Published 05/24/2025
This is the last post that I plan to do for this blog.
The boat is on the hard, in the working yard to finish up some repairs, it should be moved to the storage yard at Marina Seca in San Carlos by late May. (As of May 24 when I am writing this, it has not moved yet, even though we have asked and no work has been done in a day or longer). Our trip home was long.
May 16 Friday Driver from San Carlos to Puerto Peñasco
May 17 Saturday drive from Puerto Peñasco to Lordsburg NM 365 miles
May 18 Sunday Lordsburg NM to Roswell, NM 309 miles
May 19 Monday Roswell, NM to Amarillo, TX 213 miles
May 20 Tuesday Amarillo, TX to Fort Smith, OK, 439 miles
May 21 Wednesday Fort Smith, OK to home 402 miles
When we got to Amarillo, we visited Tracy and Danele from SV Parable who we sailed with in Mexico this season. They have grandkids visiting them (8 year old twins, boy and a girl). I got my beard braided. We had a great time with them and then continued our trip.
We arrived home early afternoon, and did a little unpacking then went to church for an ice cream event and a bible study then home.
As I said this is the last post for this blog, we have had 6 seasons on the boat, starting in 2019 with getting the boat in San Diego and doing our first shake down cruise up to Monterey, and back to San Diego. Then South to Mexico. The first season we went to Puerto Peñasco and left the boat on the hard. This was the first experience we had with leaving the boat without shore power for any length of time, and when we got back the house bank battery was at 3 volts, which meant we had to replace it. This was an expensive proposition and difficult as there were no electrical technicians in the area. I worked with another cruiser and he was able to do the work that was beyond my abilities. We upgraded to LiFePO4 (lithium) batteries and replaced the inverter/charger. When we left Puerto Peñasco, we said we were never going back, as it was dirty and dry and a long trip north/south to get there and leave etc. Of course that is not how things worked out.
In our next season we headed south and eventually wound up spending the Covid season in the Sea of Cortez, it was a very quiet season with very few other sailors. We took an outstanding side trip to Copper Canyon riding the El Cheppe train from Los Mochis this was a week out of our sailing adventure. We spent 6 weeks in Santa Rosalía (our favorite marina in Mexico) and eventually wound up back in Puerto Peñasco.
The next season we headed south and eventually got to Puerto Vallarta and discovered Banderas bay. This was our favorite place to sail and bring visitors. We left our boat here for the hurricane season and got new sails and running rigging (the ropes that go with the sails). We did more upgrades and repairs to the boat.
Somewhere in here, the stock market tanked (2022) and we decided to go back to work for a year to replenish the cruising kitty. So, we had a friend come to the boat and sail with us back to Puerto Peñasco to put it on the hard for the year of 2023. This was a long fast trip with very little sailing (35 minutes, I think). We worked in Missouri and while both of really enjoyed our jobs, and made a difference, we really did not want to work so, back to sailing! During this year, we sold our house in Florida and bought our new house in Savannah, Tennessee.
2024 saw us rigging the boat and sailing south from Puerto Peñasco to Banderas Bay, Puerto Vallarta. We left the boat in Paradise Village in Puerto Vallarta (this was the second or third time we did that) for Hurricane season. Late in the year a decision was made regarding Reneé’s mother Bonnie to have her come and live with us in Tennessee. I want to be very clear, Reneé and I had discussed this possibility many times over the last 10 years (or so), especially when we were sailing. What would we do when the time came for he mom to move in with one of the kids rather than go from assisted living to the next level of care. The answer was always that we would have a house and sell the boat and she would move in with us where ever we were. This meant that 2025 was our last season of sailing.
At the end of 2024 we bought an enclosed cargo trailer, two axle, 7’x16’. We towed it to Puerto Peñasco, we evaluated towing it to Puerto Vallarta but the crime situation in Mexico, made that look like a less than ideal drive. We parked the truck and trailer at the boat yard in Puerto Peñasco, then took a bus to Mexicali and flew to Puerto Vallarta. We got back to the boat in Paradise Village with a plan to sail north to Puerto Peñasco.
We really enjoyed our last trip north sailing as much as we could, hiding out from the high winds and visiting with friends along the way. I had been talking with one guy on an Island Packet 420 for a couple of years on Facebook, but we had never actually met, even though we were both sailing in Mexico. This year we continued to miss each other by a days sail or maybe a couple. We eventually wound up in Santa Rosalía in neighboring slips. Our next passage was to San Carlos and the end of this saga.
We spent a few days at anchor in Lalo cove near San Carlos then a week in the marina at San Carlos getting ready to haul out.
To answer the question of how we wound up in San Carlos this time, consider the following:
– [ ] We had a part that had to be replaced before selling the boat (the mast collar plate at the deck that the mast goes through). This required pulling the mast out of the boat.
