S/V AEOLI: Recap: The Long Road Back into the Water… (w/pics!)

Our journey began with a road trip in Suzi (our faithful Isuzu Trooper) from Vancouver to Guaymas, and finally back to Tucson to say our final goodbyes (ie. sell her on Craigslist). We had a great visit in the Bay Area with the Fu-Loys, even getting to enjoy Halloween with the girls and spending a day off from school with Vianne.

Uncle Matt giving Vianne some boating lessons

Monkeying around...

Driving into Mexico was so much more relaxed than we thought it would be. We didn’t speak to any customs officer at the border, and only showed our passports to get our tourist visas at the voluntary km 21 stop.

We weren’t sure what we would find getting back to AEOLI after her 7 month stay in the desert, and were expecting the worst. But we arrived to find her more or less in the same state as we had left her. The inside of the boat was hardly dusty at all, not bug infested, somewhat muggy, but thankfully not moldy. Upon the suggestion of other cruisers, we had left our water jugs filled and open inside the boat to provide some humidity for the interior wood. It did seem to help, but then we had to clean the mold out of our water jugs, which were remarkably still over half-full after the entire summer. The exterior wood in the cockpit was definitely dried out, despite the sunshade covering the entire area. It seems that a single summer in Mexico can be rougher on the boat than years in the Pacific Northwest. All in all, we were pleased that our tear down preparations had kept everything in reasonable shape.

Suzi, meet AEOLI...

After having dried out over the summer, AEOLI received a full bottom treatment. West Systems Epoxy with 407 fairing filler additive was used to fill the ground out blisters, then 4 coats of barrier coat with the 422 additive was applied. A final Comex 385 two-part epoxy primer (red) was applied just prior to the green Pettit Trinidad antifouling paint.

We decided to have Francisco paint the upper part of the hull, since he does a good job and upon leaving Mexico, we would never again have the opportunity to do so at such a reasonable price. Unfortunately, this meant several extra weeks of living on the hard with all of our sails, lines, outboard, dodger, etc. inside the boat with us, while doing such fun boat projects as installing a new bilge pump set-up and stereo system. The temperature in the cabin was reaching mid-90s in the afternoons!

Living in the clutter...

Installing a stereo, sitting in the cupboard...

To celebrate our one year wedding anniversary, and escape some of the clutter, we indulged in one night at the Sea of Cortez Beach Club in San Carlos. It was a bit cold for swimming, but we enjoyed the hot tub and a nice visit to the beach at Bahia Algodones. The viewpoint overlooking Tetakawi was definitely worth the visit.

AEOLI went through many transformations with different layers of sanding, epoxy, epoxy primer, paint primer, and three coats of Awlgrip paint in Oyster White. She emerged looking so shiny and new that people could not believe that she was a 45 year old boat.

With AEOLI almost ready to go back into the water, we spent Thanksgiving weekend driving up to Tucson, gathering a few last minute things, selling Suzi on Craigslist, and taking the bus back to Guaymas. We found that the bus company TAP Royal now also serves the route between Phoenix/Tucson and Guaymas for about half the price of Tufesa.

Finally AEOLI received her two coats of Pettit Trinidad bottom paint (restoring her to her more familiar green colour), a new gold accent line (Dupont pale gold) near the cap rail, and a new name decal.

On 5 December, AEOLI was picked up by the travel lift and launched! We had no leaks or other issues and the engine fired up right away. We were back in the water and headed to the Guaymas Fonatur Marina to get cleaned up and sorted.