It is hard to imagine that being in the boat yard could ever be a happy experience. It could be neutral, maybe, but thinking about the general environment – mostly boats being fixed, boats that have been neglected and may never be fixed and dollars flowing into a hole in the ocean – the general theme is more likely to be the blues rather than an Ode to Joy.

However, being ever positive, our current experience could have been worse. Just as many cruisers bound for Mexico leave Canada and the US laden with all of the food and other items that they believe could not possibly be available in a place like Mexico, there is often this same expectation regarding boat facilities including marinas, boat yards, chandlers, etc. In a place like La Paz, it turns out that pretty much everything is available, but it might cost a bit more. Extending this logic to boat yards suggests that we should expect the worst when in fact there is no inherent reason for this expectation. Our current experience in La Paz’s La Marina del Palmar, part of the Abaroa empire of boat yards, has been mostly excellent.

A very recent 60 Ton Travel Lift pulled us out of the water after the mast had been removed by competent riggers using a crane. The quality of the fiberglass work done to repair the compression post step, the hull blisters and the new topside paint has been excellent. So we should be confident that if we have adequate dollars (or Pesos), then access to good equipment, facilities and people is assured.

One slight downside of this boat yard and the other that we have used here (Bercovich) is that normally, for most things, only employees of the boat yard can work on boats. In this case, I have done some of the epoxy work, nearly all of the mast work (cleaning the rigging, particularly the ball joints; installing a new VHF antenna and cable) and other random bits of work. The yard has rebuilt the mast step, done some of the epoxy work on the deck, all of the new deck paint and is replacing the engine raw-water through hull and stopcock. They do excellent work from what I can tell.

Now, if only the Canadian dollar would reverse its present trajectory!