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| Our last evening in the yard. |
Having served our time here in Guaymas Sonora Mexico we have
come to know the lay of the land. We’ve
learned a thing or two. When we pass
this way again the memory cannot help but be diminished so I thought I’d jot
down a few notes for future reference.
Too, this will benefit any reader who stumbled by this blog entry while
searching on information about hauling out and getting boat work done in
Guaymas or San Carlos.
As a place to haul out and get work done this is a good option…
IF you are somewhat of a do-it-yourselfer you will really enjoy being able to
do your own work in the yard. If you
like standing back and letting someone else do the work then that’s available too.
My opinion: Even if
you are not used to doing your own repairs you will benefit by diving into the
details along with the mechanic or painter or rigger. We might be talking about a learning curve,
but that’s a good thing. The best
education is by observing and doing. Spend the time to understand what’s
happening and what the options might be.
Expect some blind alleys where you and the mechanic think you are doing
the right thing but it finally becomes apparent that you need to stop, turn
around, and try something else. If you
are not actively participating in the process then you won’t know when to call
the halt. After all, it is your money,
and thus, your decision in the end. You
are driving the bus.
There is some bit of pride in everyone, ain’t that the
truth? Especially here in Mexico you’ll
find the tradespersons to be sensitive about the quality of their work. Use your people skills to honor their work
and yet guide them in the direction you want to go. Take the time to shoot the breeze with
them. Joke around a little. Ask about the family. Then get down to business. Doing so makes
everything go much smoother. If they
like you and think you are an honorable person they will do their best for
you. If they see you as critical,
haughty, or judgmental then the quality of work might suffer and the price
could go up.
But I digress in my preaching about how to conduct yourself
in a foreign country. Let me shut up about that and get back to talking about the
lay of the land in Guaymas.
We chose to
get boat work done in the Guaymas/San Carlos area for many reasons.
Located in the south of the state of Sonora,
this area is in the “No Hassle Zone” and as such you can bring down your US car
without a temporary import permit.
Being
only four hours from the border, you can make quick runs to Nogales, Tucson, or
Phoenix for parts.
If you know someone
in one of those cities you can have your parts shipped there. Our friends
ordered a part and had it shipped to the Nogales Motel 6 where they agreed to
accept the shipment as long as they prepaid their room reservation.
The trip north is pleasant with good roads
and few tolls and it’s a short enough trip that you don’t need to drive at night.
We don’t drive in Mexico at night.
If you don’t have a car, Tufesa and TAP busses
run multiple times per day.
We brought a
new transmission down with us on the bus and nobody blinked an eye.
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| Gabriel Larios runs Marina Seca Guaymas |
If you are presently cruising Mexico then you probably have
Shawn Breeding and Heather Bansmer’s Sea of Cortez guidebook. Consult this for places of interest and
street maps for both Guaymas and San Carlos.
There are four haul out facilities in this area. In San Carlos you have Marina Real and Marina
San Carlos, both with travel lifts and work yards. Marina San Carlos is the more reasonably
priced of the two and has the lion’s share of the business. You haul out at the marina and the 60 ton
Hydraulic trailer travels the half mile inland to the dry (seca) yard. The seca is divided into two sections, one
for storage and one for work. You can’t
work on your boat or stay overnight in the storage yard. Because the work yard is more expensive you
want to get your work done quickly and get her moved into storage as soon as
possible. To us, this situation was a
little too restrictive.
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| Andrew drives the lift at Marina Seca Guaymas |
In downtown Guaymas there is a Fonatur Marina with slips for
about ten good size boats depending on their draft.
The boat yard and lift at Fonatur are nice
but expensive.
Most people haul out
at the south end of the bay at Marina Seca and when the work is done they
launch and head over to Fonatur for a few days to provision the boat, check out
the systems, and wash all the yard dirt off the deck.
Another option is to head around the corner to the Almost Free Marina, named such because sometimes you pay to tie up there and sometimes not. It's a small collection of five finger docks that were built to compensate the panqueros (panga fishermen) for when the Fonatur developers took away their landing in downtown Guaymas. A problem with the Almost Free Marina is that your outboard motor or bicycles might disappear in the night. Be careful. Oh, and there is no water or power.
Marina Seca is a mile or so south across the bay from
downtown. There are no docks there, just
a haul out facility and two large dirt yards. The whole bay area is fairly shallow so if you draw more than six feet, pick a high tide to enter the ways then pick
another high tide when you’re ready to splash.
Full moon and new moon times have the highest highs. As you head toward the south end of the bay
it will get shallower and shallower.
Just off the ways is a white buoy.
Anchor just off that buoy to wait for your haul out appointment.
