Posted on by Nic

It has been a minute

I know, I know… Blogging hasn’t been high on my to-do list as of late. You see there’s been a LOT going on aboard SV Rua Hatu this last year; we’ve covered 1000s of sea miles, made it from Port Angeles, WA to Acapulco, Guerrero and back up Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, hauled out twice to scrape and schlep paint off/on the boat and to tinker with pipes, wires, lines and electricity, not to mention all the hundreds of amazing anchorages, places and people we’ve encountered along the way. So this post will be only a brief recap of goings-on, but I will try to fill in more highlights from our adventures in the months to come (as well as share more about what’s going on in real-time).

The Journey

I may have missed a few, but here’s a map of all our stops on the way down this last year

We’ve had way too much fun on our journey through Mexico to talk through in one blog post… Instead I’ll let this map do some of the talking.

The Work

As with any boat, Rua Hatu needs lots of care and maintenance, not all of which can be done in the water. Last year we hauled out and paid it forward below the waterline; blister repair, barrier coat and Coppercoat antifouling. This year we focused our efforts above the waterline with a fresh new paint job, rewiring the mast, dodger and canvas work and a bunch of shuffling around solar panels, electronics and anchor chains. Take a gander at the photos below to see what’s new on Rua Hatu!

Sanding… The bane of boat ownership. But the green had to go!
Sanding something off implies that you’ll be putting something else back on. It’s a vicious cycle.
The new color is called “Pearl Gray” but it looks white to us. Oh well, it still looks pretty and definitely hides the salt stains!
New heavy duty wiring coupled with a new antenna, a fancy ultrasonic wind instrument and a relocated tricolor light adorn the masthead.
While up top I wired the SSB’s DSC receiver antenna at the masthead as well. The second coaxial cable means redundancy for our VHF/AIS too should something ever fail.
We really upped our solar game with the addition of 400W of new panels and relocation of our existing 300W panel on the radar arch.
All that extra power required an additional Victron charge controller. We really like how these devices network together over Bluetooth to ensure optimum charging.
Why pay hundreds for a radar bracket when we have a perfectly good cow catcher at the upper spreaders? We adorned our radar with new decals, a TV antenna and a loudspeaker.

(Just some of) The Fun

After all that hard work and a trip to Sacramento to visit family, we were ready to get back on the water. Here are a few of the places we’ve been since the paint dried.

Our first stop after 3 months on the hard, Isla Mejia all to ourselves for a week.
Actually not quite all to ourselves, we were visited by a whale at anchor in Isla Mejía, a wonderful welcome back to the Sea of Cortez.

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