Category: 2020-02 (February)

We got up at 6 am, saw a beautiful sunrise, had breakfast, did our devotions, and then got to work. We put the dinghy away, had to clean up some bird dropping on the deck (huge!), and got underway at 8 am. We had almost no wind the whole way, and motored and ran the water make for about 5 hours. We had decided that since we lost a day screwing around with the oil change to bypass Balandra (on Isla Carmen) and go on to San Juanico, which is about halfway between Puerto Escondido and Mulegé. A pretty uneventful trip, Renee’ fished (did not catch anything) and I watched the way we were going. We anchored about 2:30, in 12 – 15 feet of water. I took a nap and Renee’ read for awhile. We plan to get an early start in the morning to get up to Mulegé and Bahia Concepion. We plan a day or two there and then onto Santa Rosalia , and there we will stay a day to rest up and then go across to Guaymas on the mainland.

Tonight we opened a jar of jalapeño’s that were canned by Warren & Katrina Hay. If you are reading this Thank you very much! Very tasty! Renee’ made homemade refried beans and burritos.

We have no cell service here, it was spotty in the marina for the last week, so basically no internet stuff unless we were ashore at the Captain’s lounge and on the way up here it was also in and mostly out.  But with the Iridium GO!, (satellite communicator) we can send and receive texts and email, with limits, like virtually no pictures (file size is limited to 5k for the file with the picture and text). It takes about 5 minutes to download the low res weather files. In any case, I sent Warren a text thanking him for the peppers.

This anchorage is one of the best we have been in for being calm, at least tonight. We will see how it is by morning.

If you want to know where we are, click this link:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking

 

We got up about 7, had breakfast did our devotions, listened to the net, and then I started to do an oil change. Our plan was to get the bottom cleaned, do an oil change and be out of the marina by noon or thereabouts, with a short 10 mile jaunt to Balandra (on Isla Carmen). The bottom cleaner was supposed to be at the boat by 9 am. At 10 I called and was told he would be there in 10 or 15 minutes. He showed up and went right to work. It is kind of expensive here. $1.50 per foot, compared to $1 a foot in La Paz or other places I have seen. Almost as much as San Diego. This is not too surprising, I don’t believe that any locals actually use this marina. Everyone we saw that did not work there was a gringo.  The price to use a mooring ball was $1/foot per day or $2.50 per foot per week. Oh and while you could anchor here, it was really frowned on.

In any case I started into the oil change. I have (had now) an electric pump and collection tank for doing the oil change. Unlike a car, you don’t drain the oil, you suck it out via the tube for the dip stick. So, I started. It seemed to work and after about a half hour (it takes a while to pull 6.5 quarts of oil out through a straw) figured it was done and pulled the oil filter off. Promptly getting an oily mess to flow down the side of the engine and engine room. I tried to suck up as much oil as I could out of the filter hole and then the bilge of the engine room. Eventually giving up and wiping the oil up. In the mean time, I poured a gallon of fresh oil into the engine. I cleaned up the mess then checked the oil level. Way too high, and dirty. OOPS, I finally figured out that while the pump motor worked the pump did not, and I had not managed to remove very much of the old oil before I added the oil to the engine.

At this point, I needed to leave and come back and start over. I also needed to pay for the bottom cleaning at the shop. So, I ran into the marina and paid for the bottom cleaning, found out where to get rid of the oil and went to the market to check on oil as  I did not have enough to do another oil change. They did not have the oil I wanted (15W40), but said they would have it at closing time (7 pm) so I had to come back.

I went back to the boat, and we had lunch, followed by my taking the oil out of the engine again.

I used the manual vacuum pump and pulled about 8 quarts of oil out of the engine. We poured that into the electric vacuum pump tank and closed all the vents on it. I poured the 5 quarts of oil that I had left into the engine and checked the level, and it looked about right. By this time it was about 4 pm.

We took the old oil and stuff to the fuel dock and got rid of everything. Actually the cost was reasonable (5 pesos per liter). Then we took the dinghy over to the main part of the marina and got a couple of beers at the market and went up to the captains lounge to do some internet stuff for an hour or so, then headed out to the Tripui hotel and restaurant for dinner.

