"Just One More Day"...putting Cinnabar away for the summer.

It has been a busy 2.5 weeks since we rushed back into La Paz, cutting our trip to the islands (pictures here) short by one week, to prepare for hurricane Blanca. She was classified as a "dry" hurricane, i.e. no rain, i.e. lots of dirt! Our friends nicknamed her "Hurricane Dusty"...very appropriate.

So far it has been a mostly pleasant and sometimes sweaty end-of-spring; I seem to recall the past two years being a lot hotter about this time. It probably feels cooler because for the past couple of weeks we've had some good breeze (strong evening winds, unique to La Paz, called "coromuels"), during the evening and night, which helps to cool things off. But then again, the winds bring more of the dreaded dirt and dust. Pros and cons...

The marina is getting lonely as many people head north into the Sea of Cortez, over to the mainland, or home for the summer. Some intrepid souls are doing the "Baja Bash" (so called because boats are likely to find themselves "bashing" against northerly wind and swells) to get their boats back to the U.S. Others, like us, will fly or drive north, usually to the U.S or Canada.

Our neighbor "Timoneer" leaves to "bash" up to Ensenada. 

There are a lot of empty boats buttoned up for summer, sails off, hulls lined with fenders in preparation for hurricane winds, and boat covers secured tightly in place.

We've been busy preparing Cinnabar to be left alone until we return in the fall, going down our list of tasks that seems to take us at least two weeks no matter how much we swear we will "streamline" and do it faster this year. Why is it that "just a 5-minute job" takes half a day??

Tom goes aloft to inspect, repair, remove wind instruments, and install anti-bird spikes on the spreaders. It's a constant battle with the ospreys and frigate birds.

And no matter what day we plan to leave, or how well we try to prepare, we always seem to need "just one more day".

Even though it feels like there is more to do, our scheduled departure day has arrived, and we leave today for our drive back north, hopefully stopping in Ensenada, San Diego, and maybe one or two other places as we head back up to the SF Bay Area. Luckily we have a house-sitting gig for July, and we *have* to be back, otherwise who knows how long we would linger in La Paz? 

We have mixed feelings; it's hard to leave our home-away-from-home, but on the other hand...ROAD TRIP!!!!!