Back in the water again. Woo Hoo

Well, it's been an absolute whirlwind of activity.  Two weeks of nonstop go go go, and darn near all of it good.  We have had time to take a few pictures, so I'll try to use them to show and tell.



 These folks are our welcome to San Carlos.  Ramona and Aruellio run the Departmetos Adlai, or Motel Adlai for us gringos.  Wonderful people who provide a clean room with kitchenette for about $32 a night. No cartel here.......

This would be the view from our room.  The tree to the right is a grapefruit, and there is lime and little oranges on the grounds too. One afternoon, Aruellio, who was a restaurant owner before he retired, made us the best Tortilla soup I've ever eaten.  Sorry you missed that.

What you are happy to have missed is the lack of heat in the rooms.  Try as we did, the A/C would not warm the place up - Note that this is concrete country.  The building is entirely concrete, stucco, and ceramic tile.  Great in Summer I bet.  Not complaining, as surely it is a lot nicer here than where we came from in Southern Oregon.  Actually, to my mind, it's been darn near perfect - a cool mid 50's at night and sunny and 70 by 0900 with the afternoon high in mid 70's.  Life is good.  We lucked out by docking next to s/v Laila N with Captain Chuck aboard.  Haven't seen him since '09 on Sojourner.  Anyway, he recently salvaged a boat in Vancouver which had a diesel cabin heater aboard.  I think we'll make a deal on it for IRIE. 

Here's the boatyard where we spent ten days of a planned three.  You can see the masts all lined up in the storage yard behind it too.  I don't think I've mentioned for a while - you can double click on a picture and get a bigger view. 

This year is about cosmetics.  With the fuel tank thing out of the way, and a new $2200 actuator for her autopilot, we hope to be finished with the demanding surprises and be able to work on making IRIE look the way we think she should.

Painting the bootstripe.  The hull is already sanded and ready for fresh bottom paint.

This is called whining about the "dark blue" paint that looks

 black while wearing your boatyard costume.

Meet Pete and Sue Simpson, owners of IRIE in the mid 90's when she was known as s/v Pipe Dream.  Friends of Greg and Janis of s/v Gitana, who you've seen in these pages, and, who in fact sailed on Pipe Dream with these two.  The world is getting small, isn't it? 

This is the view from the condo that Pete & Sue stayed in while in San Carlos.  You can see the dry storage and boatyard in the background.  To the right is the Sea.

The dragon approaches.

She loves getting wet again, called splashing.

Home, home at the dock......

Took this shot during halftime of the Denver/San Diego playoff game.  We're having beers & sodas with friends at the local country club along with another 15 or so folks.  I guess you learn how to hit a golf ball off of dirt.

Some things really don't change that much between here and our other home do they?

Always my favorite       the moonrise sunset.




While we would have liked to be on our way across the Sea to the Baja by now, it looks like we're still at least a week away.  We need to get some varnishing and painting done before we bend on the main sail and even do a shakedown run.  Maybe when we do leave San Carlos we'll try the fast track to La Paz.  Our friend Hector will be sewing some new canvas for IRIE there - we can watch him work for a while.