As I have been reminded by a couple of people in the past two days, everyone has been wondering what happened since we survived Marty. In fact, a friend of ours who unexpectedly found himself in La Paz walked up to me in an internet café and asked me what I was doing here!!! I replied that I live here (since this is where the boat is) and what was he doing here??

It took us 5 months, 4 trips to the states and a five-week haul-out (including ten days of the flu during that haul-out!) to fix all the lightning strike damage. Actually, the radar unit isn't up to snuff yet (more tweaking) and I have yet to complete the on-board e-mail hardware installation. Too many handy internet cafes make that fall towards the bottom of the list. The five months would no doubt have been 1-2 months shorter had we been in a cooler and drier climate, but it sure did take a lot longer than I anticipated. I should know this by now, but hope springs eternal, I guess.

However, we finally made it out of San Carlos, which, despite three months of overwhelming heat and humidity, ended up in December being as cold a place as I have been since leaving California nearly two years ago. It's still cool here in La Paz, but not nearly as bad as San Carlos was. It's almost hot if there's sun and no wind. The water is still too cold for swimming (70 degrees, and yes I know I'm a wimp), but there's hope.

Other than the work on the boat, we didn't do a heck of a whole lot in San Carlos. Naomi got to spend a lot of time with Alexandria and Katrina from S/V Peregrinata, and I managed to slowly work my way through my project list. Slowly, because when it's nearly 100 degrees and over 80 percent relative humidity, moving fast is a bad idea. October was still quite warm, with record temperatures in Arizona and therefore in Sonora as well. We were happy that the weather started to cool down before we pulled the boat out of the water to fix the lightning exit hole and put new bottom paint on.

The haul-out was in Guaymas, as multihulls are not welcome at Marina Seca in San Carlos. We had a wonderful experience at the boatyard (Marina Seca Guaymas, with the commercial yard next door providing the 60-foot-long, 28-foot-wide Travelift), and will eventually publish more info on the yard. At any rate, we highly recommend it for both working on the boat and for storage. The owner and worker both speak reasonable English and the rates were reasonable as well.	Seafire on Travel-lift, Marina Seca
Once the boat was back in the water, Yvonne joined us for Christmas. Then it was time to head south, and we took just six days to reach La Paz. Since she bought her return plane ticket before we left San Carlos, we were motivated to get here on time, and we did – just to get two solid days of rain! Just like Seattle, except there the water tends to exit the streets in a more controlled fashion instead of overrunning everything. And it was twenty degrees warmer.	Karryn, Jackson and Yvonne

Now we're back on the project list, and trying to decide how much work to get done here and how much to do in Mazatlan. We haven't figured that out yet, but I'm betting the first norther that blows in and gets us stuck on the boat for a couple of days might shift our thinking more towards Mazatlan. Meanwhile, we keep running into old friends (it's such a nuisance when work cuts into our social life) and trying to get stuff done.

Speaking of which, I need to return to the boat so I can get back to work. It's amazing how much work a boat requires to survive when being lived on in the tropics. One couple we know figures that they've spend 8 weeks cruising over the last 16 months, and the rest of the time in port or on the hard, working. So it's not all leisurely sipping cocktails with umbrellas in them as we watch the sunset from the cockpit…. just enough of that to keep us sane while we crawl under the engine, trying to reach something we dropped in the bilge for the project we got handed with when some critical piece of equipment died!!

Seafire in Agua Verde

Bay north of Agua Verde

Agua Verde Sunset