In an effort to just get a little news out, I thought I'd start with a bit of recap. I can't begin to do justice to the grand adventure we've had already. And now that Isis is in the water and we are approaching the beginning of our actual sailing adventures, I know I'll never really catch up. So here are a few randomly-collected thoughts...
October 31, 2008 -- That's her in the middle.
The boats on either side are gone, doubtless doing the thing boats are intended to do, but Isis still sits on her stands, enjoying (we think) the attention she's finally receiving. It's been a long time since anyone felt the affection we feel for her, and if you listen closely, you can hear her purring.
There's an awful lot to do.
"Cleaning out the boat," for example, turns out to be easier said than done. Isis (Seastar when we met her -- a tale for another day) showed the scunge and decay you'd expect for a boat that hadn't really been used for the better part of a decade. Her nooks and crannies were all filled with, you know, stuff -- some useful, some decidedly not, most somewhere on the difficult line in between. Cleaning her up took the first two weeks of our little Mexican holiday.
Her bones are in great shape, but every old boat needs a lot of work. Our early time here was all about the adventure of the boatyard. It was an odd time, somewhere between groovy adventure and hateful grunt work.
When does a voyage begin?
The obvious and correct answer is, of course, "when you toss off yer lines and go sailing somewhere," but Kacey has convinced me that the key to a half-enjoyable time is to consider leaving the Wetspot (our beloved little home back in the hills of Colorady) the Beginning of the Trip. So here's the quickie:
The drive down was spectacular, cruel and long. Overladen, we were moving slowly, nursing Little Red, our trusty old 4 Runner, down the damnedest stretch of road I've ever seen. It's really not possible to fairly convey the experience of driving the Baja highway. It is beautiful and hideous. It is long. In a newer car, without the trailer or the stress of having everything we own jammed into the rig, it would have been pure fun. But that's not the first phrase that pops to mind after our trip.
The heat was unreal, even though we were traveling after the "hot season." You'd stick your hand out the window to cool off, but it felt like a convection oven. The kind of weather that kills mammals. Reptile country.
Memorable moments included snapping the axle from the trailer in the middle of a military checkpoint; inching down the phenomenal hill into Santa Rosalia (add it to your list of beautiful places you should visit); homemade, caught-that-morning sierra ceviche at Bill and Julie's wild little fish camp; and 400 separate and individually memorable topes. (Mexican speedbumps. But not just any speedbumps. Effective, impressive speedbumps. Often with shops selling suspension parts nearby.)
"Second Mate" Quinn held up well. Imagine being three, in the back of a truck with no A/C, riding six straight days to a little-understood destination, through desert so, well, desert that its puny vegetation reminds you of the scratchy stubble on the skull of your (obviously deranged) father's skull. Wouldn't you whine? Not the Quinnster. Given his relatively blissful demeanor, it appears he picked up the traveling gene. He truly seemed to be enjoying the trip, playing tour guide most the way. ("Ooh, look! Cactus!" or "THE OCEAN!")
The time from November to January was all work and little play.
There were some great highlights, mostly consisting of friends and family coming down to visit. My mom and her husband, my dad and his wife, our oldest buddy Bryan and his girlfriend Veronica, and of course Dan and Lisa (more to come about them, since they were so taken by the whole sordid scene that they bought their own boat and will be down in a few weeks...), but in general it's been a bunch of time in the old boatyard. Take a moment and savor the phrase "Mexican boatyard." Whatever images might come to mind are probably pretty close to the grim reality, and yet we will always remember those three months fondly. There's something oddly satisfying about tackling a bunch of jobs you don't quite know how to do, and figuring it out with your partner.
Quinn, again, was stunning. He spent countless hours unsupervised, playing with legos and watching videos donated to the cause by Kacey's sister, Kelley (Between the Lions, a PBS reading and spelling video, has been his favorite.) Now that we're in the water, the environment is far less hazardous and we all get to work together. And man, does Quinn love to "help."
