I’m sitting here writing this from the beautiful wooden chart table on board OUR NEW BOAT 🙂 Looking around, we seem amazingly set up for only having been here three days. There’s food in the cupboards and fridge, books on the shelves, dodger and mainsail on, bed made (a queen!), and ipod playing. She’s like a mini 150 sq ft apartment with everything we need.

Friday the 13^th was another long drive. We were delayed at the Mexican border in customs for a few hours but it felt great to make it through. Major negotiations with the customs brokers left Will mentally drained. After another five hours of driving we finally arrived at the boat (with a necessary pit stop at a beer store) just as the sun was setting. She’s sitting on 15 ft stilts which meant we had quite the chore of lugging our suitcases and other necessary items up the ladder and on board – in the dark. The beers tasted good Friday night. After we settled into bed there were a few more surprises in store for us. First of all, the town allows the school band to practice (not to be confused with ‘play’) right on the somewhat deserted boardwalk waterfront.  Ouch for the ears! Secondly, “La Choperia” turns out to be nightclub right outside the boatyard. It opened up at about 9pm and the base continued to pump into the wee hours of the morning. Despite that, we slept like logs.

On Saturday morning (after a trek around town to find a morning coffee and coming to terms with my Starbucks dependence issues) the cleaning began. Guaymas is a dusty town so there was a thick layer of dirt on the deck and more dust inside.  Cleaning and unpacking took most of the day and we rewarded ourselves with a dinner out. We went to the only restaurant in town we knew of – the one we visited with Marisa (our yacht broker) when we were down in November. We realized it’s one of the more touristy places in town – we had about five waiters serving us – but the bill was still only approx $19 CDN, beers included, and the food was amazing. Future dinners out will be at the local’s spots where we know you can eat well for under $10 CDN.

Yesterday we completed more projects: put up the mainsail, went to Walmart with a shopping list (yes, there’s a Walmart in town!), and got our new friend Chucho to polish the hull. You’d think the nightclub would be closed on Domingo, but no, Rihanna and loud base put us to sleep once again.

Today projects include wet sanding and painting the hull and starting the Hydrovane installation. We’re glad to find out that this boat really is almost ready to go and we plan to be dropped in the water tomorrow morning. Yay! Living at 15ft is interesting… I’m nervous walking around on deck and I keep thinking that the list to port is getting worse (Will has convinced me that’s ridiculous). We’re both excited to more into the water which should feel a little more normal.

Although it’s Monday morning, I feel good. Well rested, happy, and excited for what’s coming next.