Q: How far north are you planning to go?

A: We doubt we’ll go farther north than Bahia de Los Angeles, but we have no firm plans.

Q: Have you fished? Is the sea warm?

A: We have not fished as of yet. The sea is about 84 degrees Fahrenheit. 

On Thursday, Eric ran the generator first thing in the morning, as he normally does. But this time, the batteries weren’t charging. Eric spent some time trouble-shooting the problem. We decided that we should head to the nearest marina, where it would be easier to diagnose and fix the problem. The batteries were still charging from the wind generator and the solar panels, and we have a small back up battery charger that was working, so this wasn’t an urgent issue for us. But charging the batteries with the full-size battery charger certainly makes life easier. 

We contacted the marina at Puerto Escondido, only 6 nm away, and made a reservation for Friday. We spent the rest of the day doing chores. In the afternoon, Eric got out the SNUBA gear so Christi could tackle her most arduous chore: cleaning the bottom.

It was particularly rocky in the water that day, so swimming took a lot of effort. She pooped out pretty fast. Eric used the SNUBA to make sure all was fine under the waterline, then he used it to adjust the flopper stopper. Eric and Keith played in the water for a while before we called it a day. 

On Friday morning, Christi went to work on the bottom early in the morning, before the wind and waves picked up. She finished what she had started yesterday: going over the entire bottom with a soft brush in order to get all the loose growth off. The next steps would be to scrub the stubborn things with a sponge, then to scrape all the metals and barnacles with a scraper tool. By the time she was done brushing, she was too tired to scrub or scrape. Eric jumped in and did the scrubbing. Eric and Christi agreed the scraping would have to wait for another day. 

We went to the resort for lunch. We arrived at 11:15 to find out that we had 15 minutes left to get breakfast, or we’d have to wait until noon for lunch. Eric and Keith took advantage of the fancy breakfast buffet, and Christi ordered an omelet with shrimp and octopus. Keith loves the traditional Mexican sweet bread.

We went back to Kosmos and got her ready for sea. We pulled up anchor about 1430. It was a quick and easy ride to Puerto Escondido. From the distance, it looked like a small bay with a big boat anchored in it. As we got closer, we could see the small channel that led from the outer bay to the large inner bay, and some of the boats in the inner bay.

The marina was not far from the entrance to the channel. Our slip turned out to be next to a Nordhavn 40!

Once we were plugged into power, Eric was able to determine the charging issue stemmed from the battery charger, not the generator. 

Dan and Drake (our friends from Loreto) came over in the evening. The kids played at the marina pool. We got pizza for dinner from the restaurant at the marina, and Dan said it is the best pizza he’s had in Loreto.

Does anyone know what kind of bird this is?

Here is sunset on Friday

Here is the sunrise on Saturday

Saturday morning, Dan picked us up and we spent the day in Loreto with his family. Dan gave us a car tour of Loreto, which is a small city of 20,000 people (sadly, we neglected to take photos) and took us to the grocery store. We hung out at their house for a few hours, then got lunch at a restaurant called Casa Mia. Christi and Liz both got facials. It was a lovely, low-key day with good company.