Skip to main content

First impressions

Image
By
First impressions on being new boat owners: excitement, dismay.

Yesterday we visited Rumiko. And yes, we still think she's a beautiful little boat. We looked up at her, and our hearts started beating faster as we thought about what adventures we have in store.

She's up on stilts or "on the hard" in the Bercovich boat yard - a sunbeaten, dusty place, downwind from a Pemex (state-owned) petroleum refinery. Great neighborhood. Also, beside our boat is the boat yard's welding, painting and machine shop - great fumes coming from there. . .

We opened up Rumiko and started poking into all of the holds and cupboards. The boat had previously been owned by a bachelor, who was going to sail it single-handed. But before he could get into the water, he had a heart attack. So he'd been living on it for the past year or so. The layers of filth are akin to living in a shared-house during university, where the common spaces (kitchens/bathrooms) are disgusting because people don't have the same notion of cleanliness, and the clean-freaks finally give up trying because it's an unwinnable battle. In that case, however, it's a tragedy of the commons. In this case, the guy had no-one else to blame - he was just a bit of a slob.

Anyway, the grime, combined with the fact that the stale air inside of the boat was probably 100 degrees F, produced an overwheming feeling of "we have arrived in purgatory."

We left the boat yard with our truck loaded with stuff from Rumiko that needs to be washed or thrown away. And made a decision to be very focused and get the boat cleaned, repaired and out of the boat yard and into the water as soon as possible.

Having said that, we are not tackling the cleaning and fixing-up just yet. We're taking a few days, starting tomorrow, to join Burke, Kacey and Quinn on the inaugural sail of Isis. We're headed out for a few days to some little islands north of La Paz. It will be their first time sailing their new boat, our first time sailing, ever, and Lisa's 40th birthday. So it's going to be quite the celebration.

Last night, we had the pleasure of eating dinner with parents of our friend Donnelle Keech. They were in a caravan of four small vans/camper-trailers, and had spent the past month driving the Baja peninsula. We were so envious of their stories of sometimes driving just 45 miles from one camp spot to the next. The Baja has such amazing landscapes that we would have loved to have taken our time, too. But we will be traveling that road again, so we'll get to have our fun next time. The evening ended with Donnelle's parents and fellow caravaneers singing a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday," to Lisa, apparently requested by Alan Septoff, Donnelle's husband. Thanks, you guys!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Progress - in a slow sort of way

By
It’s April – several weeks since our last posting – so we thought it was high time we wrote something. For starters, we’re several shades darker than when last we wrote (although some of the “tan” disappears at the end of the day, down the shower drain). And we keep noticing muscles that were not part of our Reno bodies. It’s good to remember that our arms can serve a purpose other than acting as a conduit for messages from our brains to our computer keyboards. Most evenings our rediscovered muscles ache from the day’s activities. Part of the strain has definitely come from contorting ourselves to fit into tiny spaces in order to clean them, sand them or replace hoses, etc. We just realized we have not taken any photos of ourselves in these awkward positions. It’s probably for the best. It wasn’t pretty. The majority of our arm pain, however, comes from repetitive motions like sanding and scrubbing, and removing and tightening screws. But it’s all very much worth the pain. We’re seeing...
6 comments
Read more

Tastes and Sounds of Zihuatanejo

By
We've been in the Zihuatanejo area for the past three weeks, and have enjoyed the heck out of this place. It's been a great social time, and we've had tons of fun with our great friends from Isis . We've also made a nice connection with the folks from the vessel Blue Bottle - Adrienne is a lovely, deeply soulful woman, and Joe has connected with Lisa playing music, and with Dan because they are both photography nuts. We hope to meet up with them again at some point in our journeys. Click here to check out our first batch of photos from Zihuat. As we've mentioned in past blogs, Zihuat has great food options, and we've explored as many of them as possible on our small budget. Indoor Market The central market, which is in a large downtown building, houses fruit and vegetable stands, butcher shops, fresh seafood vendors, eateries, juice bars and other shops. It is a true multi-sensory experience. Our eyes have feasted on the colorful fruits and vegetables; ou...
5 comments
Read more

First time at sea

By
A week ago, Lisa and Dan joined Burke, Kacey and Quinn for the maiden voyage of Isis . We set out on a four-day trip, and ended up staying out five days. We would have been away longer, but we ran out of beer, ice and cocktail mixers (oh, and food, too). And there was the gentle-but-persistent feeling that there was some reason that Lisa and Dan had to get back to La Paz... namely, Rumiko , waiting for her thorough scrub-down and engine installation. Thursday, March 5th was sunny and gorgeous as we headed out of La Paz. We motored out of the main channel, where we passed by the Bercovich boat yard and Rumiko . The oil tanker anchored upwind from the yard provided a great photo-op. Once out of the main channel we headed north for Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida. While Burke and Kacey tested out various equipment on Isis , (the sails, diesel engine, GPS, etc.), Dan and Lisa soaked in both the sun and a lot of new information. Just before dusk we pulled into our anchorage at Caleta...
5 comments
Read more