On the Road Again

We are back in the water. 11 months for the boat on land, 153 work days for us living on the hard, and we are finally back where we should be.

This was the launch from hell. The Travelift that belongs to Marina Guaymas is too narrow for us so we have to use one that belongs to the neighboring Shrimp Boat repair facility.  It showed up about 3PM with hoisting straps looked like this, covered with mud.

I was not about to let them touch the boat with those so I made them wash them.   Of course they had to use my pressure washer and were not so happy about this.

The sailboat next to us came in after we did using the small yard lift.  Now there wasn't enough room between our boats to bring the big lift in to get us.  So the small lift had to take them away.

Time is ticking away







Finally we get the big lift in place.  Still dealing with the crap on the straps, with the help of all our boatyard friends, we covered them with plastic.


Notice the long shadows.  It's getting late.  Probably after 5PM by now.

And off we go.  Driving down the road over to the shrimper facility things went fine but the workers were now on overtime and still had to haul out a shrimper after we launched.  Not my problem, but I should have been more wary.

Finally in the water, the engines had trouble starting.  I had replaced all the fuel lines and there were some bubbles in the system that had to work their way out.

Now it's getting real late and these shrimper guys were giving me the bums rush out before I got a good test on the engines.  I thought they were just moving me back further from the lift but the next thing I know it they are pushing me out into the channel.  This is BS.



So I put the engines in reverse and the right engine dies.  I stopped the backward motion with the other engine but now the wind had pushed the back of the boat sideways and it was a mess.  Yelling in Spanish, I finally got the boat back into the slip to deal with the engine.  I was pissed that they did this too me but was so exhausted by this time that it really didn't register.

Now, with everything running properly, I put the engines in reverse, cast off the lines and backed out properly.   Anyway, we picked up a few scratches from this fiasco but nothing that can't be fixed next time around.

This is our last view of Marina Guaymas as we departed the next day.   What a great place it was to get work done and what an incredible community of boaters that are living there in their boats on land making the best of not sailing.  Adios amigos.