June 2007 – Catamaran Sailing Cruising in the Sea of Cortez

June 1, 2007 – Lifting Center Cabin 6 inches

Here are the missing pictures of the cutting out of the center cabin. People in the boatyard thought we were crazy. Here they are:

I bought a Sawzall reciprocating saw at
the local flea market and spent
3 days making about 200 cuts.

Lots of cutting. It was kind of
scary because for about 48 hours
the boat was effectively worthless.

I even had to cut out some of the furniture backs
as you can can see at the end of the settee.

I wasn’t very popular when I made this cut.

Then I wen t and started to cut out the cockpit.
The plan was lift the cockpit 8 inches
and the cabin 6 inches.

The cockpit floor coming apart.


Meanwhile under the boat I placed
strategic supports to prevent the
cuddy cabin from falling on the ground

This show some of the cuts I had to make
around the mast beam.

This is a partial view of the pile of
pieces I cut out of the cabin.

This is a picture form the starboard side looking from
the outside in.

All the cuts have now been made.
You can see the gap between the cabin mast
beam and the beam that comes out of the hull.
The gap was 6 inches and this is what will
disappear as we jacked things up.

Another view from port side looking in.

Another view of the gap that would soon disappear.

You can see the cut made around the windows
in the front.

No cockpit floor….

I worked for almost two days carefully
raising each corner 1/4 inch at a time.

It was a long process.

Two days later you can now see that
the center cabin is now 6 inches higher.
Now all I have to do is fill in the gaps…

As you can see the gap between the beams
is now all gone.

This is the engine nacelle which did stay in
the same position. Later I had to fill
in the gaps.

We glued the old floor back in but 8
inches higher. Notice the small step to
leave the cockpit to go to the hulls.

Carllie cleaning up after I had glued
in some of the fill pieces.

You can see the cockpit floor is now flush
with the back beam.

All the fill pieces glued in
on the starboard side.

All the outside fill pieces glued in

All the fairing completed but before
painting.

Fairing on the outside

Painting completed but now I had to spend
3 days putting all the wiring back in.

As the days wound down to our June 18th departure back to Vancouver we worked even longer hours trying to get everything done. The days continued to get even hotter with the peak temperature being 108 F and only cooling down to 85 F at night. We consoled ourselves that while it was hot now it would have even been hotter in September when we had originally planned to do our work.

Garett doing final sanding at
night under the netting.

The weather as well as getting hotter is getting more humid as the hurricane and the rainy season approaches. In the early evenings the thunder clouds built up and we could see lightning over the surrounding mountains and we even had a few drops of rain.

Sleeping in the heat, about 96 degrees F and
sometimes 65% humidity, was very difficult.
We were glad to leave Guaymas when we did.

Sanding of the sections added to the
the bottom of the cuddy cabin.

You can see how much we raised the
cabin and cockpit. The whole bottom
section that said "Vancouver Canada"
is gone, and there is far more
clearance between the bottom
of the cockpit and cuddy cabin
and the water line (the
top of the black bottom paint).
The only part we didn’t raise
is the engine well
on the left (port) side.

Another view of the stern.

Before….. Last pic of the old starboard
transom before major surgery.

….. After 51 days later with hulls extended
and center cabin lifted.
Note clearance under aft
beam on left hand side.

A view of the increased clearance under the boat

Our workshop and living area is
almost torn down and put away

Fellow boater Ron Pryde who
is the master of our dog friend, Sissy.

Sissy sharing water with the cat.

Monday June 18, 2007

We were up early on our day of departure for a couple of hours before Paul, our next door neighbor in the boatyard, came by to give us a ride to Phoenix.

A hazy last day sunrise.

The Boatbuilder with the finished project
on the morning of our departure.

The day before we left and the last morning, we washed all the fine red Guaymas dust off of Light Wave, covered all her windows and the front cuddy hatches with tinfoil to protect them from the sun and to keep the interior cooler and finished cleaning the interior. We then removed the sails and stuffed them into the starboard hull at the last minute, and taped up the door on the cuddy cabin to prevent the ants (hormigas) from getting in. Carllie also sprinkled around boric acid mixed with sugar to stop any ants or cockroaches if they do get in (but the Philosopher’s Rule is "Anything that can go right, will go right," so we are confident that is not going to happen). By the time we left Light Wave in the yard at about 9:30 a.m., she was all tidied up with our two big work tables under the hull, all the flammable stuff tucked into a box on one of the tables covered with a tarp, and the ladder that we had gone up and down umpteen times a day, removed and laid under a table. As we drove off we looked back fondly on our home and passage-maker for the last 11 months, and put our mental shield around her. We are confident that she is secure in Guaymas as spot well protected from hurricanes and in Marina Seca Guaymas where the yard is locked at night, we know all the workers, the boat is located right across from the office, and where our friend the night watchman is only 100 feet from the boat.

Final pickup of our Shrimp Quesadillas
from Salvador at his streetside carreta.

Our friend Paul driving 7 1/2 hours to
Phoenix. What a kind offer! As a result, we
arrived at Phoenix at 5 p.m. rather than about 10 p.m.

Knitting en route to Phoenix.
Outisde it’s like being in a hot
clothes dryer: 115 degrees F.
Inside it was lovely with the
air conditioning in Paul’s Taurus.

Carllie: Paul dropped us off at the Phoenix Airport at about 5 p.m., rather than arriving at a bus station at 8:30 p.m. via Tufesa as we had originally planned. The Phoenix Airport is is huge, but we soon found a motel for the night. They sent their shuttle bus over, and within half an hour we were relaxing in a spacious, air conditioned room which we only ventured out of to walk 20 minutes to a restaurant for dinner. It was so hot and windy outside, it felt like we were in a clothes dryer on hot setting. It was nice to get back to the cool room and flake out for the night. After 51 days of relentless work, we were both exhausted.

Next morning, Garett, ever the enthusiast, after a good long sleep got up at 5:30 a.m. to go out and buy some bottled water, while I groaned and turned over in bed. When he got back 20 minutes later he was all keen to go try out the motel’s pool and practise his snorkeling! I went with him, as a swim sounded good and we were glad to do a little bit of diving in the short deep end of the pool. After a pleasant 3 1/2 hour flight back via U.S. Airways, where we also lucked out into having the one empty seat in the plane next to us, we had a very quick stop at Canada Customs and were met by our loving friend, Carilyne Whitworth. She shed a few tears and so did I. It has been a long time since we have seen our friends at home.

We are now staying in Richmond, a bedroom community next to Vancouver, with our good friends Daken and Korianne Ariel in their lovely home. The trees! The grass! The flowers! The cool air! It’s wonderful to be home for awhile.

Light Wave is calling to us. The Sea of Cortez awaits. We look forward to continuing our exploration in September, when the water will be warm and Light Wave even better than before. We can hardly wait to see how she sails!

Sus amigos,

Garett and Carllie