The Window to Our Future...

Back in San Carlos we thought we had a week of work to get Begone ready to really Be Gone.

Well, looks like it will be 8 days...largely thanks to some wisdom Tom picked up from his son, Hans. Hans gave a talk at a marine surveyors meeting and told everyone "the glass bowl in your fuel filter is the window to your future".

Turns out our window had the shades pulled with diesel CRUD.  Tom checked the fuel tank only to find the entire bottom of the tank was growing crud.  Luckily, the next morning we found Jose and his son, Diego, in their truck clearly marked "Fuel Polishing".  They came by on Sunday morning and pulled 2.5 gallons of CRUD off the bottom of the tank...

The sun never sets for cool people!  

Now that's some Crud!  Our Window is looking so much brighter, now.

Well, that was until Tom calls me to come look at something.  Seriously, both hose clamps on the port cockpit thruhull were completed rusted through.  That would have been a nightmare to fix underway!  Oh, and then he found the starboard clamps were also broken and the thruhull required a contortionist to get to.  Oh, all those years Tom crawled through engines paid off!

But there was good news too.  Begone was launched beautifully on one of 3 days in March when tide was high enough to float her..

The drive down the main road in San Carlos from the Marina Seca to splash at 

the Marina San Carlos.

Tom up the rig (Suzanne cranked him up - and left him there to get the camera!)

Jesus and his associate did a beautiful job tuning Begone's rig.

And Jesus later came and climbed the mast to replace the spinnaker turning block

 (he pulled himself up - Suzanne was pleased!)

We had to enjoy a Corona moment here in San Carlos.

And now Begone is ready to set sail tomorrow (Thursday, 3/26/15) sometime around noon.

First destination:  Puerto Escondido

Quartzsite, Arizona Yacht Club

We have never been big "joiners" but last year we joined the wonderful Point San Pablo Yacht Club in Point Richmond, CA and have been member of the the San Francisco Bay Master Mariners for years...but we are also card carrying members of the 

Quartzsite, AZ Yacht Club

They claim to be the largest Yacht  Club in the world -- and being in the middle of a desert, may be the furthest YC away blue water (or any water for that matter).  Their slogan is "Long Time No Sea!"

The Motel ($55 per night) consists of converted boats and mobile homes named after well known boats -- like the SS Minnow of Gilligan's Island or the African Queen:

And we love the restaurant/bar.  Turns out on Monday nights members with their cards get a 50% discount on dinner.  But we forgot our cards.  Well, the Commodore, Miss Helen (note - she's 90 years young!!), happened to be there, looked our names up in her log of all member...and sure enough in 2012, there was our names!  We both got new cards and the discount (paid full price for Vicky but she was worth it!)

Commodore, Miss Helen - 90 years young!

It's clean, and comfortable and hey, we keep coming back again and again!

Back in Port Costa -- Big Push to Wrap Up at home...

Our time to get ready to leave for ~5 months seems way to short.  Especially when Tom was the first of us to come down with a nasty cold.  But we still chipped away at our TO DO list.

Most important:

Re-certify our Life Raft.  It had been 10 years so was in serious need of going through.  Sal's Inflatable in Alameda did a GREAT JOB!  It's the place to go, for sure!  Sylvia in the office, Francisco in the shop and Sal himself got us ready!  

"Hey Francisco, what's it like having a job that you hope nobody ever needs to find out what a great job you did!!!"

Welcome to our emergency home away from our boat.  

They say the only way you ever get into a life raft is to step up into it from your boat!   

Yep, We hope we never have to find out what a great job they did at Sal's!!!

And we got to go to Hans' birthday party!!! 

Loved spending time with the family, friends and Grandkids!

 We're going to miss these squirts!!!

We had to say good bye for now...and hit the road back to San Carlos!!!

WayTooCool

This is a little bit of a diversion from the Begone story...but it certainly deserves a "chapter" in the blog!  We made our way back from San Carlos and the Begone projects to support Vicky's running habit.  In the past few years, Vicky Oswald has taken to running Ultra Marathons -- these are 100K runs.  On March 7th, she signed up to run the "Way Too Cool - 50K Run" (31 miles) in Cool, CA. So Tom and Suzanne loaded Vicky, a  big pasta pre-race dinner, and her running shoes in our 1973 GMC Motorhome for a little 2 hour trip up the hill to Cool.  Here's a few pics from the event.  There were 1200 participants running the cool single track trails.

There are no campgrounds or hotels in Cool.  We couldn't park overnight in the State Park -- so hey, why not park at the Holiday Grocery Store parking lot.  They were happy to let us stay overnight!  Great store, indeed! 

Vicky's pre-race, night time preparation.  Vodka???  Just kidding.  Carbs and Water work better!

Vicky was seeded in the first batch of runners because of her previous experience.

At 5:00 AM the morning of the race, we drove the motorhome over to the parking lot at the start/finish line...and they were waiting for us and parked us up front!  Vicky was able to run the 1st 8 miles, duck into the coach (avoiding the portable toilets) and grab her water camel pack...

and lickety split, was off to finish the run...only 23 miles to go!

And here she is just after the finish line...

Vicky finished 7th in her age group and 351st out of 1200.  Most of those who beat her were a good bit younger and had more time to run than we gave Vicky who had to work all day for the past 3 weeks!

Cool Down in the Coach!

And sooth those tired legs with a new treatment...

...a "Recovery Pump", a good laugh, and...

FOOD -- after all, this is Vicky we're talking about!

Congratulations on your Run!!!!!!

Getting ready to get ready!

We scheduled 3 weeks of work on Begone...and 3 weeks it was.  Lots to do.  Here's what our last week looked like in San Carlos!

We found a new restaurante - the Sunset Bar & Grill

 And the Sunset part lived up to it's Promise -- and the food was fabulous, too!

Once again we went to Empalme for the street flea market.  This week was crowded thanks to great weather.  Speaking of weather, this whole 3 weeks were amazingly good weather.  Rarely above 72 degrees, sunny, with mild breeze.  A real February picture perfect San Carlos!

Vicky found this shrine to marine life at La Playa Dolfin.  Note we call this place "Shell Beach" because beach combing/shell collecting is always an interesting beach walk.

Suzanne and Vicky on a Shell Beach stroll

And on the other side of the Bahia here's a picture postcard shots from 

a little beach palapa restaurantes.

Oh, wait, we didn't get the mast back on Begone yet.  Good news!  It all went perfectly!!!  Those guys at San Carlos Marina Seca are really terrific!  

Raise the mast

Up and over it goes

                           Set it in (it's a keel stepped mast)          Attach the forestay

Need a lift up the mast, call the crane!

Tom replaces the mast boot -- splooging, stitching, taping, painting are needed to keep water from dripping down the mast into the cabin.  Good job, Tom! 

Then there's varnish and painting new non-skid on the deck.

Everyone was trying to steal Vicky from us.  "Where did you find that gal??? What can't she do??" Then they'd try to get Tom's attention.  He happily got to align 2 engines in 1 day!

Missing our dog, we were happy to have the boat yard dogs to feed our leftovers...and did they ever score some great leftovers.  Got to the place that they'd be anxiously awaiting for our car to drive up for their morning treats!

And then we were done!  Time to pack up and hit the road back to Port Costa.  Tom and Suzanne were home for 11 days and will return to San Carlos to finish prepping Begone and sail her to La Paz.  Vicky will fly down to meet us in La Paz on April 7th.