Paradise Lost ... and Found

Paradise Village Marina sounds like a great place to be doesn't it?

Paradise Village Marina - Can you spot our BFF Hydroquest??

Paradise Village looks like Mayan pyramids emerging from the jungle!

Well not for us! Being in a marina for us means money is being spent ... rapidly, and perhaps most importantly we can't go surfing with the same ease or frequency.

When we find ourselves in a Marina, it is usually because we have work to do which requires us to be still, as opposed to bouncing around at anchor. That was the case for our last 4 days in "Paradise", which was filled with 12+ hour days of boat projects.

The project list included:

• Reinforce the goose neck track
• Repair the sail out haul
  
  
  Who would have thought repairing something which is enclosed inside of a 15 foot
  aluminum pole would be so difficult??
• Clean/inspect the standing rigging
  
  
  Everyone loves to see why someone is going up the mast.
  
  And have a lot of questions about the gear being used.
  
  Starship from the mast head
  
  Anne-Marie volunteered for the tough job of cleaning the back stay!
• Wash all running rigging
• Wash the boat
• Wash our snorkeling gear
  
  
• Fill the water tanks
• Calibrate windvane
• "Spinout" the standing rigging
• Provisioning trip to Costco
  
  
  The gang heads to Costco on a mission
  
  Where are we going to put all this!!?!?!?

How does one manage to get 12 giant paper towel rolls, 80 toilet paper rolls and 12 boxes of Kleenex into a 36 foot sailboat you may ask?? Well it is quite easy with our revolutionary new, space age vacuum packing system!

Observe the tremendous space savings!

Simply pack contents into a Ziploc bag, apply compression forces,
and vacuum out the air, in this case via a straw.

Most days we would be done our work just in time to head over to the hot tub before it closed at 10PM.

Mandatory 30 minute beach break

Luckily we have found the true paradise again! ... as long as you consider paradise working like crazy and then surfing.

Punta de Mita here we come!

Paradise indeed!

I couldn't say it better myself! We're back!