Home for a while

So, we are back in Seattle, probably for about a week. We're very disappointed to have to be here, and a little concerned about what is going on with the boat in our absence, but financially this was our only realistic option for waiting out the repairs.

We had become a little suspicious of the boatyard at Shearwater... although we clearly dropped the ball on hassling the insurer and making sure that all connections were made there, it just seemed to us that things were moving a little more slowly and being made a little more complicated than they needed to be. Some of this we wrote off to culture... we had read that things were a little more laid-back up there and you had to be patient (although their pricing certainly doesn't give them any disadvantage to taking a few extra coffee breaks a day!). And some of it we wrote off to the remoteness of the place and the fact that things have to be shipped in, and so on, and so forth. But there was just kind of a lot of "Ah, it's late, we'll talk about it tomorrow. Or Monday" going on that may be cultural or otherwise innocent, but at the same time doesn't fail to pad their yard fees.

We heard from a fellow cruiser who had put in there and who had built his own fiberglass boat that the bulk of the repair on ours could be accomplished in about a day; three or four was what we heard from friends in the States. So when the yard said, "It's not going to be ready to start painting for a week" it sort of solidified the suspicions. Then, from a local, we heard that the yard has something of a reputation for that sort of thing and that insurers who have dealt with them before tend to have them do a quick patch and then ferry the boat elsewhere for the final repair work.

Of course, they can certainly charge what they like and take as long as they want, they are the only option inside 300 miles, and they have us over a barrel. We couldn't communicate with our adjuster sufficiently from there to talk about other options, and as they had already approved the repair work there, we decided to just let them go on it. It's disappointing to be losing so many unnecessary days from a vacation that was very difficult to arrange in the first place, but when you get down to it, the whole thing was our own damn fault, and this is a risk you run sailing in remote places.

I suppose what is hardest for us is that this part of the process is turning out to be more difficult and painful than the actual wreck was, and the more so because it really shouldn't be. But things only got harder after we got the boat in the yard and it's extremely frustrating to have no options and watch both time and money being eaten up to no end other than lining pockets.

So we'll try to take advantage of however long we are back in town to catch up on business matters and try to make a little money, and we'll worry about how long is left in our vacation window when we finally get word that the hull is done. We're not even positive that will conclude things; I checked the engine and electronics over as best I could, but it's still possible that something else is significantly broken, and we won't know for sure until it's back in the water. We'll just have to figure out what to do then.