she was there – scared the life out of me.   They also managed to rip the plastic that we had covering our new hot water tank off nearly every night and most frustratingly, ripped our dinghy cover in an apparent game of tug of war.    Boatyard living had other challenges – there are 4 washrooms at the yard – three of them have showers but only one reliably had hot water and pressure – one did not have a hot water tank so as the days grew shorter and cooler, the water in the rooftop gravity tank was somewhat less than hot.    The other shower could best be described as a drizzle most of the time.   As such, most evenings there was easily an hour wait to shower – a great chance to chat with other boatyard prisoners, but when you are covered in sanding dust and feel grimy and gross, you just want a shower!!!  In addition, there seems to be something missed in translation about wax seals on toilets.   The toilets at nearly every washroom were generally leaking around the base and the solution seemed to be to put another bead of caulking (rather than a new or second seal) – between the water from the showers and the water from the toilets, you were usually wading around in the washrooms.   On a high note, there were nights like the movie night with a screen slung up across the front of a catamaran and everyone snuggled in below on lawn chairs, or the night a bunch of cruisers decided to join up for margaritas at one of the local restaurants (with amazing sunset views), in an effort to help support the struggling local businesses. (those margaritas had to be at least triples and apparently my 2^nd one was not a good idea – I paid for that night until well into the next day!)

We finally started to apply top coat – not getting exactly the results we were hoping for.   We kept adjusting the amount of thinner we were using in an attempt to get the paint to flow better but were still ending up with a lot of orange peel.   So again, after 2 coats of top coat, we started to sand – taking the layers down to as smooth a finish as we could manage.   We started the final coat on a Friday – using a foam roller as an attempt to eliminate the orange peel.   I was just getting started in the early afternoon after having wiped the boat down to remove the ever present layer of grime and grease, when we were told that we would be moved out of the sand lot that day – eek – I couldn’t stop in the middle of a side of the boat without leaving big lines, so I needed to get that side done asap before they came in to move us – at about 3pm I was still trying to finish painting that side when the skateboard arrived to move us – I was literally on a ladder finishing the last ¼ of the side while they took out boat stands and got us ready to move.   We were moved over to the main lot and literally dropped in the middle of the lot for the weekend.   At first, I thought this was a great thing as I thought it would be cleaner for doing the final coat on the other side and transom (it is paved rather than sand).   As it turned out, Saturday was a big wind day and clouds of dust would come from the other lot across the street and literally bombard me (and my wet paint) as I tried to paint.  At one point my entire tray, roller, brush and thinner was blown right off the ladder.   I ended up with some kind of debris in a big streak in the paint (I tried to fix it made it oh so much worse!!!).   We finally had to abandon that back corner and do another sand and fix on that corner the next day.     We had discussed the possibility that we would be able to splash that coming Wednesday but, after realizing that the paint was not drying very quickly (our extreme heat had by this time given way too much shorter and somewhat cooler days and very cool nights (about 12 – 14 overnight), which meant that the paint was taking at least 36 hours to dry (rather than the 12 or so that we were expecting).   We weren’t able to put on a tape line to mark the water line and paint the bottom for at least a couple of days.  

By this time, it was mid-December and we were becoming increasingly worried that we would not be able to launch before Christmas – the yard shuts down beginning December 22 and does not reopen until January 4 so if we didn’t get in before then, we would be there over Christmas and New Years.   I honestly could not imagine anything worse!!!    It had occurred to me that, if we were not able to make the launch, I was going to check into one of the nearly empty resorts on the beach with a heated pool and someone to bring me pina coladas all day.  (The US government temporarily closed the Lukeville border crossing and this has led to a dramatic drop in tourism in the town – as it is the main economy the effects were definitely being seen with super low occupancy at hotels, empty restaurants and a lot of people sadly out of work).

We were again moved on the Monday – rather suddenly.   I was up in the boat, in jammies and a fuzzy house coat, just about to pour my coffee when I heard the skateboard (the skateboard is a lift that moves the boat from underneath rather than the normal sling type lift – this allows the boats to be jam-canned in closer together than they could ever be if they needed to get the sling lift in between them) fire up – I rushed out to get down to the ground before I went for a ride in the boat – that meant I was wandering the boat yard in jammies and house coat, with hair going every which way, and worst of all, coffee-less, for about two hours while the boat got moved and reblocked.    We were finally able to start putting the tape line on on the Tuesday (shocked to realize that that back corner that had to be touched up on Sunday was still just ever so tacky!)

I got the first coat of bottom paint on on one side that night (literally finishing as the sun was going down).   The next day I was able to get to two coats on both sides and the day after that I did two more coats at the waterline.    We had now decided that we were going to launch on Monday – no matter what (we did have holes in the bottom of the boat at this time so Owen had a couple of projects to do).

We spent the next few days working at a feverish pace just trying to get the boat to a state that it could be launched.   Of course, there were also opportunities to socialize – a Saturday gathering for Tamales and potluck (as well as a firepit set up right on the road) and Sunday dinner with boat friends.   After dinner on Sunday, we went to the bank to grab pesos, knowing the opportunity to get them down the Baja coast would be few and far between, and happened upon a parade… a few minutes were lost to that!   Owen got the holes that could actually sink us plugged and I got all painting touch ups done.   We did a run for diesel at about 9pm on Sunday night.   Luckily, the water truck had been in the yard on Saturday so that was pretty topped up.  We worked until 1am on Sunday night, getting the headsail on and the dinghy on deck.   We were up at 5am to get the final items moved back up onto the deck and to stow as much as we possibly could.   The guys were at the boat at 6:45 to ask if we were listo (ready) – and listo or not, they had us in the slings and into the water by 7:30 – at long, long last, on December 18 –  almost 2 ½ months after returning to the boat (with our one month refit plan!) we were back in the water!!!!  

We motored out of the port and anchored off the beach (in front of those fancy, almost empty hotels) and got the mainsail on and all of the various crap that we had dumped on deck tucked away below.   Thankfully we knew we were in for very light to no winds so we weren’t as concerned about the chaos down below – it could be dealt with later!!!   At about 2pm, we picked up the anchor and headed out for our first destination, back to Refugio, about a 106 miles away.   There was almost no wind all night – we managed about 2 hours of sailing before we were again going below 3 knots.   But, on a high note, the night was not nearly as cold as we had feared it might be and we both had great sleeps when off watch.   We arrived in Puerto de Refugio at about noon on December 19, dropping the hook and finally turning off the engine.   We are finally back out here!!!!

We still have tons of stuff to be done – the water maker still needs to be installed, along with the emergency bilge pump and the cockpit drains.   The dodger still needs one last coat of paint (it was pretty much abandoned once the sand blasting started!) and we have a ton of sewing projects to be done.    I haven’t even taken the tape off the windows yet!!!!    We will be here a few days and will knock off a couple of items and then intend to move to a nice, very protected bay where we will likely stay through Christmas.   

After that, who knows?    We are headed for the mainland but would like to make a few stops on the Baja – I guess as long as the weather allows it, we will just slowly make our way down the coast before jumping across the Sea.

For now, I intend to enjoy rocking at anchor, being able to use my own head and not sanding or painting for a few days!!!!