First impressions

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!