Last week of refit

Fran and Santa Mike

Fran's new boots

Spiffy prop

Our new transom logo

Sunday, 18 December, Still on the hard in Guaymas
This should be our last night on the hard. We are due to launch in the morning after a long 3 week refit and we are eager to get back on the water. The lift was repaired last week and we have finished all of our critical projects. The van has been moved to San Carlos and parked in a friends’ yard waiting to be driven back to Sierra Vista where it will wait for us until our return in May. The bottom has been painted yet again and we have an interesting looking “green” propeller with zinc-chromate primer and a Prop-Speed coating. We have managed to find a home for much of the stuff we brought down. Anything surplus to our needs was put back into the van to be brought home or sold during the last few weeks. The old LTH golf cart batteries that we replaced were sold off in pairs, the last pair leaving today. What a relief it was to get rid of those, but I must admit that there still was a lot of life left in them, maybe not enough for our next few years but most of the people who bought them were looking for a temporary relief for dead or dying battery. Yesterday we had to buy another 12 volt starter bank battery after finding that one had died completely. Our last task today was to rig a line from the end of the keel to the rudder to prevent any fishing lines or nets from fouling the prop. The catamaran “Airborne” had a similar system and it looked like a grand idea. The theory is that any lines or nets will slide from the keel, along the line and under the rudder and not pop up between the keel and rudder. We have added another 110 ft of anchor cable giving us about 300 ft and still lots of room in the anchor cable locker.
We also took advantage of the time on the hard to do some interior refinishing. Fran sewed up a sunshade for the front windshield and a new 4-way wind-scoop after finding the last one had become brittle over the summer. J-G installed the repaired propane controller that had died the “night of the scorpions” last season and also installed the AIS receiver and all of the refurbished woodwork that we had brought down.
Fran now has a new set of cowboy boots. She has wanted a pair to line dance and ride in for a while now and found a place in town where she could get them made to measure. She initially ordered a goat and cowhide pair after being told that ostrich was 4 times more expensive but when she went to pick them up she was told that they had run out of cow hide and had to use ostrich – no extra cost. She actually hugged the salesman! With the boots she also got a free belt but it was too large but it did fit J-G, so now we both have our Christmas presents.
Tonight we had a wee cocktail party aboard with Patty and Tony (Forbes and Cameron, who are folk singers of repute), Susie and Ron (Gold Eagle), and Arlette and Dick (Quatro de Mayo). Susie is a Mexican so we had to translate all of our stories to Spanish so she could understand. Too bad we are leaving. She has been a very good sounding board for our poor Spanish for the past few weeks and we have learned a lot from her.
Steve and Linda (Warren Peace) should be leaving any day now for Mazatlan. They splashed a few days ago and have been fixing some last minute problems. They are due to be in Mazatlan in a few days and will save us a spot. We hope to be there for Christmas and leave for Banderas Bay on the 26th or 27th and hope fully make it to Barra de Navidad for New Years.
Hope the weather cooperates. It will be a very dark couple of nights on our way down to Mazatlan but we have done that before.