I walked down the dock, staggering with the weight of my two duffel bags, shoulder hung laptop, and book laden back pack. A later check on weatherunderground for Puerto Vallarta showed that the combination of heat and humidity gave a heat ratio for the day of 102 F. Pretty hot. Freyja was floating in her slip, D12, at the Paradise Village Marina, under her sun covers. Nick Rau, the listing broker at Vallarta Yachts had unlocked the entry hatch earlier that day, and opened some of the other hatches. So she was somewhere between 100 and 105 inside, at a guess.
First order of business was to fire up the air conditioning, a raw water system running on shore power. Pulled some floor boards, found the thru hull valve, opened it, switched the other valves in the system on to direct the water flow away from the watermaker and into the A/C, got the shore power going and turned it on. Ahhhhh nicely chilled air started blowing out, but because it was so hot it took hours to really cool off the inside.
Spent the next couple of days going through the various compartments and stowage areas inventorying equipment and supplies and spares, and hauling stuff off the boat that had been sitting on it apparently used for a couple of decades. There was an old radio direction finder, with rotating device on top of it. I guess it might still work and come in handy for finding out which direction it is to radio free cuba or something, but shoot, there is only room for so much stuff. There was an old weather fax printer, dating to the mid- to late 80s, old fashioned bilge pumps that had visible rods that pumped rubber diaphragms up and down, clumps of rusted junk, all sorts of stuff. And a whole lot of good stuff, tools, more modern extra spare parts, and miscellaneous stuff that it will be good to keep in case I ever need it, eh?
I'm feeling like you do when you sit down in a strange car - you adjust the mirror, study the cool new devices on the dash board, get the driver's seat adjusted, etc., before you drive off. Same thing here except a lot more systems. Feeling ready to go, except have been waiting for the guy on the dock who is handy with refrigeration and freezers to come by and put a charge into my refrigerator/freezer. He is busy and we have to wait for our turn because the guy who used to do it is leaving for the south seas in a few days, so the new guy, Ron, has his clients plus John's. Lots of people showing up, waking up their boats for the upcoming cruising season.
The boat right next to mine is the Lost Soul, Bob Bitchin's old boat. Lots of stories about it in Bob's magazine, Latitudes and Attitudes. Paul and Ginnie bought it, two nice and fun people from Montana and Arizona. One of the good things about it is that Bob had stocked the boat with literally tons of spare parts and tools. Everything I need to borrow is there!
