Leaving La Cruz – Eventually

Welp, as life on a boat goes, we were waylaid in La Cruz by the need for a time-consuming repair. Mind you, it was only time consuming because the part had to be ordered from Guadalajara and the machinery necessary to complete the fix broke down and had to, itself, be repaired in Puerto Vallarta. Doh! You’re probably wondering what went wrong…well, after 15 years of carrying our life-blood (half of it anyway), one of our water tanks (starboard side) failed due to corrosion eating away the aluminum from the inside out. Why aluminum, you ask? Good question, as it seems contrary to the purpose, but it’s light, and on a cat, that’s important. However, we’re now considering a custom polyethylene tank for the port side, which shouldn’t add much weight and would eliminate the possibility of corrosion, but, of course, plastics….ugh! And the cost…oy!

For the last couple of weeks Capt. Randy had the audacity to mention a few times that the boat was doing “so great” and that “we’ve had no real problems at all.” Yeah. Brilliant. The leak was discovered by an observant Ryan (on March 16) in his cabin, and he and Rand had the water transferred to the other side, the custom bookshelves disassembled, the wall panel and headliner removed (the vid shows why all this had to be done), and the tank out of da boat and a plan for the repair within a couple days. We worked with the La Cruz Shipyard, which was great, but unfortunately, between the weekend and the Mexican holiday, a slab of aluminum wasn’t located/ordered until days later, AND it had to be delivered from Guadalajara. Then, the welder (a contractor to the yard) was on another job and by the time he got to our little project, as mentioned above, the welder unit broke down and had to be taken to PV for repair. This added days to what should have been a quick fix. Then along came another weekend and more waiting… Alas, by April 3, we finally had the tank reinstalled and da boat mostly put back together.

But don’t feel sorry for us. We love La Cruz and managed to enjoy ourselves while killin’ time here, because, as the timing of things go, it was NCAA Tourney time! Yes! And, Tom and Barb on Ellie were here for a bit, Thad and Kristin on SNL were here, Tom and Helen aboard S/V Catatude were here, Mark and Iz on S/V JollyDogs showed up, we went on various walkabouts in PV and Bucerias, we dined and listened to wonderful music with Maru and Jeff of Cruisers’ Comfort, and bumped into an old friend from Lake Tahoe (Serge, the owner of Rookie’s Bar and Grill where we used to spend ALL of our time (and money) during Tourney time). We enjoyed the simple life in La Cruz and surrounding climes. Not too difficult (drone vid courtesy of Ry).

https://youtu.be/NbF2nTHRs6E

We also took advantage of being dockside to complete a few other projects that were hanging over our heads, like changing engine oil, repainting the anchor chain, replacing the fan in Ry’s cabin, and general cleaning, vacuuming, purging random crap, etc. We also spent a fair amount of time in the yard, as SNL and Catatude were having work done, too – the benefit of this was that T/K and T/H were holed up in a cozy, three bedroom condo (with a washer and dryer and two pools), where we could hang out, poach the wifi and other amenities mentioned herein. Ha! It was awesome! Thanks, guys!!

As of now, Ryan is on his way back from Florida and SNL has started making her way up north. We’ll grab Ry and head out ASAP to catch our buddy boat. Then it’s back up the mainland and to The Sea! Whoot whoot!

Video (warning: the f-bomb is dropped in the video) and photo documentation of water tank repair. So fun. Oh, it should be noted that Rand was sick throughout this whole process, so it turns out, you can feel a little sorry for him. Thanks, Rand. You worked your ass off and I love you for it.

Again, music credit in the vid goes to The Paul Cannon Band. Just love them!

Photo documentation of living the rough life in La Cruz.