We woke up at about 6:30, the wind was blowing. We did not expect t this, but it seems to have died off as quickly as it showed up. We will see. The sailboat that came in is pretty small maybe less than 30 feet.
This is the day that is on my calendar to do some maintenance before getting underway. Things like cleaning Engine, generator, water maker, shower strainer, and putting the speed probe back in the water. So, that was the first thing I did.
Those the of you who are reading all of my posts will remember the debacle associated with the plankton strainer for the water maker. Well, there is more to the story. In this system, there is a strainer between the ocean and the first pump, it is very similar in construction to the plankton strainer, but much smaller. It also has a clear bowl, so I can see how dirty that strainer is. It appears to be clean, so I have not been cleaning it. Today, I pulled it out and cleaned it, and in fact it is fairly clean and probably did not need to be cleaned. BUT, when I pulled the plankton strainer out, it was covered in green slime and was very dirty. The first time I cleaned it was probably 4 months (way too long) today was about 4 weeks, still too long. I have decided to move this cleaning up to weekly. We will see if we have to clean it more often that that. I have talked to some other people with water makers, and asked about how often they change/clean filters. One person said that they clean their filters every time they run their water maker. Note, these filters are media filters, 25 micron and 5 micron. My experience with cleaning those types of filters is that as you clean them you put holes in them and they are no longer the filters you want. On the other hand, he had run his water maker using the city water where we were. He then cleaned his filters and said that they were black from just one run of about 4 hours at 15 gallons per hour. (Part of why we don’t trust the water in the marinas here in Mexico). The water going out of their water maker was about 7 ppm TDS (this compares to our normal of about 70 ppm, or US safe water standards of <500 ppm. In any case, my schedule calls for changing the water filters next week. This is a compromise, between cost, filter efficiency and water quality. Obviously, If I changed the filters more often, the water quality should stay higher, but the filters cost about $7 each, so that cost is not insignificant to change frequently.
The trip from Puerto Don Juan to Bahia Los Angeles was a rough, wet, windy trip. In Puerto Don Juan, there were no waves and no wind to speak of crossing the Bahia to Los Angeles is about 7 or 8 miles. The wind speed in the middle was a solid 35 knots, with gusts to 40+. Swells were moderate at about 3 feet or so. When we got to the town of Bahia Los Angeles, the wind was down to about 6 knots, with virtually no swells. Kind of strange. We got organized and got the dinghy down, had lunch and went ashore.
We found a restaurant/bar that had WiFi, and asked about propane (we have one empty tank, and one that we are using. Well, it turns out that the propane guy only comes once a month and he was here last week. Oh well, that is not happening. We spent a couple of hours on the internet and then Renee’ walked to the store and I went back to check on the dinghy. With the light swells, there are small waves and with the tide swings here (6+ feet) the dinghy was floating and had about 2” of water in it from the waves bouncing at the back. So, I bailed it out, a couple of times while waiting for Renee’ to get back with the groceries. The wagon we bought sure comes in handy!
We do have room for guests, if anyone is interested in visiting and spending a week or so with us, drop us a line and we will coordinate. What you have to do/have is you need a sport and will need to be able to get to where we are when you are going to be down. When we know what time frame you are thinking about we can let you know where we expect to be so that you can make your travel arrangements.
If you want to know where we are, click this link:
https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Make_Me_Laugh_Again
