Cruising Musings

Baja Sunsets

(no filter)

« ‹ 1 of 12 › »

It’s somewhat sad to say, but this year we’re pretty much doing exactly what we did in 2020: go when the wind takes us between Isla Carmen and Bahía de Los Angeles in the Sea of Cortez, stopping at our favorite spots and endeavoring to stop at places we felt we’ve missed. Don’t get me wrong – it’s beautiful, most friends are more than a little envious, we do love it here, and many boats happily do the same trip year over year. But given that this is technically our third time in this area (counting 2019) we’re pretty ready to move on. Time and seasons have dictated otherwise, so we’re enjoying Central and Northern Baja again. The posted pics from our time thus far are for your armchair enjoyment, and what follows is a little something different.

Several weeks ago, I read something to the effect of “comparison is the root of despair” and it has been ringing in my ears ever since. (Sadly, I can’t remember which book – I’ll try and figure it out when I’m back in Internetlandia). This may very well be the moral of this season’s story…

Up until recently, I had never suffered from boat envy. At 37’ our Solla Sollew is on the smaller side for cruising boats, so most other boats we see are bigger, period. And bigger boats, while roomier and perhaps more comfortable, mean more work and more money. So, while I’ll say, “wow that’s a nice boat!”, I always follow mentally with, “but boy that’s a lotta work”, without feeling any true envy.

In the Guaymas boatyard this year, we met an amazing young couple, Shelli & Joe on their Tayana 37, Soul Rebel. Yep, you read that right: THIRTY SEVEN FEET. When I went aboard, I fully expected to see a similar setup to Solla (cramped, stuff everywhere, and some spaces literally PILED with stuff). Instead, their boat felt ROOMY, both people can sit upright in their bunk at the same time (!), and there wasn’t a single pile of anything anywhere! Now you might be thinking, ‘well, maybe they don’t have that much stuff’ (or at least I was). But noooooo, overtime I would learn that they had THREE sewing machines (sailrite, light-duty, serger), a full-size blender, canning equipment, pressure cooker, all size pots/pans, etc. etc.

One day I was out shopping and Shell asked for a bottle of olive oil. I was worried about getting her the 2L because I know on OUR boat, we can’t fit a 2L bottle anywhere. I got it anyway and when I gave it to her and asked about space, she said, “oh I have a special spot for that”. UGH. Another time, they had us and one other over for dinner (5 adults total). I’m thinkin a few of us will have to eat standing up or in the cockpit like on our boat, but NOPE. Their table pulls out, fully doubles in size, and reaches the other side of the cabin where there is more seating. So FIVE ADULTS (and frankly it could’ve been six) are sitting down having dinner like we’re on a 45’ boat.

To be fair, they do not have a guest cabin (we do in theory, but ours is PILED WITH STUFF), or a garage/tool room (Joe had some envy on that one), and their top deck isn’t quite as polished as ours. (But their cat doesn’t pee in the toilet, so we got that on ‘em 😊) They had chosen instead to focus their efforts on optimization and organization of living space – everything had its place, and was not only out-of-sight, but also very easily accessible.

As you can probably tell, this was bumming me out greatly. Harry actually avoided going over for a while to put off his inevitable bumming out. How could we have worked SOOO hard on Solla, Harry much longer than I, and still have such glaring deficiencies? Worse, the ideas for improvements we got from them are not small projects. They are serious, take-everything-out-rip-things-apart-for-MONTHS projects. My goodness we have so little time on the boat as it is…we want to ENJOY it, not constantly WORK on it! Further, they left the EAST coast five years ago – they’ve cruised down the coast, through the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, all the way up the Central American and Mexican coastlines! We’ve only made it from California to Mexico <sad face>.

But herein lies the key difference: they have been on the boat FULLTIME for those five years. They travel when in sailing season, and hole-up to work on the boat in the offseason. We haven’t really been on our boat for five years….we’ve been on it about two. And, as long as we continue our program of storing it in the offseason to go home, we’re either going to end up doing copycat projects forever and sailing maybe a month out of the year, or we’re going to enjoy what we have and sail as much as possible. Yep, comparison is definitely the root of despair.

While we have envisioned a third option which I’ll put in the epilogue below, I want to make this point for any aspiring and new-ish cruisers out there. Your boat will NEVER be forever-finished, and if you think it is, it won’t be long before a new idea or a new technology floats across your radar, tempting you into another project. As long as your boat is safe, GO ANYWAY. When you get burnt out on projects (notice I said “when” and not “if”), stop them and go sailing for a bit. TRY NOT TO COMPARE YOUR BOAT OR YOUR LOGBOOK TO OTHERS’. Circumstances are ALWAYS DIFFERENT. Enjoy what you have in the time you have to enjoy it.

EPILOGUE: After quite a few lengthy discussions, we have a possible plan to tackle some projects in a pleasurable place. Truth be told, Harry and I do actually enjoy the “fun” projects: woodwork and fabrication for him, sewing and organization for me. We just don’t like the “unfun” projects (painting, grinding, repairing the same @#$@# we’ve already repaired 6 times) in hot & dirty boatyards (sorry, Guaymas). And, living on the boat while working on it is reaaallly hard. Further, I quite enjoy staying in one place versus hopping around when it comes to making real friends and speaking Spanish. So, barring any natural disasters or global pandemics, we should be able to leave home in mid-late October this year and get the boat down to our beloved Altata. The marina is connected to a condo complex where our friends can hopefully arrange an apartment for us to live comfortably and offload most of our stuff to make way for said projects. We can also rent a storage locker where Harry can set up a little woodshop. With the truck, we’ll be able to shop and get parts and material from nearby Culiacán, which also has an International airport for visiting friends/family (HINT!) In the condo I can tackle all the new sewing projects, and be able to do my work-work easily with stable internet. For breaks, we can go on little 1-2 day trips in the area (there’s A LOT to see & do), Harry can fish in the skiff whenever or go out fishing with the guys, I can hang out with my friends and get a ton of great Spanish practice. When we get home in June/July, I’ll start making some inquiries to see if this is even possible. Making “plans” for cruising is generally a fool’s errand, but, we shall see…, or as I say now, “vamos a ver”.