Hauling Out in San Carlos - Some Observations

Our approach to big boat projects involving tool skills or physical demands is this: GB does almost all that sort of work while I handle the parts/supplies procurement, keep myself available to help GB when he asks for it, follow the instructions he gives me, and otherwise keep myself out from underfoot. Meaning, I had some spare time to look around at the life around me in Marina Seca's boat yard. Up here are 2 views of their long-term storage yard in San Carlos, from up on jackstands in the work yard. There are a lot of boats of all types out there - some old, some new; large and small; some have been there for just one season; others for many seasons; still others have been abandoned and languish under the hot Sonoran sun. Some are fiberglass; some are wood.

Speaking of wood, every day just before sunrise, from my perch in the work yard I heard the sound of woodpeckers tapping on one mast or another in the distance. I pitied the poor wooden boat that was under attack, and heard tales from other cruisers who had seen one boat in particular whose mast was riddled with woodpecker holes. We all speculated that it had been abandoned and Marina Seca kept it there as a sacrificial boat, to keep the local Gila woodpeckers from going after other wooden masts throughout the yard. It seemed like a fine idea to me, if true.

But soon I heard another sound - the unmistakable sound of a woodpecker tapping on metal: pingpingpingpingpinnnnnngggggg. Man, I thought, that little guy must have one huge headache now...

The next morning, same pingpingpingpingpinnnnnngggggg, different location.  Assuming the woodpecker was going after aluminum masts, I contemplated that repetitive head injuries must indeed lead to short term memory loss.  And then one morning I saw two of them alight on a sailboat closer to ours. And I saw that they were not beating on the aluminum masts after all. They were going for the masthead instruments.

Yikes. THAT'S an expensive bird toy.

So, an FYI to all you cruisers out there:  when storing your boat on the hard and leaving it unoccupied for any length of time, you may want to consider removing those fancy masthead instruments. Because it might not be high winds that mess them up.

m

Comments

[Cal40Argonaut]

ANy plans to take that fancy paint job farther afield than Mexico?
M&L

[sailnmuffin]

Hey, you shellbacks! We're not passage-makers like you 2. We're going to finish up our tour of the Sea of Cortez in another couple weeks, then head to Mazatlan to hang out poolside until November. After which we hope to scoot south thru Central America to Ecuador, weather & visa laws permitting. Which to you guys, now, is just a short weekend trip, right??

m