We had fajitas, Renee’ had chicken and I had beef. The price was a little on the high side, but there really were only three options for restaurants here, the market (kind of like a 7-11 only higher priced, and nice sit down restaurant at the marina (we had diner here the other night, and it was pretty pricy) and the Tripui hotel. So, we had our fajitas. The food was pretty good, (not great) the atmosphere was excellent, and the service pretty good as well. Finally at about 6:30 we headed back to the market, and had to wait until almost 7:30 to get the oil. We then went back to the boat and decided to take showers and go to bed.

Not exactly what we had planned.

If you want to know where we are, click this link:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking

We got up about 7 am, had breakfast, did our devotion, and listened to the Net. Then piled everything into the dingy, checked the mooring lines again (I do this a couple times a day) then motored into the marina to wash our clothes and catch up on the internet stuff.

So, we did laundry, and caught up the blog. We had lunch in the captains lounge and then headed back to the boat. We talked to Kim (and his guests Dale and Ann) on Amazing Grace III. Kim’s wife passed recently (12/29/19) we met Kim and his wife in San Diego when we were preparing for this trip at the Downwind chandlery, and wanted to see their boat to compare with ours as they have an Island Packet 440. This is the same type of boat as ours, but with an aft cockpit instead of a center cockpit. So, today we got to tour his boat and then they all came over and toured ours. The 440 is a little lighter (32,000 vs 34,500 lbs) has a little more sail area (1131 vs 1074 square feet)

If you want to know where we are, click this link:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking

 

No pictures today.

 

We got up early had breakfast did our devotions, and listened to the Net. Then ran into shore in the dinghy to pick up our rental car. We had arranged it on our first day in this port.

We got a Nissan Sentra and drove into Loreto to celebrate our anniversary a day early. This is 38 years of being married!

It was about 15 miles or so into town, we found the mission and town center and parked and got out and walked around for awhile. Found the mission this is the second mission in California. There were a total of 60 between Cabo and the one in the Sonoma north of san Fransisco. This was established in 1697. We had a good time, found a brewery and had lunch and then walked some more. We drove a little more then decided to get a massage so, we parked and went back to a spa near the mission and had a couples massage. Then back to the car and a grocery store then back to the marina.

When we got back we looked at the time and realized it would take too long to get dinner at the restaurant and then dinghy back to the boat because we had cold stuff that needed to be refrigerated. So, we had it made to go, (spaghetti and enchiladas).

We got back to the boat, through the surf (the wind is still blowing) and put everything away and had dinner on the table by 6:30 with the generator running. This is our life. Finally, battery charged, dishes done and laundry sorted to take ashore tomorrow, we headed to bed

If you want to know where we are, click this link:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Make_Me_Laugh_Again

We did not sleep very well, as it was VERY windy. We got up at about 7:30, and listened to the Net Channel 22 at 8 am.

We went ashore and took our boots and lunch. When we got ashore we took a hike out the far side of the marina and across the road, then hung a high and pretty soon we were out of pavement. We continued on the dirt roads until it became a trail, still fairly flat, then we found a place to go up so that we could see the marina from a higher point. All told, we walked about 5 miles, and got some pretty good views. Finally after lunch we headed back to the marina and grabbed a beer. We then went up to the Captain’s Lounge, to check email and Facebook. We ran into the lady kayaker that we had talked to before from Wild Blue, we think we met them in Turtle Bay on the way down. Finally we headed back to the boat.

It was a wet crossing across the bay. The wind has died down (SLIGHTLY) but there are still white caps in the bay. I started the generator and noted that the battery was at about 95% already, so it is just about getting hot water for showers and dishes.

This area looks like someone has spent quite a bit of money. The enclosure of the bay appears manmade, the two new marina’s the paved roads with landscaping down the middle of the streets. The streets are wide, and have gutters and sidewalks. There are a couple of extensions off the bay that have sea walls and floating docks. It looks like the city is ready to be built. There is no real infrastructure other than the two marina’s but it looks ready to build. Some very expensive houses next to the water and some lower priced ones a bit further from the water back on good roads. They have irrigation for the landscaping, so there is probably water and power out to the lots as well

If you want to know where we are, click this link:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Make_Me_Laugh_Again