On Wednesday (February 1), we awoke to a sunny, beautiful morning. However, we were dismayed to see that the rain had left the boat covered in mud, just as been the case in Santa Rosalia. What the heck was going on with the rain in Baja?

Instead of washing Kosmos, we decided to take care of the dinghy first. Eric got the dinghy down and gave it a good wash down, including eliminating the copious amount of sand that had accumulated inside. He also cleaned the dinghy motor.

After mulling it over overnight, Eric decided that he was not going to try to adjust the belt. on the dive compressor, so he put dive compressor back together.

Since we needed to do a lot of grocery shopping, including frozen foods, we decided it was best to take the 1300 shuttle into town and then rent a car for a couple of days. Before heading to the grocery store, we met One World at The Melt, Keith’s favorite restaurant in La Paz, for lunch. Unfortunately, One World did not like their milkshakes. The menu said milkshakes, but what they actually served were malts, and the One World crew were not fans of malt powder.

One of the nice things about having a car was that it made it easy to get together with our friends who were currently in La Paz. On Wednesday evening, we went to dinner at Buzos with One World and Erin Skye. After dinner, we walked over to the gelato place in Marina Cortez. 

Here was the sunset

Thursday and Friday were more of the same: boat chores and errands.

Chores:

Eric and Christi both reorganized some cabinets and Eric reorganized the lazarette. When the items that we have in storage spaces change (both bring more in and take things out), we usually need to do some reorganizing to get it all to fit snugly so that it doesn’t move around at sea. Putting things away is time consuming because it usually means pulling everything out of the space and re-organizing everything within the space.

Eric changed the water maker filter and cleaned sea strainer.

A while ago, Eric had noticed the water pressure was pulsing, which it is not supposed to do. When he checked the pressure on the accumulator tank, water squirted out, which meant the bladder was broken. Fortunately, we had a spare onboard, and he changed the accumulator tank. The water was now flowing properly.

The errands were a trip to the boat store and a couple more grocery store runs. We’ve realized that bringing too many groceries in at once tends to be overwhelming, so we preferred to go two or three times rather than do all the shopping at once.

On Friday, we had lunch at Fish Claro, Jr. Eric and Christi have decided it was our favorite restaurant in La Paz (at least, so far. We have plenty more places to try!) Fish Claro, Jr has great food, good portions, good portion sizes, a really nice condiment bar, and nice waterfront views. Of course, the skate park was in between the restaurant and the waterfront, but the skaters were fun to watch, too. Keith says Fish Claro, Jr was his second favorite, behind The Melt. After lunch, we walked back to the gelato place in Marina Cortez, which was our favorite ice cream spot (so far).

On Thursday evening, we picked up the One World kids and had them over for a D&D session.

Sunset on Thursday

On Friday, the moon was nearly full. It was rising in the east while the sun was setting in the west.