We've got wheels!
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We've got wheels! |
The first item on our long list of to-dos in San Carlos, our last Mexican port, was to confirm with Jesus at Marina San Carlos that our trucking date was still set for June 2nd. As we had feared (since meeting Alma in Santa Rosalia who'd told us their trucking date was June 2nd) the trucking schedule had gotten rearranged a bit due to some border delays a few weeks earlier. Jesus told us to check back in with him the next week to find out what our date would be, and reassured us that we'd be trucking the same week our appointment had been on.
Our next dilemma was how we were going to get ourselves and the two kitties back to Washington. Flying back sounded like the easiest option, though the most expensive. Flying from Guaymas to Arizona alone was about $400 per person, so what most people did was to take one of Mexico's new air-conditioned first-class busses to Tucson or Phoenix then fly home from there. The problem we found was that animals were not allowed on the bus, although some folks we talked to had been able to sneak a quiet small dog aboard. The cats were small, but certainly not quiet and it would be a chore to sneak them on the bus.
After some thought we realized the easiest and cheapest way for us to get home would be to buy a car and just drive it up. We had made arrangements with Tillicum to rent a car to drive to Washington, but they agreed to help pay for gas if we just went up and bought one. This plan especially made sense since we needed to buy a car anyway, having sold our old Subaru before we left last year.
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Exploring San Carlos' natural wonders |
Decision made, we got on the morning VHF net and announced we were looking for a ride to Tucson. By the afternoon, we had found a ride with an older fellow going back up to Tucson the next day who lives in Arizona but keeps his boat in San Carlos. Tillicum agreed to keep an eye on Pelican still at anchor in San Carlos bay. So the next morning the three of us piled in his Toyota and drove the four hours north to the border. At the border, our apple cores were confiscated then we were on our way to Tucson.
We got a room at a Best Western with a cushy king-sized bed and had one of the best night's sleep we'd had in weeks. Then the next day we started walking all over town in our search for a decent used car $3,000 or less. We'd walked about 8 miles and looked at about 10 used car lots when we walked past Dobb's Honda. We had almost passed the place up as it was mainly a new car lot, but tucked in their small section of used trade-ins was a 1992 white Toyota Paseo. Clean and with just over 100,000 miles we took it for a test drive. The zippy little car drove perfectly, no funny sounds whatsoever. We told Dobbs we'd pay $3k for the car, including all fees. They must have been glad to get it off their lot and make room for more expensive cars because they agreed. Dobbs Honda was great and we actually had a good time buying this car, thanks to our pleasant salesman, Dan.
After a small shopping spree at Trader Joes and Borders Books, we packed up our new-to-us small car and drove back down to San Carlos. The border going down into Mexico was certainly no problem as no one spoke to us at all or even was manning the crossings. We'd had a good time enjoying the clean city of Tucson, some American-sized steaks, bookstores and English, but it was a bit of a relief to return to the humanity and ease of Mexican life, however temporary for us.
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Hauling out in Marina San Carlos |
While waiting for our haul-out date at the end of May, we spent some time exploring San Carlos and the nearby larger city of Guaymas. The city of San Carlos itself was fairly sleepy, mostly full of retired Americans. Bahia San Carlos had some neat caves to explore, beautiful clear waters for snorkeling and some amazing rock formations. We took the bus into Guaymas, about a half hour away. A city of about 500,000, Guaymas was fascinating as it wasn't a tourist town at all, but a real working fishing and shipping port. As always, we had fun times sampling food, checking out the various shops and generally just people-watching.
By mid-May, we'd had enough of Marina San Carlos putting us off in regards to our trucking date, namely that we didn't have one yet. We finally confronted Jesus, explaining it was very important that we know exactly when our boat would be leaving San Carlos, and in the conversation found out we'd never been on the schedule at all. With the February email from him confirming our date for June 2nd printed out in our hand, he had a hard time arguing that he'd never confirmed. So finally, he wrote us down for June 6th, only having to bump two other boats back. Our visas were to expire on June 5th so we decided that we'd leave Pelican at Marina Seca (Marina San Carlos' dry storage area) all ready for shipping when we drove back at the end of May.
On May 15th we watched the full lunar eclipse over the desert hills of San Carlos in the late evening hours. It was a spectacular sight and definitely one of the natural highlights of our time in San Carlos. For several hours we watched the earth's shadow cover the surface of the lighted full moon and it made us think more than usual about the fact that we are living on this huge ball of a planet whirling through the universe. Definitely an eerie sight.
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The mast comes down |
As our haul-out date drew near, we began the de-commissioning of Pelican, taking off all sails, the boom, the Monitor self-steering vane, and all the miscellaneous gear that lives on deck and on the pulpits. We dug our sweaters out of the back of lockers in our preparations for the upcoming Pacific Northwest summer.
Each day, the air temperatures seemed to get hotter and hotter. Usually it was very dry so was pleasant as long as we stayed in the shade, but one week a huge cloud of humidity covered the area and we had to swim in it day and night. It was about 90 degrees and extremely humid -- very hot and sticky and taking a shower seemed to make no difference. This, we were told, was what it was like for most of the summer. Blech! We are glad to get out of the Sea of Cortez before this summer humidity becomes permanent. We loved the pleasantly warm temps (80s) of Mexico's winter but as the temp climbs towards 100˚F we are discovering we are Hot Wet Weather Wimps, especially when the humidity climbs as well.
