The haul out. Part dos.

Boat projects. They say that cruising your boat is basically just fixing your boat in tropical places. That about sums it up. While I do get satisfaction from getting a job completed, you have to know that DOING the job is a complete pain in the ass.  Especially when we all live aboard.  I have to move a bunch of stuff to get to the tools and then I have to move that stuff to do the job.  While doing the job, I find other things that need to be done as I am exposing areas that might hide some other problem or problems.
I watch for things to go wrong on our boat.  Always.  And I miss stuff. Or put it off. We are using her hard and things can go wrong.  I just hate finding a stray bolt on deck.  Is this bolt the one thing that is holding the rigging up?  Could be.  Probably not but it shouldn't be on the damn deck that is for sure.  So it goes.
While heading up to Mazatlan, I noticed the part holding the boom to the mast was wiggling.  I also noticed that the winch we use to hoist the main sail was loose.  Way loose.  Posted about the winch getting fixed.  Took all day.  The wiggling boom part again took all damn day and actually is not fixed yet.  I am out of bolts and spent most of the day tracking down a bolt store here. They actually have stores that just sell bolts.  Called Tornelli.  You don't go rummage around. You step up to the counter and tell them what you want. If your Spanish is like mine, you draw a picture. 

The bolts that were in those holes were not tightening the boom to the mast. However they wouldn't come out either.  Corrosion. Stainless steel and aluminum corrode together and make it almost impossible to get them apart. Takes years but it does happen. 

This is the part that the boom bolts onto and then the whole deal goes on the mast. 

See the boxes behind the aluminum part?  Never ever put cardboard boxes in cabin of your boat.  Cockroaches live in the cardboard and then get in your boat.  They fly also.  And crawl up lines to get onboard. Constant fight against them. 

I also fixed the macerator.  Again.  God what an awful job. The macerator sucks the poop out of our holding tank and chews it up and then ejects it overboard when we are out side of the marinas. While leaving La Cruz, I powered up the macerator and it whined for a bit and then stopped. 15 gallons of poop are now going to be traveling with us all the mazaltan. Got to Mazaltan and took the pump apart and found a washer in the blades. A washer. As in this...

I'll spare you the actual washer as it is much too disgusting. 

That leaves me with this quote for my favorite movie Eurotrip...

So please...enlighten me.  Who's eating f****** washers?!

I imagine the washer fell in down the install or something. I doubt we ate a washer and passed it. Anyway rebuilt the macerator and works like a charm now.

So boom fixed, macerator fixed, winch fixed. 

We have been having some movement in the rudder ever since we hit a big wave off of California. Went to the boatyard here in Mazatlan and hauled out Appa. That is twice in Mexico. Maybe a record. The cost is half of Puerto Vallarta. 

Cool picture eh?

Female travel lift operator. Very professional and good.  

Here is the rudder out of the boat. The shiny bit is solid stainless steel.  We are going to extend that part by two feet and tie it into the seats in the helm station. Bottom line...making it stronger. Much stronger. 

The stainless steel rudder part comes up through here. Here is where I noticed the movement. Nothing dangerous.  Yet.  Needs to be done.  Evidently this is a common problem on our model of boat I recently found out.  The designer Ed Dubois, an Englishman, want to have the rudder stock go up and tie into the seats like I am going to have done.  Wauquiez said no, they wanted more storage space.  So here I am in Mexico getting it fixed. This is AFTER one of the premier boatyards in Seattle gave the whole rudder assembly a clean bill of health just prior to us leaving. 

In addition to that stock getting longer, I am having them fabricate an emergency tiller system that will actual work.  I'll spare you the babble on that.

Benjamin working with the sabersaw to get the nylon bearing out.  The bearing was out of round by a bunch. Hence the shaking.  Roberto is taping the waterline for new bottom paint. 

We are also going to reinforce the support webbing that holds the rudder tube in place. 

The dripless shaft system is getting overhauled also and I am having a new muffler fabricated as the old one is about done.

See that green peeking out of the corner of Pedro's truck?  We are getting new covers made for the cushions. Just new covers. Wait to you see what we picked out.

While all the boat work is going on, we are leaving on a trip.  This is all our crap that we unloaded off the boat.  We are going to spend 7 days in Copper Copper.  Here is a photo of the train 

I think I blogged about this. If not google Copper Canyon Mexico and train.  We are taking the train from the coast to way inland.  All the way to Chihauhau. Pancho Villa died there.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancho_Villa in case you don't know who he is.

So lots going on. We are doing good and having fun.  Lots of work but before you know it, we will be back in Seattle going through the motions like everyone else.  

Jen's mom left after one week with us. Windy as hell the whole time. And kinda cool.  We actually are using covers now whilst sleeping. 

Seems like when parents come to visit the weather gets crappy. My parents came for a visit and it rained the whole time. 

Love this picture!  Saying goodbye to Grandma!  We love you!