Ready to go…
We had a couple of days in which to prepare Shannon for her return to the water. That preparation involved unwrapping and undoing all the knots and ties and bindings/covers we had put on her in April. The mud, dust and dirt wasn’t as bad as we’d thought it would be and so the job went smoothly. In fact, we were quite pleased with how she came through the hot, humid, wet, windy summer…even a swipe from Hurricane Paul. The inside looked just as it had the day we left her and there were no signs of any uninvited ‘guests’. The outsides were dusty and had obviously had some heavy sunshine but otherwise they were fine too. So, we got busy and uncovered everything we could and, with the help of Mauricio who scraped, sanded and painted the bottom (we had planned to do it ourselves… but it was waaaay too hot for that kind of work) Shannon was ready to move by early o’clock November 1st. We also cleaned up the propeller and sprayed it with a spray-on zinc coating…. haven’t done this before but time will tell how it works as a protectant from marine growth on the prop.
 Shannon as we found her –awaiting our return |  Note the holes plugged with ‘scrubbies’ to allow air in but keep the critters out |
 All the deck bits were wrapped in old sailcloth or tinfoil |  Dusty deck but everything looks to be in reasonable shape |
 Bottom painting all done |  Painting the anchor chain in the yard – Thanks for the tip Bob James! |
 Prop sprayed with zinc (time will tell how well it works) |  Ready to go |
Splashing Shannon…
As mentioned in our previous post, Shannon was splashed (moved from the dry, boat yard to the water and back to her dock) on November 1st. Unlike home, where a huge crane with slings lumbers up, slips two slings under the boat, lifts it up, lumbers over to the water and gently lowers the boat into the sea…. things are a little more complicated here. The Atalanta Boatyard sports one of the finest boat transport trailers around, but there are no slings and no easy way to move the boat from stands to air to water. The Mexican formula for success involves several men, all yelling at once, a very powerful tractor, and a slowly moving (literally inch by inch) process whereby the stands are carefully moved out as the trailer and it’s mechanical arms slowly move in. The entire ‘show’ took about an hour and was successful in every way. The following photographs show you the sequence of events as they unfolded.
 El Officina |  Uno Grande Trailer |
 Yard dog “Loba” |  Shy little girl |
 Sophie waits in safety of the truck |  Loba waits patiently |
 moving stands |  |
 El Capitan at the wheel |  backing trailer in |
 adjusting stands |  Slowly… Slowly…. |
 getting there |  just a little more... |
 sliding in the bars |  |
 moving the arms into place |  |
 El Capitan on the remote |  Bueno! Looking good |
 ready to roll |  rolling… |
 rolling… |  |
 stopping to let CJ aboard (“Solo uno, Solo el Capitan de Shannon”) |  the view from the helm |
 Mauricio has the remote |  how deep is it? |
 |  |
 Splashdown |  Phew!! all’s dry inside! |
Shannon’s moving team…
 Mauricio |  Mauricio, CJ & Alexandro |
 El Capitan |  Kathy |
 The Princess |
One of the most important pieces of equipment on a cruising boat… is the dinghy. This little beastie is not only a means for exploring beaches, it’s also a necessity. It’s like having your car with you when you visit new places. Not only does it transport crew back and forth to the beach or other boats, but it also carries supplies like food, water, fuel, maintenance equipment and the like. It has to be protected and it must be secured. And, unfortunately for your arms and shoulders, it can’t be towed due to the size and types of waves commonly slapping up behind and around you as you cruise. So, after last season wherein we realized that maybe, just maybe, all these boats with dinghy davits knew something we didn’t. And, after suffering with slightly sprained elbows and shoulders from the constant strain of winching the dinghy out of the water and on to the foredeck each evening and every time we wanted to change anchorages… we finally acquiesced to the knowledge of others… and designed dinghy davits for Shannon. They’re a rather simple design, using the existing arch as a support and the two stainless steel poles (augmented with the addition of steel bars inside) that had been the lower lifeline rails at the cockpit, and some hardware and lines (thank you Earl for pulling that together for us)… we have davits and they work great!! We also acquired a set of new dinghy wheels. These ones have smaller wheels than the last (which means we’ll actually be able to steer the dinghy without the wheels trapping the outboard when they’re up)… and they work using a pneumatic mechanism rather than the “bend over the back of the dinghy, shove your arms up to your shoulders into the water, use one hand to hold the dinghy wheel rail in place and the other hand to try and shove the tiny pin into the tinier hole” method. Phew! Really looking forward to the new method for deploying wheels…. the old way was ridiculous.
 at the doc k |  finding space |
 dinghy wheels (smaller & better) |  dinghy davits – hooray!! |
We have several… shade cloths that is. Between last year and this year we have acquired one system that is made of 80% shade cloth and in ‘tarps’ designed to cover the entire boat (that was for leaving the boat in San Carlos… which we didn’t). Two of these tarps work nicely as a cockpit and deck cover. We also have nice white shade cloth zip-on sides for our cockpit cover. They look very nice, but unfortunately they let in a lot of bright sunlight which doesn’t really solve the problem of hot, hot sun beating down upon your head.. and the princess. I’m afraid this heat is proving a bit of a challenge for our little crew member. She now endures regular dousings with the dock hose and almost daily runs to the beach where she can frolic in the waves chasing bubbles. Other than that she rests in whatever bit of shade and breeze she can find…. And it’s up to us to create that shade for her…. back to shade cloths :-) So, as well as the usual tarps (that don’t hold up in this kind of weather) we have several ways for creating shade on the boat and we’re doing our best to do that. It is a challenge tho’ and should get easier when we’re ‘at sea’. At least when we’re at the marinas, we can plug in and run the fleet of electric fans we now have…
And finally, just to tell you how special the evenings are here. For the moment we do not have any neighbours on our port side. That means that sitting on our little stools, in the cooler breeze of the late afternoon, we can enjoy a glass of crisp white wine and watch the ever-beautiful sunsets over La Paz. It’s a wonderful time of day/night and is becoming quite an enjoyable habit.
That’s about it for now… there’s always more work to be done.. it’s a boat after all :-) And we’ve found a great beach about a half hour drive out of town (Tecolote) where we can soak our hot bods in the sea and sip a cool one in the shade of a palapa. So, we’ll be fine. They say a Northerly is expected on Sunday and that it will cool things down and drop the humidity…. that’ll be ok with us.
Hope all is well with all of you… bye bye for now…. CJ
