Preparing to Leave Your Boat Do not Under Estimnate the work!!!
Sowell Family's Travels on Gijima
Skipper: Tim Sowell Admiral Tracy Crew Sean & Alex
Tue 27 Apr 2010 03:38
work, as we have never left the boat longer than 1 month before.
So I continued the deck clearing and tying down, checked the bilge pump
operations and cleaned them, and cleaned the toilets. Tracy did the big one
today we emptied the freezer and shut it off and we are looking at shutting
down the refrigeration, but she also emptied all the dry lockers of food
like flour, cereals biscuits etc, which we had too vacuum seal and pack into
plastic containers just in case cockroaches etc get on board. This is not a
small job, as we have a month + supplies especially when we had stocked the
boat and made it very easy to access.
We have another 24 hours of packing and we will hit a wall, and the issue is
when you come back we will take a week to get back into the boat. But all
the boats are doing this, especially those who are going away for 6 months
which is the majority as they park their boat and close it up and come back
in November.
Everyone complains about shut down process and we will probably not full
unpack it all and put electronics etc back in place until we decide to leave
here even when we return. One of the biggest issues is the humidity and
moisture build up, especially when shut up the boat for rain, we are going
to keep the covers up over the boat, this is a debate as the wind could come
up to 35 knots if it does then there will be an issue. But I have some
people looking at it, and the idea is they will keep some of the rain off
and we hope stop a couple of those long term deck leaks which we do not know
about. But the humidity effects the food, books, cloths etc, and we bagging
all our cloths in a hope to reduce the effect, I have no doubt we will be
doing significant washing when we get back, or we just take out the cloths
we use here which are not many.
But there is no doubt we have underestimated the effort to get ready to
leave, but it is a lesson as we will have the same issue in the upcoming
years, even in Australia.
So as boats come in people settle in and start down the list of jobs to tied
up after last winter season, and prepare for the summer shut down, most have
been cruising for a while but all it is the first time this far south, and
most have plans to go further getting out of the Mexico magnet which they
have been in for 4+ to years.
We had a new boat arrive today, no issues it was a Catalina 36, and had an
Australian on it she is sailing around there plans are not fixed yet.
The projected storm from the south is still building into a significant low
but will fail at this stage to make tropical storm status, but should bring
rain, and cool things down. We have a number of boats coming in the next 2
days one is one which we met with 3 young kids, they will be a here a day
before we go, so Sean can play with them.
We have the king tides at the moment ideal for landing multi hulls on the
beach / mud and allowing people to clean the bottom, and paint.
But it is nice to see a clear night under the moon light, and a breeze, it
makes the evening very pleasant.
Stay tuned.