The list of jobs we completed on the boat is somewhat boggling. We pulled and replaced three thru-hulls (the holes through the boat where hoses in and out are attached, or where the depth sounder gets its info); we repaired dozens of scratches and dings in preparation for painting; we removed the rudder and repaired its mounts; we replaced both "stuffing boxes --" the places where the rudder and propeller exit the hull; and we painted the hull and bottom. The paint job on the hull was four coats, with a complete hand-sanding between all the coats -- time to complete? Six weeks. That's four weeks "fairing" the hull (removing, as much as possible, every divot, scratch and imperfection in the old paint) and two weeks painting and sanding between coats.
Here's what she looked like a couple days before the launch:
Now that we're done, the entire boat is basically new from the deck down.
The drive down was spectacular, cruel and long. Overladen, we were moving slowly, nursing Little Red, our trusty old 4 Runner, down the damnedest stretch of road I've ever seen. It's really not possible to fairly convey the experience of driving the Baja highway. It is beautiful and hideous. It is long. In a newer car, without the trailer or the stress of having everything we own jammed into the rig, it would have been pure fun. But that's not the first phrase that pops to mind after our trip.
The heat was unreal, even though we were traveling after the "hot season." You'd stick your hand out the window to cool off, but it felt like a convection oven. The kind of weather that kills mammals. Reptile country.
Memorable moments included snapping the axle from the trailer in the middle of a military checkpoint; inching down the phenomenal hill into Santa Rosalia (add it to your list of beautiful places you should visit); homemade, caught-that-morning sierra ceviche at Bill and Julie's wild little fish camp; and 400 separate and individually memorable topes. (Mexican speedbumps. But not just any speedbumps. Effective, impressive speedbumps. Often with shops selling suspension parts nearby.)
"Second Mate" Quinn held up well. Imagine being three, in the back of a truck with no A/C, riding six straight days to a little-understood destination, through desert so, well, desert that its puny vegetation reminds you of the scratchy stubble on the skull of your (obviously deranged) father's skull. Wouldn't you whine? Not the Quinnster. Given his relatively blissful demeanor, it appears he picked up the traveling gene. He truly seemed to be enjoying the trip, playing tour guide most the way. ("Ooh, look! Cactus!" or "THE OCEAN!")
The time from November to January was all work and little play.
There were some great highlights, mostly consisting of friends and family coming down to visit. My mom and her husband, my dad and his wife, our oldest buddy Bryan and his girlfriend Veronica, and of course Dan and Lisa (more to come about them, since they were so taken by the whole sordid scene that they bought their own boat and will be down in a few weeks...), but in general it's been a bunch of time in the old boatyard. Take a moment and savor the phrase "Mexican boatyard." Whatever images might come to mind are probably pretty close to the grim reality, and yet we will always remember those three months fondly. There's something oddly satisfying about tackling a bunch of jobs you don't quite know how to do, and figuring it out with your partner.
Quinn, again, was stunning. He spent countless hours unsupervised, playing with legos and watching videos donated to the cause by Kacey's sister, Kelley (Between the Lions, a PBS reading and spelling video, has been his favorite.) Now that we're in the water, the environment is far less hazardous and we all get to work together. And man, does Quinn love to "help."
The list of jobs we completed on the boat is somewhat boggling. We pulled and replaced three thru-hulls (the holes through the boat where hoses in and out are attached, or where the depth sounder gets its info); we repaired dozens of scratches and dings in preparation for painting; we removed the rudder and repaired its mounts; we replaced both "stuffing boxes --" the places where the rudder and propeller exit the hull; and we painted the hull and bottom. The paint job on the hull was four coats, with a complete hand-sanding between all the coats -- time to complete? Six weeks. That's four weeks "fairing" the hull (removing, as much as possible, every divot, scratch and imperfection in the old paint) and two weeks painting and sanding between coats.
Here's what she looked like a couple days before the launch:
Now that we're done, the entire boat is basically new from the deck down.
2 comments:
I am so absolutely envious, and I promise never to say, "ARE YOU CRAZY!" ever again. I tell you, it makes going to work even more difficult which is pretty awful. Thanks for sharing! I love you....Ma Burns
You are amazing Burke... you are doing what I have dreamed of my whole life! I did get a record deal, so maybe I'll make it big and sail with you one day my friend.
Rock ON!
D.L. Marble
marble.dl@gmail.com
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