Marina Chiapas, on the border of Mexico and Guatemala, has a dry-storage yard for boats. It’s open for debate if storing dry or storing in the water is less wear and tear on a boat but this year we’re going to try “on the hard”. A number of things have to line up for this to happen.
-There has to be space in the yard — with power to run an A/C unit and dehumidifier.
– There have to be sufficient jack stands to support the boat once it’s out of the water.
– Because of the size of the travel-lift and the length of the keel on Island Summers, I was told I needed to disconnect the forestay of the mast. A forestay is the wire that runs from the top of the mast to the bow (front) of the boat. Its primary function is to provide forward support to the mast, preventing it from falling backward (aft). This is a potentially dangerous and definitely difficult task that will need to be repeated when we put Island Summers back in the water.
We’d originally scheduled a haul out but other boats were sliding into the yard and taking up what little space was available this late in the season. We rescheduled with the yard for the next week. Friday morning the yard was unable to locate enough jack stands for our boat so we had to wait. In the meantime, expecting a week to prep the boat before leaving for home we decided to mov our reservations to return home up a week. Now we were crunched between enough time to prep the boat once we got hauled out and our plane reservations.
The following Tuesday we did get the boat hauled out and we began a frantic round of activity to get ready to leave in a few days. Tasks that were delayed waiting to be hauled out had to be done quickly. Kevin has a spreadsheet of items to ‘summerize’ the boat. There are 79 items on the list from “remove and stow the sails” to ‘remove the depth sensor’. Bev has her list, too.
Some of the items on the list were done but there were lots of things left to do — starting with re-connecting the forestay. With the help of 5 yard workers Kevin was able to pull the forestay tight enough to re-install a large pin connecting the forestay to the bow. With 3 days of hard work we got our tasks done. Phew! In the meantime we’d made hotel reservations near the marina in a Mexican hotel, La Perla del Pacifico in Puerto Madero. La Perla’s main recommendation was that it was inexpensive and took dogs. (Have we mentioned that traveling with a dog is harder?) Since it had A/C it was OK but definitely not stellar accomodations. Oh well, all part of the adventure!
We were out of options of places to stay for 3 nights since this boat yard will not allow us to stay on the boat when its on jack stands. Other boat yards in Mexico will allow you to stay but what’s worse: a boat high in the air on jack stands where you have to climb a tall extension ladder fully extended to reach the boat and you can’t use the boat plumbing OR stay in a 0 star Mexican hotel? Again, all part of the adventure 🙂
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