Dry Land Life

We have been on dry land now for 6 months. We’re looking forward to getting back on the water and spending another season exploring Mexico. Firstly, I can’t believe time has gone by this quickly. It seemed like only yesterday we got the call from our daughter to inform us that she had given birth to a baby boy. Our first grandson. There was no better reason to cut a cruising season short. It has been an absolute blast hanging with them and watching him grow. Its going to be difficult being grandparents from afar but will keep in touch via facetime and snapchat. We know many others in the same boat-lol.

We moved into a spare bedroom in our daughter and son in law’s place. Moving in with your kids is kind of the opposite of a millennial. We had some concerns with how it would work out, but they were unfounded. In fact, they threatened to hide our passports so we couldn’t leave.

Barb has been the chief cook, babysitter, dog walker and happy grandma. This certainly eased the workload on the new parents and allowed them to get some extra sleep and several evenings out. Barb was also able to get a couple of boat related, sewing projects completed so we head back with new winch covers and sunshades.

We knew we would be spending 6 months back in Vancouver so we decided Derick would go and get a temporary job over the summer. I felt like a high school kid going around with a resume asking if places needed some summer help. I was able to land a gig selling motorcycles, off road machines and boats. I worked with some good people and had fun playing on the bikes but I am happy to be retired again.

After being back for awhile, it again shows us how easily one can get used to the simple conveniences of living. Just being able to hop into a car to run errands is a treat. The flip side of that of course is the traffic.

We have had a busy summer with 3 weddings, two of which were out of town, a couple of trips to visit family in the Okanagan and a couple trips to the summer cabins at Ruby Lake. This is, however, the first year in 10 that we have been without a boat in Vancouver. Man did that suck!! With such beautiful cruising grounds in BC, and no boat here, it really made us miss our Stray Cat.

We did receive some bad news a couple of weeks ago, someone broke into the boat yard where we are stored on the hard (on land) and stole our dinghy outboard motor. Five and a half months there with no problem. Two weeks to go until we get back and our luck ran out. We thought we did everything right. Our dinghy was locked and stored under Stray Cat to protect is from the sun. The motor was locked to the dinghy itself, it was covered with an old T shirt so the make, model and condition were not readily apparent and the boat was in a locked compound. Our boat just happened to be the closest to the point of entry, so I guess we were the outboard engine of opportunity. We have insurance but we’ll still be out of pocket about a grand. Sometimes sh*t just happens. Oh yeah, did I mention how much fun? it is to try and buy an outboard from Canada, ship it to a location in Phoenix so it can be then be shipped to Mexico. Let’s just say it was a learning experience.

Our plan is to splash the boat back into the water in the next two weeks. Timing will depend on how the re-commissioning goes. We are keeping our fingers crossed that we will come back to a bug and vermin free boat and no surprises. After a couple days of checking everything out we’ll begin a slow trip southward. We have a group of sailing friends on their boats that will be heading out at around the same time, so we will meet up with them in the various ports and renew friendships over a cold beverage.

We’ll update the blog with more stories, info and pictures as we continue with year two of this crazy little adventure.