Greetings to all you sailors or would be sailors out there. It is past time for a update from Kievit and her captains Dave and Marj. Kievit has been in dry dock (On the Hard, as we sailors say.) for the past six months. Marj and Dave have been off to California, Colorado, and the East Coast (mostly Philadelphia) visiting with family and friends and taking care of house responsibilities in CA.
We flew back to La Paz, Baja Mexico on Dec 14, expecting Kievit to have new bottom paint and ready to splash back into the Gulfo de California. However, things don't work like that in Mexico. It seems the shipyard workers, who were busy on Kievit when we left, had stopped working as soon as we were out of sight of the marina. They had even lost all of the paper work on what work they were supposed to do on the boat. Fortunately, they took our word on how much I had paid them , what work was left to be done, and how much we still owed them. They did get busy on the job and have promised we will have Kievit back in the water on Monday, Dec 19. Meantime, Marj and Dave are staying at Casa Buena, a nice B&B that most of the gringo cruisers use, while waiting for boat work to be done. We have managed to do some of the work on Kievit while she is still on ground.
We had covered Kievit with a plastic tarp while away. That worked pretty well, except the cheap plastic tarp that you can get down here deteriorates in the sun, so we had lots of blue plastic dust and shreds all over the boat. The inside of Kievit looked just like we left her last June. In the last days Kievit has a new raw water pump installed, new fuel filters, new line to the furling jib, most of the stainless steel polished, solar panels back in place, cockpit dodger reinstalled, sails ready to go up, etc. The "ground crew" has the new bottom paint on and the water line repainted.
So, if all of the boat systems check out (meaning radios, gps systems, radar, autohelm, refrigeration, motor, etc), we will be off to Mazataan in the first favorable weather break. There is a tendency for strong northern winds this time of year and they cause the buildup of 5-6 foot, close, choppy waves on the Gulf of California. One can sail on such a sea, but it's not fun and the autohelm really dosen't like it. In such conditions the captains would have to steer all night long and they wouldn't like it. Therefore, we will wait for the right weather break and head off across the Sea. The distance is 240 Km and we can make 5-6 Km/hr. We plan to be out there for a night or two. Don't know if we will be here in La Paz for Christmas or off to new ports. Either way, we will be thinking of friends and family and wishing you all the Merriest of Christmases and the Happiest of New Years.
Stay tuned and we will let you know how it goes - or went.