Up at 6 am with a plan to go to La Cruz with our boat to get our dinghy, fuel and the bottom paint we paid for that we won’t use until January 2024. We made the trip across at $571 a gallon with tax etc. the current price is $580 a gallon with tax on top of that. We will see in the states if we can get it for less. Then back into our slip at Paradise Village. A very uneventful trip. John Wanamaker is putting the dinghy wheels on, and should finish tomorrow, then out to the anchorage and we can stop paying for parking! Pool, dinner, showers and bed.
We had a pretty late start to the day, sleeping in until 7:30 or so.
Eventually we had breakfast and did our bible reading. Then we checked the dock lines as it had been pretty mild from about midnight on, but the wind was starting to pick up. Renee’ got the laundry together and headed up to get it done. I caught up the blog and did the dishes. I usually do them, it is one of the divisions of effort that we have come to. She makes the meals (I eat them!) and typically afterwards I do the dishes. Sometimes, like when we are on the water, I will be driving the boat and she will make the meal and do the dishes as well.
In any case that took all morning and some of the early afternoon. I am also going to change the oil in the engine today. We have looked at the weather and it looks WINDY for the next several days, so we may have to adjust our plans on when to leave.
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We got up and had breakfast and wanted to watch a live sermon, so we went up to the office to get better WiFi, and watched the sermon for the day from Stonebridge church in Iowa. Then walked into town and had lunch at a Mexican restaurant with Paul and Sharon S/V Sundance. Then off to an autocrats store for oil. Then back to the boat. Renee’ walked to the grocery store and hardware to get a coffee pot and stuff.
I attempted to watch a 15 minute video for Kyle about a cell/WiFi antenna for his RV. Finally we went back up to the office to FaceTime with Kyle and family. Then back to the boatfor happy hour then dinner and a movie. Overall a pretty quiet day, except for the non stop 20+ knot wind blowing all day.
Oh, and no pictures.
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Another quiet day. We got up late and Renee’ went to the store and I changed the oil on the engine. I really hate that job, it is messy, painful and difficult. When I get done I feel like I have only done half an oil change. The reason for that is there is no way to drain the oil out from the bottom, so you have to syphon it out the dipstick tube. Which means that you never get the last of the oil out, the part that has most of the junk in that you really want to get out.
In any case, I loaned my vacuum pump for oil changes to Joe and he changed his oil as well.
After all was done we cleaned up and went for a walk ending at Turcos, a restaurant in town. Pretty good food, great company.
Then back to the boat, showers and bed.
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Another quiet day. We are really getting tired of too much wind. We expect to leave in the morning. First stop is to get fuel then head to Santo Domingo. Renee’ was looking at stuff in the hanging locker in the master stateroom, and figured out that the bag of desiccant for keeping the cupboard dry had filled up with water and in fact had leaked, soaking the cedar in the back and some of the clothes as well. This bag had been left in the locker over the summer, she had removed all the rest of these “dryers” before we left in June, but missed this one. Oh well, now we have wood to dry out.
Santo Domingo is a semi protected anchorage at the opening of Bahia Concepcion. So, today is saying goodbyes, and doing the laundry and last trip to a store.
One of our favorite restaurants in Santa Rosalia (or course I can’t remember the name of it).Just another moonriseOne of the views we just have to get used to….The water track in the back of the hanging lockerWhat we have planned
We had a big breakfast, one of the things we bought when we were out in town was fresh large tortillas. Renee’ made a sausage pepper and onion mix to go with scrambled eggs and salsa. She added cheese to hers. One of the things about the Sea of Cortez is that this time of the year the weather tends to include strong northerly winds. Today is an example, there are 20+ knot winds on the sea headed south, this includes whitecaps inside the harbor. So, we doubled our dock lines, I had help from the security guard here in the marina. After we were done, Francisco changed one of the lines from being doubled onto a cleat to one going to the cleat and the other around the piling. Quite a bit better, but it does mean we have to duck when leaving the boat.
Then we caught up on Facebook for a while. Finally heading up to the bus at about 10:15 to catch the bus to Mulegé. This is a town we went to last year that does not have a good harbor or protected anchorage. Last year we anchored off shore and took the dinghy up the river and walked into town. Good we got into town, Bad we hit a rock with the prop on the dinghy, and “OH yeah, it was raining all day!”
This me we had fantastic weather to see the city and the sights. There is a mission here, we had to cross a small dam to get to it, this dam makes for a small lake which waters a grove of palm trees. There is a museum here that is housed in the first prison in California, (the state in the US, Baja California Norte and Baja California Our). We really wanted to see the museum, but it was closed for Covid
We had a beer at the Mulegé brewing company (Stout!) very tasty! Then wandered around town to do some shopping and sight seeing. Making sure to find the colored letters for the city and getting a picture standing in front of it.
