Living on a Sailboat in Mexico

We were really on the fence about moving the boat. Initially we didn’t put much thought into it and just assumed we would move the boat back to Georgia. We even researched the requirements for the wide load permits and pilot cars for each state. But after I saw how beautiful the Sea of Cortez and San Carlos was for myself and showed pictures to my wife, Hilary, we began to think differently.

The stumbling point really centered on the expense of moving the boat OUT of Mexico. We were really working on a shoe string budget. The costs for hauling the boat less than 300 miles out of Mexico were more than the entire budget for the rest of the 2400 mile trip.

Add to that, once we moved the boat to Georgia, we would be facing spending a cold winter with a newborn on the boat. That would require installing a heater, there’s nothing worse than being wet and cold on a boat. Once we added up all the costs, we were just going deeper in the hole.

Well we should just move to Mexico then…

It was my wife, who half jokingly, said it first. After my real estate development business crashed and burned in 2007, there was less and less holding us back from exploring a new path. We’d lived in Atlanta and had enjoyed the fruits of a successful business but we knew we didn’t want to raise our children in ANY big city. Frankly, after 20 years in Georgia, I was ready for a change of scenery.

There’s so many moving parts, it’s hard to make a decision. We’re throwing a lot of options on the wall and looking to see what sticks. We know more about what we don’t want to do (again) than which direction to take for the future. It’s like driving down the road backwards, moving away rather than towards a destination.

The next important step meant that Hilary had to see both the boat and the Sea of Cortez for herself. We drove 30 hours straight from Georgia to Tucson before heading south into Mexico 263 miles to San Carlos. Starting in late June it really starts heating up this far south. I’m told the heat is worst in August and September, but I can’t see how it could be any hotter than the 4 days we spent there the end of July. Hil is a real trooper, but we still had to take it easy since she is over 6 months pregnant with our second child.

San Carlos is filled in the winter months with foreigners from both the US and Canada. This time of the year only the die hards and business owners stay. July and August are busy with vacationers from Mexico. The hotels and beaches are full on the weekend with families enjoying the last of the fun and sun before heading back to school. We couldn’t find a hotel our first night in San Carlos and had to go down the road to the bigger port town of Guaymas.

Guaymas is a much larger town than the neighboring San Carlos with a population of over 100,000 providing shopping malls, and supermarkets that you won’t find in the comparatively quaint San Carlos.

San Carlos has a very protected bay and is well known as a hurricane hole just north of the hurricane zone from June until end of November. It has become so popular for sailors to sit out hurricane season, there’s acres of sailboats resting on the hard in the Marina Seca storage yard across the road from the Marina.

Slips in the marina are rare and expensive comparatively. The Bahia San Carlos (bay of San Carlos) has private moorings with one or two often available for as little as $100 per month. The bay is a good anchorage but not during hurricane season and not for boats unattended due to the dominate winds which wrap around from the south and funnel into the bay through the narrow entrance.

The rocky terrain rises up from the sea like sticks of red rock candy softened by thousands of years of wind ripping through the bay carving out hollows and caves. There are miles of bike and hiking paths from the beach up into the hills and mountains including the dominant landmark ‘Tetakawi’ or ‘Teta de Cabra’ which translates to ‘Tits of the Goat’.

The boat was an incredible bargain for the price but we knew there would be problems. So far we’ve only found deferred maintenance issues that take more time and elbow grease than money. The use of a mooring had been included with the sale of the boat for an indeterminate amount of time. We were hoping to use the mooring through the rest of the year and three or four months into the next year but we found out quickly that the mooring was dragging and we couldn’t leave the boat unattended for the next 4 months unless we moved to a safer mooring.

Hiram, the diver who owns the boat cleaning business, also rents and manages moorings for owners as well as his own. He’ll build you a new mooring for $2,000 or he’ll rent you a mooring that he will maintain for $100 per month. In addition to his dive and mooring business he also manages Barricuda Bob’s cafe in the San Carlos Marina building. Busy Guy!

We found a mooring closer to the marina entrance that is better shielded from the winds and waves that roll into the bay. We planned on moving the boat early in the morning to avoid the heat and get a head start on our trip back to Tucson. A lightweight 6′ plywood dinghy and 2.5hp outboard was included with the sale of the boat but I knew the outboard hadn’t been run in years. I brought our 3.5hp Mercury 4 stroke outboard with us to get back and forth to the sailboat. We found out pretty quickly the dinghy was very tippy and the additional weight of the Mercury over the lighter Nissan 2.5hp outboard quickly cracked the stern bulkhead of the dinghy. We took the dinghy out to the sailboat on the far side of the bay to find out the batteries to start the 25hp Honda 4 stroke outboard were dead. I couldn’t PULL the boat with the little 3.5hp Mercury outboard and 1/4″ plywood dinghy but I could push it. My dad manned the outboard in the dinghy while I steered the sailboat towards our new mooring and then I tied it off as we slowly drifted on the flat and windless waters at 7am in the morning.

Hiram came along shortly thereafter and changed out mooring lines for new ones that we bought from him and a new shackle. He would keep an eye on the boat and the mooring when he cleaned the bottom of the boat every month while we were away. With the boat buttoned up, dad and I slowly putted back to the marina docks hoping we didn’t spring a leak in the overworked dinghy.

Hil and I both are both interested in following this opportunity to see where it leads. We’d like to learn spanish and spend as much family time with our young daughters as we can. I don’t envision us doing a lot of cruising with the newborn coming in November, but we’ll take things as they come. With family only 6 hours north, it’s not quite the crazy idea many might first think.

Who knows, maybe doing something as crazy as buying a boat in a foreign country was the right thing after all?

San Carlos Trip w/ Hil & Emma 8/0919 pictures