Saturday (August 20) was another cool day. Feeling motivated, Eric removed all the gear that we keep stored in front of the air compressor, then detached the compressor from its mount under the lazarette. He moved the compressor to be under the hatch so that he could stand over it and comfortably work on it from all angles.
He tried to refurbish the third pressure stage. He opened it up and took it apart, only to realize he needed yet another special tool, and this time he didn’t think he could fabricate one. He decided to simply clean it and change an O-ring.
Since the rain had not cooperated, Christi and Keith spent the morning washing the boat and doing other boat chores. It is amazing how much energy and motivation we have when the weather is cool!
In the afternoon, Christi, Keith and Brett went to lunch at a café called Ma’s. Eric was waiting for the water guy and said he’d join us once our water was delivered. Unfortunately, the dock water in Santa Rosalia isn’t up to many cruisers’ standards, so there is bottled water delivery service to the marina on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
After lunch, Christi and the boys went to what we’d thought was the museum. It was closed. Upon closer inspection, it looked like the museum may still be under construction and not yet open to the public. Or maybe the building was refurbished and is not currently being utilized.
We followed the Malecon back to the mine tunnels near the marina that we knew were now a working museum. Yesterday, we’d been hustling through the Malecon because we had groceries, but this time we walked casually and paid more attention to the surroundings. We noticed that they’d built the Malecon around the historic spot where the train cars loaded with ore met the ships to be loaded.
Enough of the dilapidated pier was left to be able to visualize the big ships being tied up it while being loaded.
The mine tunnel museum was tiny. The boys had no interest in reading the signs and were done walking through it in literally two-minutes. Christi found it more interesting than they did.
The name of the French mining company was Boleo. In 1885, Boelo contracted with the Mexican government to mine the Santa Agueda Mining District. They opened their first mining town in 1886 and had several mining towns in operation prior to opening the Santa Rosalia operation.
The miners had asked for a church to be built. In 1895, Boleo imported a metal pre-fabricated church from Europe that had been designed by Gustav Eiffel. The church was placed in Santa Rosalia due to the central location for all the mining towns. Construction was completed in 1897. The name Santa Barbara was chosen because she is the patron saint of miners.
Construction of the mining operation in Santa Rosalia began in 1931 and mining started in 1932. The town that Boleo created to support their mining operation in Santa Rosalia housed 2,000 people, complete with a school, store, clinic, electricity and running water. The running water was a challenge because they had to build an aqueduct system from a water source.
Boleo hired mostly Native Americans from the Sonoran and Sinaloan deserts; people who could handle the heat. The Santa Rosalia mining operation only ran for eight years. Extreme heat, mine floods, and low-grade veins made the mine operation untenable. Some of Boleo’s other mining operations lasted until 1954.
As part of the mining operation, Boleo had constructed a steam-powered rail system between their towns, which continued to operate until the 1970s.
Christi left with a lot of questions. Since this little museum was only about the actual mining tunnels, she wondered if Boleo had continued to refine ore at the refinery here in Santa Rosalia, or if each town had its own refinery. Even if it was refined elsewhere, was it still brought here by train to be shipped out? Or were the other towns also shipping ports? Maybe one day she’ll be motivated enough to research the answers to these questions.
Sadly, the water delivery guy didn’t come until 1700 (5:00 pm), well after Christi and the boys had returned. Eric hand carried ten of these onboard and dumped them into the tank. We didn’t mention this earlier, but we’d also gotten three containers on Wednesday.
Since they’d missed out on lunch at Ma’s, Eric and Brett’s dad got Chinese food at a restaurant near the marina.
Here is a sunset photo from Saturday night.
