Guaymas

We are now enjoying an air-conditioned hotel room in the working port city of Guaymas.  After a week and a half living in a hot and dusty boat yard this place seems like a resort.  Mostly we're just happy to have access to a working shower and mosquito-free bathroom.  It's getting hotter every day now.  But, as sweltering as it seems, we realize it's just beginning to heat up here.  The next few months will be intolerable, at least to gringos like us, which is why we've been working hard to get the boat put away and get back to the U.S. and more moderate temps.  I'm hoping Jean Marie survives with little or no ill-effects.

"Why would anyone leave their boat in a sun-baked desert in northern Mexico?", would be a reasonable question to ask.  For us, however, there are a few compelling reasons to do this.  The first being hurricane danger, the second being cost, and the third being access to the Sea of Cortez.

San Carlos and Guaymas are the primary locations for cruisers who want to leave their boats in Mexico and avoid the hurricane zone further south.  Most boats travel up through the Sea of Cortez in the spring to put their boats in dry storage for the summer.  A few courageous sailors brave the heat and spend the summer on the boat, but most take a bus north to Tucson or Phoenix and fly home to wait for the fall before returning.

And, the cost of dry storage here is significantly less than leaving the boat in a marina in Mazatlan or Puerto Vallarta or even Barra, where Jean Marie spent last summer.  We can park the boat here in a dry and dusty yard for about a quarter of the cost of a marina slip.

But, the best part is that we can sail down through the Sea of Cortez in the fall and finally spend some time checking out the anchorages we've been trying to get to for the past two years now, which is the main justification for enduring life in a dirty boat yard and June temps.

At this point the boat is all buttoned up and covered in tarps.  We spent nearly two weeks getting her cleaned up and put away for the summer and then moved in to our current digs in town.  Tomorrow we'll embark on a long bus ride to LA where we'll hitch a ride with my uncle for the rest of our journey to central California.  From there we'll be driving up through California and Oregon to our house in Bend, where I plan to catch up on a lot of sleep.