Before we knew it, our haul-out date arrived. Pelican would be hauled out at Marina Seca for about two weeks before she'd finally be loaded on Marina San Carlos' hydraulic trailer and delivered to Tucson. There, she'd be loaded onto a Dudley Transport truck for the remainder of her trip to the Everett, WA boatyard, where she'd spent so many weeks a year and a half ago while we got her ready for the trip.
Marina San Carlos hauls boats out using a regular boat ramp, a hydraulic trailer and a tractor. At her appointed time, we pulled Pelican up to the dock that lined the boat ramp. MSC's tractor pushed their trailer underneath Pelican, then eased the hydraulic arms up until her hull was resting on them. She was pulled from the water, resting comfortably on the trailer pads. We got to ride on the trailer while Pelican was pushed about a mile down the road to the huge storage area in the desert that is Marina Seca, where hundreds of boats live out of the water.
At the yard, Pelican was backed under MSC's mast crane; the workers tied a large strap just under the spreaders, undid the turnbuckles, hoisted the mast up, then rested it on stands on the ground. Pelican was then moved to the work area at Marina Seca and by noon we were done, ready to live in the yard for a few days while we finished Pelican's preparations for trucking.
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Pelican waiting for her |
We removed all the halyard and stays from Pelican's mast, then wrapped it with old towels and used yards of shrink-wrap to protect the entire spar. On Pelican, we started loaded all sails, solar panels, spare anchors, dodger, dinghy, outboard, and rigging down below on the floor and in the v-berth, leaving us only the settee to sleep on our last night in the yard. We lashed the boom, spinnaker and whisker poles to the deck, the ends also protected with towels. Her nav lights were protected with small towels and shrink wrap, and anything, such as small instrument covers, that might come loose on deck was taped.
In the evenings, we shared cocktail hours with Robert and Rose of Tillicum who were also hauled-out nearby. We'd all be sharing driving shifts in the Toyota on our drive up to Washington as they were leaving Tillicum for the summer and heading home to Vancouver Island, Canada to work and visit family before they head off to the South Pacific next year.
We took Xena and Precious to the San Carlos vet for their health certificates, and Xena got an updated rabies shot, all for about $35US. They were certainly glad to be leaving San Carlos as it was now at least 95˚F each day, and the kitties couldn't understand why sleeping on the floor was not cooler (being confused about the concept of not having cooler water around the boat anymore).
After working madly for three days to get Pelican all secured for trucking, checking and rechecking to make sure all her gear was well protected from chafe, we spent a last sleepless hot night excited to be heading home the next day. Early in the morning, we loaded up the Paseo's tiny trunk with all our luggage and the six of us (the two of us, Rose and Robert, and Xena and Precious our amazingly cooperative cats) stuffed ourselves into the now obviously miniscule-sized car and drove off, nervously looking back at our homes sitting in the desert.
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Jam packed for 2000 miles |
As planned, we drove straight to Washington, over 2000 miles, stopping only for food, gas (a bargain at 40 mpg), coffee and restroom breaks. It was a hot cramped trip through Mexico and Arizona, then a cooler cramped trip up through California on I-5, through Oregon, then finally through Washington. Each time we stopped to switch drivers, we let the cats out wearing their harnesses and leashes to encourage them to pee, but to no avail. They refused to eat, drink and urinate the entire 36 hours. Both cats were wonderful though, very well behaved and slept nearly the entire trip, though awake during the night as we drove through California's Central Valley, wondering what the heck was going on.
Despite our extremely close quarters, the four of us humans got along very well, thanks to Robert and Rose's wonderful senses of humor, a requirement for a road trip like this. We took turns sleeping, but were mostly entertained by all their hilarious stories.
We arrived in Olympia, WA right at rush hour, Friday afternoon, in the rain. For four hours we crawled towards Everett where we would be dropping off Robert and Rose at their friends' house, though Tacoma, Seattle, and Lynnwood. Then, the two of use creeped farther north in the bumper-to-bumper Friday traffic to Sara's parents' house in Camano Island. It was during this stretch of road that we remembered we hated traffic, that Puget Sound had the worst, and decided to settle way up north in Bellingham. This is a smaller town near the Canadian border out of the reach of the outrageous Puget Sound growth, a day sail to the San Juans and Canadian gulf islands, and loaded with good colleges and hopefully a couple of jobs.
Having arrived at the Kingsley house in Camano Island, we unfurled ourselves from the car we'd been stuffed in for the past 36 hours, showed the poor cats their litter box (which they were more than happy to use finally), then after a quick visit with family crashed into bed.
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Pelican arrives home safe & sound! |
We spent the next week joyfully visiting with family and friends who we hadn't seen for nearly a year. The following Wednesday we found out that Pelican had left San Carlos as scheduled and arrived in Tucson where she'd been transferred to a Dudley truck. A call to Dudley on that Friday confirmed she was on her way and would actually be arriving in Everett the next Monday!
At 9 am Monday morning, we happily greeted Pelican as she pulled into the Everett Marina yard, on the back of a semi-truck, 2000 miles from where we'd last said good-bye to her and only a few miles from where our journey began.