– [ ] Boat yards that could do this work and the pros/cons to each one:
– [ ] San Diego – a long bash against the current and winds up the west coast and very expensive
– [ ] Ensenada – almost as expensive as San Diego
– [ ] Cabo San Lucas – expensive and not hurricane safe so while the work could be done we could not leave the boat there for hurricane season
– [ ] La Paz – expensive and not hurricane safe
– [ ] Puerto Escondido – (this is about 1/2 way between La Paz and Santa Rosalía) not hurricane safe, and no reputation for work in the yard
– [ ] Puerto Peñasco – hurricane safe, relatively easy access to parts in the states, NO technical support and not necessarily able to re-tension the standing rigging for the mast (if I was doing the work this would not be an issue)
– [ ] San Carlos – hurricane safe (just out of the hurricane zone as required by the insurance company), good yard, good references and a friend recommended a particular ex-pat local (Allan Smith) that knew how to get things done on boats in San Carlos
– [ ] Mazatlan – not hurricane safe, no reputation that I was aware of for this work
– [ ] San Blas – not hurricane safe and a couple of years back they went bankrupt and left several boats stuck on the hard with no way to get back in the water
– [ ] La Cruz (Puerto Vallarta) – hurricane safe and able to do the work, BUT the guy who would be working on the mast is the same one who we bought our sails from (expected 3-5 months, took about 9 months the delay was mainly him not checking on what the hold up was), and had our life raft repacked (expected 2-3 months, took about 8 or 9 months, delay was again a lack of following up). More expensive than San Carlos.
– [ ] I was told that the part was no longer being made, so that meant that I had to get one made from scratch.
– [ ] Mack Yacht Sails in Florida said that if they had the old one in hand they could make a new one for about $950 in about 2 weeks. So, get the old one off, ship it to them and in two weeks they ship it back. Since the boat is in Mexico that means paying sales tax in the US and duty when it crosses the border into Mexico.
– [ ] The ex-pat in San Carlos said he “knew a guy” in San Carlos that could make it, probably for less.
As I said above we wound up in San Carlos. The first time we saw the value of Allan was the day we hauled out, Carlos Rigging (three guys) showed up as soon as we were on the hard and started working on getting the mast ready to pull. Of course the yard took one look at our mast and said “No we can’t pull that mast, it is too big.” (even though they had said they could). Allan got on the phone and contacted “a guy” who had a mobile crane and he arrived the next day and pulled our mast (this was less money than the yard was going to charge!). The next day we took the old plate to the guy that could make it. This guy has a shop in Guaymas the next city south, about an hour drive. He had a mast from a sailboat that had been bent that he was fixing and a tank that he was welding for someone else. He looked at our old plate (cast aluminum) and asked if we needed it tomorrow. We said no, (it actually took him from Wednesday to Friday to get it done). He made it out of plate aluminum and the price was about $250 USD. Allan charged us $75 an hour for getting the right people at the right time and price. At this point, I believe we are money and time ahead having him as a project manager. One of the other expenses at San Carlos is the cost of having the boat on the hard. If there is work going on then the boat has to be in the working yard at $30/day. If the boat is just being stored the price $250/month (about $8.22/day). Since we had keel work being done (we found a rock this season) we had the keel open and drying out, the plan had been to let it dry for a week or two while other work was being done, we changed that to let it dry out in storage for a couple of months so we stopped the working yard expense on Thursday 5/22. 10 days in the working yard. The mast is down and ready to be moved and the boat is ready to go to the storage yard as well. We have paid our bill at Marina San Carlos (all the slip time, the haul out and the seca (dry) working yard).
Back to Savannah, Tennessee, we are home, and will go get Bonnie (Reneé’s mom, who his 89) in the middle of next month. We are evaluating buying a second house here in Savannah. A very long story that I am not going to write about here. We have also invited my mother to come live with us. She is 92 and living independently in California. We don’t know how much longer she can do that, nor how much longer she could handle the trip from California to Tennessee, nor for that matter how much longer she will live. My grandfather (her dad) made it to 96 and spent his last few years in a rest home in California and was pretty unhappy most of the time that he was there). We expect to be home for the foreseeable future.
In the meantime, we plan to put our boat up for sale in the fall. The plan is for me to get the necessary parts and get them back to San Carlos by October, then when the boat is re-rigged sail it to Puerto Vallarta and put it in a slip and list it for sale. We are hoping the market is better by then. After the boat is sold we will consider our next boat. We still want to do the Great Loop, (Up the east coast from Florida to New York, into the Great Lakes south at Chicago to Paducah up the Ohio river to the Tennessee river then down the Tennessee river to Pickwick lake (about 15 miles from our house) down the Tenn-Tom and Tombigbee waterways to Mobile bay and into the gulf and around Florida to complete the loop). To do that trip will require a very different boat, shallow draft and much shorter mast (meaning not a sailboat). So, the search for that boat is in progress, but no plans to buy until we sell Make Me Laugh Again.
When we start the process of actually looking seriously for that boat and get ready for the loop we will start another blog.
In the meantime, our email addresses are below, feel free to drop us a line to find out what we are up to.
Neil neils1958@gmail.com
Reneé 4scheuer@gmail.com