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| Traveler stayed overnight in the ways and left on the morning high tide. The dredged channel heads straight out. |
We usually arrive in the afternoon, anchor in
9 feet then haul out in the morning when the tide is full. From the white buoy, head directly east,
watching the ways with your binoculars.
When you can see right down the middle of the two runways make your
right turn and head straight in. You’ll
be talking to Arnulfo or Andrew on the VHF and they can wave you one way or the
other if you get off track. The channel
is dredged but narrow. Go slow so
if you do run aground you can get off easily.
The crew will take your lines and they might turn your boat
around if it fits better going in the lift backwards. We go in forward but remove the
forestay and the staysail stay so the lift can get the weight centered properly. Have your
tools ready to do some demolition and don’t worry about taking up too much
time. The haulout crew is very patient.
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| “If you're happy, I'm happy”says Arnulfo
the yard manager |
The wonderful thing about the Guaymas Seca yard is that
there are few restrictions on what work you can do.
As the boat owner, you can paint, grind, weld,
fiberglass, bang on things, curse, and drink beer in your folding chair in the
shade of the hull.
You can park your
vehicle right next to your boat and come and go as you wish, day or night.
The yard is full of people from many nations all
working on their boat projects so if you have a challenging project you can
walk around and find multiple old salts who have resolved your very
problem.
Of course, you’ll get many
different solutions, all of them the best.
The only problem I’ve found with the scene at the Guaymas Seca is that
sometimes you get too much advice.
I
just nod and smile.
Gabriel Larios runs the operation and has an office on the south
side of the old yard. Call him on the
phone. He is fluent in English and
Spanish and who knows what other languages and can schedule your haul out.
Arnulfo
is the yard boss and has years of experience.
He’s a good resource for a second opinion on marine engineering problems. His little office is perched up high in the
new yard. Andrew runs the lift and
Roberto assists. That’s it for permanent crew there outside of the guards which
they have three, one at each yard gate and one who sits down by the water
watching for poachers approaching by small boat. The old yard has the ways for hauling out and
room for big catamarans and trimarans.
If your boat is too big for the 30 ton travelift then Gabriel can
arrange for the shipyard next door to haul you out and carry your boat to his yard. Old customers who have been
coming here for years have their favorite spots in the old yard and it seems
like Gabriel lets them keep coming back to the same spot each summer.
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| Roberto ties the slings |
The new yard is
across the dirt road to the east and has lots of room for boats and car
storage.
It seems like new customers
with monohulls less than 50 feet long all go into the new yard.
Both yards are protected with fencing, razor
wire, and guards.
Your first time in you
sign the clipboard.
After that the guards will recognize you and let you come and go. Eventually you will get to know them by
name.
The main yard has a set of
restrooms with showers in the middle of the yard.
A new, very nice, set of restrooms and showers are outside the yards
between the Seca and the main road.
These are locked at 5:00 PM each night so get your shower in early if
you want to use the nice facilities.
When there is a 4:00 stampede watch out, you might get the last (and
cold) shower.
Of course, in the summer
the hot water is hot and the cold water is hot.
Everything is hot.
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| Arnulfo's office at the intersection of the two yards |
In the yard you have electricity and water. For some reason the water is turned off at
5:00 PM. There is one rate for the boat
and one rate for living aboard and using power and water, so while you are gone
you get a nice cheap rate, and when you are there living and working in the
yard you pay an extra $5 a day… still very reasonable. We save our vegetable food scraps to feed the
sheep that Gabriel keeps in a pen next to the new yard. There is a constant new supply of lambs being
born… very cute.
Mechanics, painters and other tradespersons come to the yard
and do work but they must clear it with Gabriel. Francisco paints and does
fiberglass work.
Omar does mechanical
work.
Carlos does rigging. These are just the ones I know.
There are other people you can hire to get all
kinds of work done.
They are allowed in
the yard from 8 AM to 5 PM M-F, 8 AM to Noon on Saturday, and on Sunday they
are in church.
A couple of different
water venders come into the yard, driving around in old pickup trucks full of
garafons of water, beeping their horns, the whole family aboard.
He’ll carry the big 20 liter jugs up the
ladder so you can pour them into the tank.
13 pesos a pop, plus a little propina (tip) .
Read another blog entry about the boatyard by Ann and Doug on Galivant:
What's to like about living in the shipyard.
Marina Seca is a little bit outside of Guaymas proper and so
requires a bus ride to get into town.
Catch the Paraje Fatima bus for 5.5 pesos and ride all the way downtown
to hardware stores and the markets. Across the street from the Seca is a hardware
store and a beer store but other than that there is not much close by the
yard. Most of the hardware stores have a
small storefront but large storage areas so be prepared to show them what you
need or spell it out in Spanish. Chances are, they can find it in the
back. If not, they will tell you where
to go to find it, even if it is at a competitor’s ferreteria.
