Marina Seca and Marina San Carlos

Our boat, Sea Lady, had been stored at Marina Seca since we pulled out of the water in spring of 2007. We visited her once in fall of 2008 to check on the batteries. So it has been 3 1/2 years that we have done any work on her or had her in the water. Thus we spent 3 1/2 weeks working on her in the work yard while we stayed in our vintage mini RV. The major issue was that all of our batteries died and had to be replaced -- all 8 of them. This required a wait because it was over Thanksgiving weekend and a trip to Phoenix, and many boat dollars.

Sailing season 2010-11

     We are so happy, we finally made it back to Mexico and our boat, Sea Lady. It’s been since Oct 2008 that we were in San Carlos to check on the boat and since April 2007 when it went on the hard after a season of sailing in the Sea of Cortez.

     This was our first trip with our very, very vintage mini motor home. It handles well and the engine runs just fine but the ride is very noisy, especially with windows down. We dubbed it ‘Land Lady’ as opposed to Sea Lady 2. We left home about 9 am got fuel and stopped at Les Schwab to check air in the tires on the way out of town. Two hours later and many dollars lighter we left with 6 new tires. We experienced wind and rain, but no snow on our drive south. Since we got such a late start we stopped at a rest stop in California to sleep, our very first time to sleep in the motor home, and woke at 4:30 when we realized the rain coming through the roof vent got our bed wet.

     We started off with a stop in San Francisco over Halloween to visit family and participate in Open Studio. Then down to Mt. View for a visit with Karen and Dan. Then off again taking two days to drive to Tucson, AZ sleeping in the motor home at another rest stop on our way to a real vacation at Ranch Vistoso.

     We expected to stay a week but ended up staying a bit longer because Kay crashed the motor scooter and needed a bit of time for healing. On Sunday, Nov 14 we left for Mexico, crossing the border at the Maricopa truck crossing. There was NO truck traffic in either direction, it felt very surreal. It took about an hour to get our visas which we need because we will be sailing the Sea of Cortez and clearing into different ports.

     We arrived in San Carlos just at dusk and are staying at an RV part called Totonaka with the beach of Bahia San Francisco just across the road from the entrance. It was Steve’s good fortune to crew for Marv of S/V Odyssey on his transit from San Carlos to Santa Rosalita. They left Tuesday at 03:00 for a 12 hour motor-sail as the Sea was dead calm and returned to Wednesday on a 30 minute flight from Santa Rosalita. Thursday was a Mexican holiday, La Revolution so we couldn’t get to see our boat until Friday when it was moved into the work yard.