Prepping the Red Witch for Hibernation

March 23, 2023

Over the next six days we worked hard to get the boat ready for us to leave it in the long-term storage yard for the summer. 

We removed both sails, removed the solar panels and the metal that they mounted to, we removed our full enclosure, all possible lines and blocks, pretty much anything that we could remove that would potentially deteriorate in the sun.  We let out our anchor and all of our rode, and washed everything in fresh water before putting it back inside.  We covered everything remaining on the outside of the boat in tin foil and put tin foil on the inside of all of the windows so as to keep the UV rays out of the inside of the boat.  We wiped the entire inside of the boat with water and vinegar and sorted through all of our drawers and cubbies.  

It was very weird living aboard on land.  Although on a calm day at anchor we may not notice the motion of the boat, it is always moving some, and on windy days it is of course moving a lot.  Now, suddenly there was absolutely no motion on the boat, and this was very strange. 

After the sun had set on our first day in the dry marina, and we had finally slowed down and sat down, and then later lay down, we began to feel the difference.  As we were eating dinner it suddenly felt incredibly still to me.  Later both Jason and I woke up at different times through the night and felt like everything was moving way too much, and then also like everything was way too still.  It was very strange.  

We have transitioned many times before from the motion of the boat to the stillness of a house, but that stillness is expected, ones expectations change to one that is associated with stillness.  However, remaining on the boat, but being on land, was a whole different situation. 

At least for us we were able to comprehend it, but poor Falcon who had only known the motion of the boat his whole life was understandably taken out of his element and he became much more needy for several days.  This of course made getting work done much harder, and we carefully chose our chances to get the jobs done that required two people.  For the rest of the time Jason worked hard and we prioritized what needed to get done the most in case we did not have enough time to do it all.  As it worked out we had the perfect amount of time and we got everything done. 

At 08:00 on March 23rd the marina guys came with the travel lift once again and picked us up.  This time they transported our naked boat into the separate long-term storage yard.  We then took several hours to do all of the very last minute things and finally closed up the boat and climbed down the ladder for the last time.  It felt very weird to leave her alone and naked.  She had brought us so far! 

Every time that we left the marina, Falcon got a lot of attention.  Mexicans in general love babies and love family, and many of them would go out of their way to come and say hi and want to hold Falcon.  One time we went into the OXXO (essentially the equivalent of a 7-11 store in Canada), and there was a police officer out front.  He had clearly already been into the OXXO, and we smiled and said “Hola” as we went in.  A minute or two later the police officer was back inside the OXXO and talking to us in Spanish, he wanted to hold Falcon and he talked to us about his family. 

He had seven kids, and one more was on the way, and we could tell that he absolutely loved babies.