To those who have never done it, life on board a boat can seem to be all hearts and flowers! However, the truth is not quite like the dream. Unless you live in an active volcano, the poor old boat can boast the most inhospitable environment on earth – salt water. Highly corrosive, conducive of electricity (causing galvanic corrosion) and choc-a-bloc with beasties whose sole aim in life is to attach themselves to your arse. Now add some wind, waves, poorly made docks, nasty sharp reefs, relentless UV and you start to develop some serious sympathy for the poor old sailing boat.

Given all that, then it is not surprising that the poor old boat needs to come out of the water periodically for some serious maintenance. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to the reality attack of the boatyard.

Boatyards are dusty, dirty and quite the opposite of the “dream” that most people envisage when they buy a boat. Nevertheless, they are as much a part of sailing as water is, so you better get used to them!

If you are rich then you could probably get a bunch of workers together to make all the necessary repairs. If you are poor, like me, then………………….

you need a girlfriend to do all the hard work.

While you relax with ice on your head.

For fellow DIY yachtsmen, we recommend highly the boatyard Marina Seca Guaymas. They are (relatively) cheap, flexible and friendly.

As usual, there turned out to be more work to do than we thought, but if we got stuck into it, we could probably be out of the boatyard in a couple more weeks, but because it is so insanely hot (nearly 50 degrees inside the boat which – unfortunately – is where much of the work needs to be done) we have decided to take a holiday and head up the mountains to Creel – the highest point in Mexico for hiking, horse riding and general R&R. I am sure the work will still be there when we get back.

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