One More Project Before All the Projects In La Paz

They say "cruising" is really just taking your boat to exotic places and fixing it. Well yesterday and today we got our first taste of  "cruising".

Technically, we were not fixing the boat as much as doing an upgrade. During our last weeks in San Diego, we met a bunch of out of town boats getting ready to head south. One couple I met was from Seattle where they lived aboard. As happens when two sailors start chatting, the discussion quickly turns to boats and boat projects. One project they did was to insulate the deck of their boat. In their case it was primarily done for winters in the NW. They said it worked really well in the cold and they were told to expect it to work just as well for the heat of the tropics. That definitely got my attention.

Neither Elaine nor I sleep well when it is hot. On TARDIS, the blue hull combined with the relatively poor air flow in the aft cabin make our boat warmer than most. We decided that the project would be worth doing but the material arrived too late for us to get it done in San Diego. Now while we won't be seeing any major heat for several months, the material took up quite a bit of space and we need the room in the V Berth for our friend Barry who is joining us for our first leg to La Paz. So while strolling around Ensenada and eating lobster sounded good, we buckled down and knocked the project out. It was not the worst project we have done but it was still pretty dirty and involved taking the entire aft section of the boat apart. One thing Elaine did like is that the boat was too messed up to spend the night aboard after the first day so we got a room at the adjacent hotel - can you say long hot shower ???

Hopefully our two days of work will be rewarded with many cool restful evenings. Somewhere down the road we will report on how it worked.

With that done, it is on to the fun stuff!! Tomorrow (Sat.) our friends Frank and Rachael are coming down to Ensenada to spend a week. They recently bought a new to them boat and they are keeping the boat in Ensenada to get some work done. We haven't spent quality time with them for quite a while so it is a bit of a reunion. We are really looking forward to it.

As of now, the 23rd is our "scheduled" departure date for La Paz but it is still too far out to get a sense of the weather so our plan is shall we say flexible.