De-sailing

La Paz, BCS, Mexico

We are now in the process of officially turning this boat into a motor vessel.



Stay sail on the dock

In order to leave the boat here in La Paz for the summer (hurricane season), we have to take down all possible windage.  Since this is a sailboat, windage is what we have the most of.  Thus, the removal of all the sails.

The Genoa was already off from when we took it to the sail maker to get the UV strip re-done.  We have had it back for several weeks now, stowed conveniently by our bed in the forward cabin.

This week, we first removed the stay sail and its cover.  This is relatively easy since this is quite a small sail. This is now cleaned and stacked neatly beside the bag holding the Genoa.  Space in our bedroom is getting to be a bit of a premium.  The sailcover was in pretty bad shape and Susanne spent a day mending some seams and re-sewing the zipper - now it looks pretty good for a 10-year old cover, although it is not really the same colour it was when in was first made (the sun does a good job of bleaching sunbrella fabric here in Mexico).


We left the main sail for the last, knowing that we would have to stumble around it in the boat once it was down below.  On Sunday, we finally did the deed.  We got up early so we could get to work on it by 7 AM.  There was a little breeze blowing, just enough to keep it from getting too hot but not enough to be a bother with taking the sail off.


Nothing about taking the sail or sail cover off is particularly complicated - it is just awkward with all that stiff canvas to deal with on a 5-foot wide dock.  Since the boom on this boat is 22 feet long, it means there are some very long battens in both the sail and sail cover - we will store these down below when we leave the boat, but for now they will just be laid out on the deck so we will not be tripping over them all the time.

Sue has done an incredible job of cleaning the sail and sail cover and has spent a couple of days on the sewing machine re-installing the long zippers on the cover.  The sunbrella fabric stands up pretty well in the sun but the thread holding everything together does not fair so well.

The sail is now bagged and stowed in the back cabin, along with the kayak, life rings, cockpit cushions and too many other things to keep track of.

Today, we hired a diver to clean off the bottom of the boat and propeller.  He will be looking after this issue while we are back in Canada for the rest of the summer.  Stuff grows too fast in these nutrient-rich waters to just leave it alone for 3 months.


Can you find Waldo?

Just so you don't think it is all work for us, we have been to the movie theatre twice more this week.  They have the air conditioning turned up so high that we were tempted to rent blankets when watching the pictures (yes, they have them available).   These theatres remain one of the best kept secrets in La Paz -  as you can see, it is standing room only.

Yesterday, we saw the newest Spiderman movie in 3D.  You pay extra for 3D movies, 100 pesos (about $7.50 CDN) each for tickets, and they use the bigger theatre (probably better able to handle the crowds).

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