November 8, 2016. The Eastern Pacific hurricane season was thankfully drawing to a close. Marina Seca San Carlos shifted The Fox from the dry storage yard to the work yard for a week's worth of projects to complete before splashing.
The Fox had survived Hurricane Norton well, but sadly, several friends' boats that were stored on the hard in Marina Seca were not so lucky. Witnesses said that a small twister had burst through one corner of the storage yard and blew over about 20 sailboats and power boats in a domino-like effect. A few miles away in Marina Real, about 11 more boats were badly damaged by a similar wind event as Norton made landfall. Some boats had sustained relatively minor damage. An unfortunate few were totaled or close to it. (I shudder to think that this rudder we saw in the work yard was all that was left of some poor boat -- but there it was, all by itself, with no boat attached to it.)
Aboard The Very Lucky Fox, the winds had blown apart enough of our landscape-fabric deck cover, that birds had occupied the cockpit and - of course - left poo everywhere. A corner of our Sunbrella cover for our solar panels had blown off, and thick dust was caked on the exposed area. Nothing that a couple extra grommets and tie-downs couldn't fix.
Belowdecks, The Fox had remained completely watertight. However, due to the very high heat in Guaymas 
during the summertime, we found a half-gallon of castile soap we'd stowed in the forward shower compartment had boiled and dried into a fascinatingly sticky, wax-like substance. An anti-freeze container we'd stowed in the sump of the starboard lazaratte had burst its seams in the heat, thus leaking anti-freeze into a space intended for just such an event; and a pair of dish-washing gloves had melted onto some pots in the cabinet where they'd been stowed. The bucket of water we'd used as a humidifier was completely dry, and the two packets of mildewcide we'd hung in the forward V-berth and in the salon had completely evaporated. In short, our countermeasures appeared to have done their job, and our cleanup projects were negligible. Excellent.
Protip: When storing a boat on jackstands, regardless of the climate but especially in hot temperatures it really works to offload as much food, liquids, and batteries as feasible.
GB spent our time in the yard painting the hull and waxing some of the topsides. He recommissioned the engine, checked the water pump, and added larger hose clamps to the shaft seal. Meanwhile, I organized and stowed food and other supplies, popped batteries back into our small electronics, and ran errands in our truck we'd driven to San Carlos for the cruising season. Handy.
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