We had our last sunset at sea as we crossed over to San Carlos. The winds that were predicted didn’t fill our sails very well and we spent another day and night motorsailing.
Sunsets at sea are some of the most amazing you can witness. This was our last one for a long time.
We crossed the Sea again so we could store Astraea in a secure yard for hurricane season while we went home to visit friends and family. While traveling in Mexico we only have 6 month tourist visas. It made sense for us to get out of Mexico a little early in May prior to our visas expiring so we could go to a family wedding to visit with family. Since it is hurricane season in Mexico from June until November we decided to stay stress free and travel the United States and visit family and friends during this time.
The first thing we did when we got to San Carlos was take the bus into Guaymas to go to Walmart. We needed to get a potty seat for Sully since we’d be taking a 12 hour bus ride to the United States and we needed to start practicing with it. To keep having success with potty training we wanted Sully to have a familiar place to use the toilet while we’re traveling. When we made it ashore we were pleasantly surprised to know that for $10 deposit and $2 a day we could get a key at the marina for the bathrooms and showers and use the dinghy dock. One of the other perks was that we could use the nearby hotel pool!
We anchored in the bay at San Carlos under Mount Tetakawi
I was surprised at how gringo San Carlos was. Cars and trucks with American and Canadian plates equaled the number of Mexican vehicles. One of the stop signs even had two signs hanging one English over Spanish, STOP and ALTO!
San Carlos was our last port to just play, so we made the most of it by visiting the hotel pool. We had been having outboard issues, so I sent Natalie and Sully to the pool while I sat at the dinghy dock and tore apart our dinghy outboard’s carburetor. I was engrossed in my work when I saw another dinghy pull up and didn’t recognize Margie and Chuck from S/V Dreamcatcher. We first met them while cruising up in Sidney, Canada while on a two week cruise aboard our first boat, Airborne. It was great to catch up with them again and get some carb pointers from Chuck. The job was easy and the outboard ran better than when I started!
The view over the marina
The pool has a large shallow area perfect for little kids
Sully spent most of his time at the pool jumping back and forth from the shallow area on to the steps
The large shallow area, perfect for little kid runnings and splashing
He’s getting much more confident around the water
He even puts his face in and blows bubbles on his own. Way to go, Sully!
Sunset from the hotel pool deck
We were going to start doing a few projects to get ready for the haul out while in San Carlos, but I’m glad we just relaxed and enjoyed the pool and scenery. The next week in Guaymas was very busy. We found out getting a boat ready to sit on the hard dirt for hurricane season is a lot of work!