We have been self isolating/quarantining here. With the restrictions on travel and going out in public, we have not done much of interest. Which is why I have not published a daily report. This post will have the high lights of what we have done and experienced while here in Santa Rosalia.
We are in a Fonatur Marina, the price is very reasonable ($250 US/month). Amenities include water/power/pool/showers/laundry and a place to walk. There is room for about 16 boats, and when we pulled in there was about 10. Over the time we have been here 3 of them have gotten appointments at San Carlos to haul out. As they get a scheduled date for haul out, they check with the marina and the port captain and get permission to leave. We are waiting on permission to get hauled out in Puerto Penasco.
One of the first conversations we had when we got here with some of the other cruisers was that the alcohol sales were going to be cut off the next day. So, we made a beer run to the local little store and stocked up on beer. As it actually turned out, the limits on purchasing alcohol is no sales on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. As we later found out, it was not available on Monday May 4th or Cinco de Mayo (May 5th). Which still does not seem too bad, but include the issue of distribution, they have stopped most of the distribution of alcohol around the state. So, even if they will sell the beer, they don’t have it in the stores.
Since we are sitting here not going anywhere soon, we have decided to take on some projects, nothing too big, but something that needs to be done. The first thing we have done is to clean everything. We have cleaned the forward stateroom, the forward head and all the storage behind both settees (couches in the salon). The method we are using is that we empty all “things” out of the space, then vacuum, and wipe down with cleaner and sort and re-stow everything again. As we sort, we decide if we want to keep the item, keep it on the boat or take it off and store it in Kansas or dispose of it. While you might think that it should only take an hour or two for one of these areas, the shortest time was about 4 hours for the forward head. At this point we still have the following areas to get done: Salon, Navigation station, galley, aft stateroom, aft head, and aft lazarette. We also washed the outside of the boat.
We asked for and received permission from the port captain to go out and dump the holding tank. Requirements we had were to go out and come back in the same day, not use the radio unless it was an emergency and no recreational sailing. So, we went out 3 miles, dumped the holding tank and came back in. Renee’ tried to catch a fish, with no luck.
We have been using water on our boat for washing dishes and flushing toilets and that sort of thing. We have a requirement with our water maker to flush it every 5 days to keep it fresh. Since we are limited in our ability to go out of the port, we are running the water maker with the water from the hose on the dock. We still don’t trust the water here in Mexico. So, I run the water from dock through a 25 micron filter on the hose, then into our system, the water then goes through a plankton strainer (recently cleaned) which is a wire mesh, from there it goes through a 5 micron filter, then a 5 micron carbon block (this is to remove any chlorine (I have been told only one port in the Sea of Cortez adds chlorine and that is La Paz) from there it goes into the high pressure pump and the Reverse Osmosis Membrane then past the meter and into the tank. With sea water, we have been getting 20 gallons per hour at 800 psi, with about 75 ppm total dissolved solids (TDS). With the marina water, we are getting 20 gallons per hour at 200 psi, with about 1 ppm TDS. I have been doing this about every 5 days.
We have played a couple of games with some of the people here in the marina. One day was a game day up at the pool, another was done down here on our boat. We play games or watch a movie, or read our books at the end of the day after dinner with just Renee’ and I.
While here in the marina we have seen quite a bit of wild life, there are seagulls, pelicans, pigeons, ospreys and vultures. One day as I was coming back to the boat as I approached the ramp, an osprey (I think) swooped down from one of the flag poles and got a pigeon. Then few away, at no more than 2 feet off the concrete and around the corner to eat. The osprey next has a fledgling in it, and we have seen it practicing (not flying yet, but standing up with wings extended on the nest. We have also seen a bunch of fish. This harbor has a large population of fish, in the evincing we see them jumping out of the water with a space of 10 feet or more between exit and entry. We have seen the fish near the dock dozens at a time, unto about 2 feet long. We are not supposed to fish off the dock.
Regarding boat maintenance, we had an issue with shore power. When we were getting ready to go out and dump the holding tank, while unplugging the shore power cables, I found that the one for the second bus (Air Conditioning, water maker and washer dryer) was burnt, both the end that plugs into the boat and the socket. So, when we got back in, I took a walk to see if I could get parts. The first auto parts store directed me to the second one which directed me to the electricians shop up the street. So, I walked up there with the bad shore power cable in the wagon, it might have been about a half mile from the boat, so all told I probably walked about a mile total. I am glad we have a wagon for carrying things like the shore power cable (about 20 lbs each, and I was planning on buying a new one). In any case, the electricians don’t sell parts but they were available to come look at it. They gave me a ride back to the boat and looked at the situation. While they did not have the exact parts I needed they were able to repair our cable and the socket and get the air conditioning back on. It took two days, and the total cost was about $70 parts and labor. While I plan to redo what they did, I was very happy to have the A/C back on!. We also got the bottom of the boat cleaned, 1200 pesos (about $60 based on what we paid for the pesos).
One day last week, we had some very interesting weather. There was a fog bank about a 100 yards to the east (towards the Sea Of Cortez). It is interesting, in that it is pretty warm today probably 80 degrees or so. Very humid.
Renee’ has done some baking, made an apple pie. She said the crust was too sweat. Some things are hard to find here in Mexico, like brown sugar, she made some cookies with brown sugar (this was a couple of weeks ago) they did hold together very well and tasted a bit different, she figured out the “brown sugar” was graham cracker crumbs.
We just walked up to the office and checked, the earliest we can leave is Thursday afternoon, which is not a good option for us, as it is 70 miles to our next stop Puerto San Francisquito, which is a long day of motor/sailing, so I want to leave at about 5 am or so. Which means we will be planning on leaving on Friday morning.
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 passport 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
Looks like no wind, not a ripple! Stay safe down there.