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| The new yard is clean and flat. A little dusty when the wind gets up. |
Stainless steel nuts and bolts can be had in a little
specialty shop named La Cora on 17
th and Garcia Lopez.
Luebberts on the Malecon has some hardware
and paint items that relate to marine applications.
You can get bottom paint and two part epoxy
paint at the International paint store on Adolfo de La Huerta (from Serdan go
three blocks north on 20
th and turn left) but the bottom paint is in
5 gallon cans.
Find someone in the yard
who is also painting their hull and split a can with them to save money.
You can get single gallons of bottom paint at
the local Comex on Calle Diez.
For West
Systems fiberglass supplies you have to make a trip to San Carlos.
Take the bus downtown then at the Mercado
wait for a bus with the words “San Carlos” on the windshield.
Star Marine in San Carlos is the only US
style marine store in the area and has the monopoly on marine specialty
items.
Have your credit card ready to
spend big bucks.
On Wednesday there is a street market downtown where you can
buy wonderful fresh produce and all sorts of used tools. On Saturday the street market is nearer to
the Marina Seca at the Beisbol soccer field complex one mile west. With a car you can go to the evil Walmart or
Sam’s club for big provisioning and you can hit Home Depot to not find what you
are looking for and pay twice as much for it.
On Wednesday go to Pollo Feliz and get one and a half
grilled chickens for the price of one chicken.
We eat on this for three days of lunches and one pot of soup from the
bones.
Treat yourself with a trip to The
Dougout for fried oysters, shrimp, or fish at cheap prices and live music on
the veranda.
It’s not far from the city
center on Garcia Lopez.
If you are
coming in or leaving by a long distance bus take the Paraje Fatima bus downtown
then connect to any bus heading out towards Walmart, or vice versa.
If it is evening, just hail a taxi, it is
much safer.
Speaking of safety, watch out for yourself here. Like any other city there are folks here who will
do most anything for money. The honest
and helpful people are very kind. They are
clean and well dressed, proud. You can tell those
who are living close to the edge because they look unkempt. They’ll try to think of a way to get
some money or a favor out of you. We’ve
had them offer to sell us drugs, then turn around and ask to buy drugs. Go figure.
Trouble makers, bless their hearts, every town has them.
Guaymas is not a tourist town, which is refreshing because
what you see is what is real life. The locals
might wonder what you are doing here but they take it in stride and don’t
usually treat you any differently. This is especially nice when the price you
pay for your taco is the same as everyone else.
We do our best to fit in and so be seen as “normal”.
When we go to town I wear long pants and Connie covers her
shoulders and legs. Still, she gets lots
of long looks. The young single men look
her up then down then watch her walk away. Maybe this is because she has long white hair
and she’s tall. But they watch all women
like this. That’s just the way it is. I keep my money in a safe place and don’t flash it
around. For cash, I visit one of the
downtown banks at the teller machine then go inside and change the big bills
into smaller ones. To change USD into Pesos I go to a bank and bring a copy of my
passport with me so they can take it for their records. When you enter a bank, remove your hat and
sunglasses and queue up in line with everyone else.
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| M/V Piloto goes out day and night taking a pilot to incoming and outgoing ships. This is the Fonatur marina. |
Out and about, I try to have change available
because often times when I buy something at a sidewalk stand or small store
they will not be able to make change.
Street side stands are great places to
eat.
I had two tacos yesterday for ten
pesos, about 70 cents.
If you get on a
bus with a 50 peso bill, give it to the driver then wait.
Once he has accumulated more coins he will
give you your change.
When you want the
bus to stop, say “Baja!” which means “down.”
To flag down a bus, raise your hand up in the air.
After being in Guaymas for three months we are getting a little
weary of it, but I must say, it is a good town and a real Mexican town, not a
tourist destination. Where in other
coastal towns we are constantly approached and offered timeshares and trinkets,
here we are pretty much left alone.
As a place to leave the boat for the summer and then get
her outfitted for the next cruising season, Guaymas and San Carlos are very
good choices.
Since we didn’t stay in
San Carlos we can’t really review that area but from what we’ve seen, it’s
pretty laid back and they have everything you might need.
It’s just that there are so many northerners
there.
Feels kinda like San Diego. But
then again, San Diego is nice too.
It’s
all good.
Todo bien!
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| Omar Garza |
Last but not least I want to thank our good friend Omar who kept at it tirelessly until it all came together. He is a great mechanic, has an amazing attitude, and is soon to be a famous ukelele musician.
