Two days after I arrived, Ali and the kids flew down from Minnesota with everything we own. We had a porter wheeling a cart with six big plastic bins balanced precariously over his head as we walked out to the car I had rented. It’s just a mid-size normal car, so innocuous I don’t even know what it is. The porter took one look at it, then at his cart, and asked, “This is your car?”

I’d thought we’d probably need a taxi, as well, to get us all back to the boat, but I had underestimated us, just like the porter. Heck, we could have fit one more at least.

Moving aboard a new boat is always fun and exciting. The kids got to pick out their own rooms for the first time. We’ve never had three bedrooms in their lives, and certainly not four.

It’s also a lot of work moving aboard. For Ali it starts with a deep, deep cleaning. Just about everything gets donated or tossed as we make it our own home. For me the work is more about figuring out how everything onboard actually works.

Beautiful view, completely marred by all of the roll down four-season porch crap. The first thing we did on the Grand Banks was get rid of all of the plastic glass enclosure stuff. It’s something we would probably use once a year, if that. It’s coming down here, too.

Obviously, we have some renaming to do. I raised the main to air it out a bit. Little dirty but looks to be in good shape otherwise. I’ve never had electric winches before, but can now see that I’m going to appreciate them. That main is the biggest sail I’ve ever had.

Sorry, this sort of thing drives us nuts, too. We are such weird cruisers. Most seem happy to have stuff hanging everywhere, or lined up along their lifelines, but it just grates on us.

The day after Ali arrived she became convinced we had been robbed while out walking the night before. Her purse was gone, along with the folder holding all our passports and extra cash, and basically anything in our financial lives of any importance. We called her phone but didn’t hear it ringing anywhere. She was certain it was gone. Me? Not so much. For all her cleaning and organizing wizardry, she’s still great at “hiding” things and then forgetting about them. It’s why we will leave a country, and then three months later find $300 worth of its foreign cash at the back of an underwear drawer.

She spent the entire day emptying out bins, organizing bedrooms, and combing through every inch of the boat. Still couldn’t find anything. Even I was starting to come around to the idea that someone had watched us leave for a walk around the marina and had hopped on and snatched the stuff. I decided to give the phone one more call. I walked slowly through the boat, and then I heard it. A faint buzzing coming from a closet in the extra bedroom. Her phone was on vibrate, and there, hidden behind a stack of towels, was the stuff that would save us hundreds of hours of headaches now that it didn’t all need to be cancelled and replaced.

When we first bought the boat Ali showed her family pictures and asked them what they thought was the first thing she would get rid of. It was the big garbage can which was prominently positioned directly inside the door. The first thing you’d see every time you came aboard.

Aft sun shade cleaning up better than it looked like it would.

In an effort not to get bogged down by boat projects, we spent a day down in PV. It’s sort of weird around here right now because for Ali and I this area holds so many memories over so many years. The kids were both born here. We’ve spent time on both boats and motorhomes here. We have doctors and dentists, we know which stores to go to, we don’t need Google Maps to get around. You could say the Puerto Vallarta area is one of our homes. Of course, the kids were young, so all the memories that are clear as day to us, are only remembered by them through our stories.

We got to talking with our waiter for a while. Our reasonable Spanish caught his attention—especially the kids’. Eventually it came out that they were born here, and he was thrilled to be among fellow “salty feet.” It’s a term of endearment among those who are born in PV. At the end of our meal he surprised the kids with dessert.

Two blocks behind the malecon in Puerto Vallarta, everything goes straight up. For a couple of summers (hurricane seasons) we rented a condo at the top of these stairs. Ali, eight months pregnant with Lowe, in the July/August heat, trudged up this hill hundreds of times. Right after he was born, when she was hunkered down in the condo for a couple of weeks with him, I would take Ouest out for walks every day, and without fail some local lady would poke her head out of a shop or home and ask me where she was, if she was doing okay, and if we had a boy or a girl.

That’s just one of the many reasons we roll our eyes any time we hear about how dangerous Mexico is.

Despite the heat right now, and it really is pretty unbearable in the summer, we are most definitely back in our happy place here in Mexico.

If you’ve been following us along all these years, and can remember our times in PV as well as we can, consider giving us a shout out via Patreon. We appreciate having you all with us.