We've all watched countless boats get outfitted for the big adventure. Thousands are invested in custom stainless steel arches, davits, and canvas. After all who wants to head south without covers for everything, awnings, and all those goodies?

If you're doing all that stop. There are plenty of talented canvas workers and stainless steel fabricators in Mexico. What you need to do though is bring your own materials. You can purchase rolls of Sunbrella and stainless tubing (316 preferably) and bring it with you. In the late fall and winter months you really don't need awnings. Bring everything with you and build it down here. You will have the advantage of being able to to talk to some long time cruisers and get advice on who to use and how have your canvas built. As a general rule any awning needs to be quickly removable. Bring as much of the needed hardware for your canvas as you can. One person I spoke with recently got charged around $85USD for some shock cord used on the edge of a foredeck awning.

Need help sourcing materials? Drop me a line or visit our website and use the quote request form. I can steer you to a supplier or it may be something we can arrange. For those of you in the SF Bay area we bought our stainless tubing from Alco Metals in Hayward. We bought enough stainless for mast pulplits and a swim platform along with the aluminum we used to mount the solar panels. Total was around $243. We probably saved 70% compared to buying stainless here. Unfortunately we are a bit short on cash so we have not been able to get those items fabricated. We brought 31 yards of Sunbrella with us. We are doing our own sewing so we've been going through some of that. The next big sewing project will be awnings. It cools off enough at night we haven't really needed them yet here in Banderas Bay.

Today's picture is one of my favorites from our time on Espiritu Santo. It was taken at Bonanza Beach on the east side.