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Ready to Splash..................


Well, we are splashing tomorrow!

After a quick trip down to Mexico with a packed car and a dinghy on the roof we checked into the condo that we rented in San Carlos last year only to find that they had no wifi anymore and the price had almost doubled. After three days of being told that the tech guy would come at 4:30 we packed up at 5:00 on day three and found a new place: Los Jitos Hotel.  I don’t know how many rooms there are, but it is BIG. Our room has a kitchen, AC, hot water, wifi and room cleaning with fresh linens every day. It’s also only five minutes from the boat yard where we go every day from 8 to 5 to work on Loomba-Loomba. All for $175/week US$!

We haven’t tried to find out its history yet, but it appears that it must have been pretty fancy in its day and is now suffering from deferred maintenance.  There is now a Best Western and a big, fancy hotel down by Marina San Carlos – both newer than Los Jitos.  The first couple of nights we were the only guests and THEN the weekend came……………….apparently there were four weddings in San Carlos Saturday night.  People started arriving about 4am Saturday morning. Loud music, horns honking, and major partying. When we got back from the boat yard everyone was all gussied up and heading out to their weddings. We had a nice quiet night until about 4am again when they all brought the parties back to the hotel. When we got back from the boat yard Sunday evening we were alone again. Here are some pictures of Los Jitos after the wedding goers were gone.
Moonrise view from our balcony

Our room at Los Jitos

The central Plaza of the Hotel Los Jitos

One of the many hallways - deserted.

Another deserted hallway.


Loomba-Loomba is in good shape, but there is ALWAYS something that delays the best of plans. The first thing was that the cutlass bearing was a bit loose so we opted to replace it now. The guy who is doing our survey for our insurance was going up to Tucson so we called Fisheries Supply in Seattle and ordered one to be shipped to him in Tucson. He picked it up and delivered it to us a few days later in the boat yard. 
The second delay is the outboard. It had some issues last year. We took it to Danny the mechanic last spring to get it diagnosed. It needed an electronic part (expensive and unavailable here) so we brought one back with us. He put it in, changed the impeller and tried to get a screw out to lube the lower end – he couldn’t get the screw out so we have to take it to the machine shop in Guaymas (they did a bunch of stainless work for us last year) to get the screw drilled out and a new hole drilled. We are taking it to Guaymas Friday when we go to the government bank that has to issue the paperwork to get our re-packed life raft and re-galvanized chain back into Mexico without having to pay duty. Like I've said before – nothing is simple or quick here. We are counting on it being ready when we get back from Palm Springs – we shall see.

The third delay is our life raft, which needs to be repacked (insurance requirement). The closest certified place is in San Pedro, CA. So Saturday we are heading up to stay in Palm Springs for a few days to take the life raft in for re-packing and (maybe) the chain to be re-galvanized. Of course while we’re there we’re going to have to hit Costco and Trader Joes – at least for some good cheese and good chocolate!
Jim and Arturo having a discussion about the shaft and prop.


The Marina Real work yard is much smaller and cleaner
than the yard in Guaymas where we were last year.
So Loomba-Loomba has new bottom paint, a new cutlass bearing, a sparkling clean shaft and re-greased max-prop, new zincs and the “out of the water” part of the survey has been done.  She’s ready to splash and SO ARE WE

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