We had dinner at a restaurant that was recommended by Francisco (from the marina) we had scallops and fish tacos and watch some humming birds at a feeder through the window. The food was awesome and the bill for the meal was about $25.
Finally it was time to head back, our bus was scheduled for 6 pm, but about half past we were told that the bus had broken down somewhere south of us, and we would have to take the 7 pm bus instead. Which was late as well. We got back to the boat about 9 pm or so and off to bed we went.
I have added a link to the right that shows our current position/track.
The bus we took to MulegéThe Mulegé brewing companyOur first micro brewery in Mexico this seasonJust a cool benchThe dam we had to cross to get to the missionInside the mission (we missed getting a picture of the outside)Looking back towards the door of the missionAn overlook of the city, lake and areaThe lake and palm treesThis is to show that yes indeed we are here and having a good timeThe arch into the cityThe prison/museumFront side of the museumThe door with the sign that says closed for CovidA church we saw in townThis picture is taken standing under the bridge that the main highway goes over, and shows the “dock” on the right side that is as far up stream as we came in the dinghy the last time we were here.The colored letters that are the towns nameAnother view of the riverThe humming bird feeder with a large yellow bird, which was constantly being chased away from the feederSome of the humming birds we saw.
We woke up without an alarm clock by about 7 am. We have figged out local time now, so I can say with confidence what time we woke up! Had breakfast and did our reading of the Bible in one year, and Renee’ walked up to the office and checked us in, while I worked on the blog. We will take a walk after lunch.
We did some shopping, and looking at things we think we might need on the boat. Our coffee pot (a drip that uses a metal pot) has started to leak, and we are debating whether to replace it or not. We found one in town that would work, and it is a bit bigger than the old one. But we were not prepared to bring it back to the boat, we left the wagon at the boat, and it was a bit too big to carry. We are leaning to not getting the drip pot, we have a large stainless steel French Press that makes two large cups of coffee already.
In any case we headed back to the boat and worked on some odds and ends (like the blog). Later we had our thanksgiving meal, (meatloaf, mashed potatoes and veggies). Then about 7:30 or so, we had Sharon and Paul over for pumpkin pie. Then have an IP370 here in Santa Rosalia.
I have added a link to the right that shows our position/track
We figured if he was going to pose, we had to take his picture.A different view of the same bird.One of the trains here in town. This was a mining town.
We got up at 4:30 and underway by 5 am. Maybe, might have been 3:30 and underway by 4 am, depending on which clocks you looked at. We changed time zones for a little bit here, so once again we are not really aware of the time. It is pretty much arbitrary anyway. In any case, anchor up, and headed south, we had a bit of wind to push us south as we were between the peninsula and an island (kind of) then once out of that the wind dropped and most of the day the apparent wind was under 5 knots (that means that even if the actual wind speed was 10 knots, but we were going south at 7 knots, apparent wind speed would be about 3 knots), so we motored south.
A pretty uneventful day, and we were in Santa Rosalia as the sun was going down, which meant that we were tied up while still having light to see what we were doing. As we approached Santa Rosalia, we got cell service, so we were able to check with the marina about which slip we were going into. But with the language issues we were having difficulty figuring out which side of the boat to prepare for the dock. That means getting fenders rigged and dock lines in place to tie up with etc.
I had been on Facebook and noted that one of my contacts had posted covid conditions in Santa Rosalia in the Sea of Cortez Facebook group the day before, so I sent him a message to see if he was still here, he was and went and looked at the slip and gave us clear direction on it being a starboard side tie if we back in with a little wind pushing us away from the pier, and that the guards are very helpful in tying up the boats.
After tying up and getting shore power on, we walked the dock and met some people on the other boats here, and found another Island Packet (a 370) S/V Sundance with Paul and Sharon onboard. We talked for a bit and found they knew S/V Capalel III from the previous owners (before Colin and Claudia), and they too were from Alaska. We saw that S/V Munday’s off was here but saw no sign of Joe. Later we got in touch with him and found out he was in Loretto visiting his sisters for Thanksgiving, and he would be back on Sunday (we met him when we were here before). We have invited Paul and Sharon over for Pumpkin pie tomorrow that Renee’ made while underway.
After all of that we walked across the street and had dinner and saw a few more people from the last time we were here.Finally we returned to the boat, got showers and went to bed, the end of a rather long day.
I have added a link to the right for our position/track.
