Water bound - Sail Joana Charters

It was such a mad rush getting ourselves out of yard and Shelter Bay marina that we left the blog writing to be done back here in San Blas, allowing what stress was built up to flitter away with the tropical breezes.

There were many times of discouragement in yard, feeling there is no end to the the repetitiveness of the work. But, with the great people we met and at times, the well needed happy hours we pushed on through. Surprisingly, the two months went by fast. We estimated that we did 200 Hours of grinding, 50 Hours of sanding ,25 gallons of primer, topside and bottome paint , felt like 25 Feet of rain ,120 hours of happy hour , 60 days of just beeing fed up ,excluding the time spent at the bar. But as all boat owners know, it is a necessary evil.

Usually the splashing process ( going back into the water) isn’t so bad to watch. However, because she is such a big girl who has a lot of jam in her jelly, they had to move one boat first so they could bring the fork lift around to tilt one side of her stern up and over a bit so they could get the boat trailer under her. And if it wasn’t nerve wracking to see it once, they had to do it on the other side as well!

Once in the water, we commonly check all the sea cocks and bilges to make sure she is dry. I was about half way though my walk through when Cath yells down “um Maria, they’re pushing us out of the slings into the bay.” I ran up, gave Victor the lift operator a not so friendly look to which his look relayed ” if you have problems I rather them happen out of my lifting dock.”

We had decided earlier in the week that we would stay a few extra days in a slip to provision, load on new batteries, fill our water tanks and do some laundery before we headed out.

Provisioning and batteries went well except hard on the wallet. But, we waited a little too long to do our water top up and laundry. In typical Shelter Bay fashion, the water went out for 36 hours. There was no time for waiting since we had guests coming on the 26. No worries, we had power and our watermaker so the guests slept in clean sheets.

We stocked the boat with orders from friends in San Blas, shanghaied a friend from another boat and loded up some precious cargo (Keith – our friend from the catermeran Kookaburra). He is supposed to do a boat delivery but was delayed so he hitched a ride to surprise his wife in San Blas.

It felt great to be underway again, even though it was a motor trip back in a rolly sea with no wind to stabilize us. Two months in yard was showing its self as we had not done a great job of sea stowing the boat. But, it kept us entertained, finding out what went bump, crash, boom in the night.

All in all, our time at Shelter Bay went smoothly. As any one can expect with living in Central America, it took some creativity to get things done and find what you need. But, that’s all part of the adventure we seek in this life of cruising now isn’t it ?

Ready to be splashed

Lifting her for the trailer