will it ever end?!?!

We are now on week two of our haul out/bottom job. The boat is finally almost ready for the first of two coats of barrier coat. We have had 3 people working on the boat non-stop sanding, stripping and filling the thousands of little pin holes in the hull in order to prep the hull for its new bottom paint. As you can see from the photos below they have marked off the new boot stripe with blue tape. We will be raising the boot stripe approximately 4 inches (a common thing to do once you start cruising full time).

Living life in the boatyard continues to be challenging but we are getting use to going up and down the ladder several million times a day. The boat is constantly dirty and dusty and the sanding that goes on basically all day can get on your nerves but it is nice having electric whenever we want without turning on the generator and the showers really are nice as well.

The start of carnival is coming up in just a few days so the town is really starting to bust at the seams. Mazatlan has the second largest carnival in the world (actually larger than New Orleans) so it should be quite the party. We are not sure if we will be back in the water by the start of carnival but either way we will be here for the festivities.