Back at the boat!

After a very rushed last week in BC (pro-tip – don’t finish work on Friday afternoon and then get the 6am flight Saturday) I am back in Mexico and on Gudgeon!

Since I had bought a lot of second-hand stuff while in BC (including a watermaker, a solar oven and a billion bits and bobs) I had to buy two big suitcases and actually check in luggage for the first time in forever. I did not enjoy it, esp after reading the customs form and realising I may have to pay duty on a lot of stuff, as I had forgotten my import license (called a TIP). Luckily I got a green light at customs and all was good.

Arriving at the boat, a big green iguana and I spooked each other

Obviously not in BC anymore!

What was not great was that I had forgotten to let the guy looking after my boat know I was coming back, so it was locked. Which wasn’t ideal after I had been up at 4am and was extremely sweaty and tired (and recovering from hernia surgery). Luckily I ran into another cruiser who lent me a big pair of snips, and I easily cut the lock. Really shockingly easily, if we are being honest.

Stuff everywhere of course (as I had moved most outside stuff inside), so my first order of business over the next few days is to get everything tidied up. First I had to get the power on though, as I had disconnected everything when I left. I NEEDED to be able to run the fans, as I was melting into a puddle of misery and grump. It took a while fiddling, as the main discharge relay (a blue seas 7710) seems to have given up the ghost. Sigh. I was able over to override it, and will be replacing it with a Blue seas 9012 (the same one that I use as the main relay). I had meant to do this anyway, as a quirk of the way the 7710 activated meant I needed to connect the laptop and resend the BMS information every time I reset the system.

Once I had power, I turned on the fridge and open it. Oh dear.

I’d left 3 cans of beer in the (unpowered) fridge, and they had all rusted through/burst, filling the bottom of the fridge with beer, which then mixed with the coco powder forming a pretty gross substance. Which then was kept at a brisk ~30c degrees for months. There were also a bunch of dead pupa so it was really pretty gross! At least that explained why the flypaper I had hanging was absolutely covered in tiny flies.

That was my first hour spent cleaning – at least it was all contained in the fridge. I shudder what would have happened if that had happened in a cupboard – yukkkk. The other ‘lovely’ surprise was under the sink, where the carb cleaner, WD40 and pressurised kerosene had all rusted through, dumping their contents into a noxious soup. That took another hour cleaning up.

Overall though it could have been far worse – no mould inside, or clouds of flys or signs of any cockroaches (I’ve heard some real horror stories).

I’m meeting the canvas guy here tomorrow to see about finishing the rest of the dodger and the rest of the week will be trying to get hold of the engine person and continuing tidying and putting things away. It’s been a bit of a shock – one day I was sat in an office doing spreadsheets, and then less than 24 hours later I’m in a foreign country chasing big lizards off my boat. I’m sure I’ll adapt soon, but already looking forward to being able to leave Mazatlan and sail up to the sea of cortez again!

 

Gaddam it’s hot

Matt

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