Prepping for the Baja Ha Ha 2009

It's been awhile! What a busy year! Jesse and I decided after many years of working it was time for a little R, R and R (Rest, Relaxation and Retirement) and what more perfect way to start retirement than with the Baja Ha Ha! We asked Judy and Michael Stouffer to be our crew down the Baja coast and thankfully they took us up on the offer.

It was a massive undertaking cutting our ties to land and prepping the boat to go. I would highly recommend to anyone who is cutting ties to land and outfitting a boat to retire get all the "major" projects done at least 6 months in advance! Or more. It gives you time to work the bugs out! And to relax a little with friends! We however did not retire until about 2 months before the start of the rally....We worked not just tirelessly but through the tiredness. Walking zombies. We kept saying we needed to leave for the Ha Ha in self defense! It was hard to get together with friends as much as we wanted to because the boat needed so many projects done. Nothing like a starting pistol to light a fire.

The major projects included a water-maker from Village Marine (The Little Wonder, two days to install). We like it so far! It is was very affordable even after install, makes great water, is quiet, and took up less space than I thought it would.

Next was the batteries. We replaced our spent Lead-Acid batteries (3 8-Ds roughly 670 Amp hours) with 8 6-Volt AGM batteries with 1800 total Amp hours and a dedicated starting battery also AGM. Because AGMs can be turned on their side, do not release gas, and do not need distilled water added to them like wet-cell Lead-Acid batteries we were free to place them in less valuable real estate than under the galley floorboards. We put them under the previously unused space under the after berth freeing up the HUGE galley floorboard space for the most cavernous booze cabinet afloat! My bar owning grandparents would be so proud! (Side note: they owned The Elbow Room Bar in Missoula MT) But I digress....

Next the side projects of hooking up the water-maker to the batteries to try out for the first time, as well as supplying battery power to the electrical panel which in turn powers things like lights and refrigeration. Not to mention removing the old and huge 8-D batteries and the acid that was all over the surrounding area. And then cutting out part of the old battery box to enlarge the booze cabinet more.

Then davits (lifting arms that hang off the back of the boat on which you can hoist the dinghy). We had to drive to the L.A. area to pick these up as the cross bar was too long to ship inexpensively. The davit install created side problems of the BBQ would no longer fit on it's custom mount, the aft navigation light was no longer seen from behind due to the dingy hanging there, and the dingy motor crane was now in danger of having to be moved too. After a couple days milling it over Jesse and Michael came to the conclusion that swiveling the crane arm around would enable it to clear the solar panel and it worked! Michael re-routed the nav light to the stern pole and the BBQ just needed a stainless piece added to move it out a little.

On a side note I must mention that in the month and a half it took for the big stuff to happen the boat was completely torn up with the entire contents of the "work room" storage out on display for the world to see. I was completely glad to leave town to go to Northern California to sell our crap out of the storage unit in the big Gate 11 (our old dock in Alameda) Swap Meet. It was a fantastic success and we sold a TON! The most of the rest went to Goodwill in no less than 8 trips there. The remainder in the unit was stuff that would go "visit" Marc, Jesse's son, or "visit" my Mom and Dad. We stayed with Judy and Michael on their boat Milagro and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the Gate 11 Gang again!

When we got back to the boat 4 days later (2 days were spent driving) to see the solar panel install. Not to be, we had to get a metal worker fabricating the solar panel mounts. The good thing was that the four 135 Watt panels all fit on the davits with a small space for the stainless trident topped pole we have antennas and the dingy motor crane mounted on.

The solar panel side projects were the Outback controller install, wiring to the batteries and the panels, as well as a Pro Link to keep track of Amps, Volts, battery state, etc. (For everything installed the was the task of running wires through tight spaces and connecting each item with a power source as well as to the accompanying items to run in conjunction with).

We had to go back to Alameda in the truck to pack up the art stuff to take up to "visit" my parents in Montana. We stayed with Judy and Michael again who put on a lovely green chili Gate 11 party. We spent a day in the storage unit organizing and taking more stuff to the Goodwill. Next day we loaded the whole pickup full and drove straight through to Montana. We got there about 3:30 A.M. slept a couple hours, visited with the family a little (Mom and Dad had the Swine Flu), then it was on to unpacking the truck and putting the contents away so as not to increase the space I was already using. I consequently got rid of a great number of less important items that had got to Montana before. It's funny how things become less important the longer a person lives on a boat. We stayed in Montana 2 days 3 nights and the drove to Salt Lake City to stay at Little America and have dinner with friends from last years Ha Ha. Then it was on to San Diego. It was 6 states in 7 days!

When we got back I had to go through all the boat's storage and purge things, write up notes for the inside of cabinets on contents so people other than yours truly could find stuff. There were countless trips to the Goodwill, dumpster, and to friends to get rid of stuff. I shredded a 4 drawer cabinet worth of files. Really, I shredded until the shredder over heated, then ripped stuff by hand until my hands were full of paper cuts, then one crazy night with the Swine Flu I threw up my arms and took the rest of the paper to the beach and burned it in a bon fire!! That was fun!! Jesse was up in Northern California at the time delivering the truck to Marc, who bought it from us. Jesse rented a car to get back with a new to us 15 hp Yamaha outboard motor! So as to move more people and cargo, deal with the dangerous surf, and to get up on plane in the dingy. Great suggestion everyone! I mean really great suggestion the 15 hp engine is fantastic!!!!

After craziness reigned for a little too long things started to drop into place faster and Judy and Michael were coming to visit. The solar panels went up finally!

Thank God for Judy and Michael helping because it would not get done otherwise. Judy helped me organize, stow, shop, translate girl-speak to the guys, photograph, provision (she and Jesse did the major shopping 2 days before the race), and helped give us some structure to mealtimes (mealtimes of course are the best time of day, my hero!) Michael is great with boat projects took on a laundry list of honey-dos with Jesse and sometimes without.

The honey-dos were put the wheels on the dingy (that enable you to pull a beached dingy up above the surf line), install the easy gybe (keeps the boom from crashing across to the other side by accident), install the radar reflector, add a new flag halyard, lash down the jerry jugs of diesel and extra water, etc, etc. Marc volunteered or was volunteered to go up the mast for the reflector and halyard install. (Marc took our little red car back with him to Oregon the day before the Ha Ha started).

Whew! Looking back on the work Work WORK from where we are now, it was totally worth it! That was more than a bit wordy but we are asked a lot of questions by those looking to cruise and by land lubbers who want the understand what it is like. Hopefully this will help y'all out. I promise the later posts will be more FUN!