Second Trip to Marina Costa Baja, Days 15 – 16 — The Archaeology Museum

On Monday, February 13, the half-full moon rose not long before the sun did, and was shining brightly in the pre-dawn glow.

We tried to catch the 1310 shuttle to town. We left Kosmos at 1302. We got to marina gate at 1305, which requires a card key to get both in and out. There were people walking out ahead of us. They used their card key to open the door. They held the door open for us to exit, but Eric realized that he’d forgotten our card key. He sprinted down the dock while Christi and Keith waited inside the gate for him. He was back at 1307. The card key didn’t work. A marina employee happened to be standing on the other side of the gate. He tried to open the gate for us, but his card didn’t work, either. He proclaimed the door was broken. He walked to a utility box a little ways down the boardwalk, looked at it for maybe a minute, then turned the gate off. He waved to us to indicate that it could be opened without a key card. It now was 1312.

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Second Trip to Marina Costa Baja, Day 14 — Food and Art

Sunrise on Sunday, February 12

We were craving Italian food. We took the 1310 shuttle into town to get some. The shuttle was about 12 minutes late (relevant for Monday’s story). 

Someone had recommended a place called Locos Por la pasta (Crazy for Pasta), located across the street from the north side of the art museum.

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Second Trip tp Marina Costa Baja, Day 13

Sunrise on Saturday, February 11. It was another morning where the clouds mostly, but not completely, blocked the sun.

We’d made an appointment at the fuel dock to get 250-gallons of fuel. As you can tell from the photo above, it was a low-wind day, so it was perfect for moving Kosmos to the fuel dock and back.

Since we were moving Kosmos anyway, we decided to take her for a short spin in the bay to give her some exercise before the fuel up. Obviously, we ran the main engine. We also ran the wing engine, generator and flushed AC water maker.

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Second Trip to Marina Costa Baja, Day 12 — La Paz and Black/Grey Water Tanks

On Friday (February 10), Christi had an appointment for another haircut, so we took the 0900 shuttle into town. From the cathedral (where we were dropped off), we walked a few blocks south to a bank to use the ATM.

ATM’s are not nearly as common in Mexico as they are in the US. Most of the towns we’ve visited, including Bahia de Los Angeles, don’t have any. We’ve only found them in the bigger cities that we visited: Santa Rosalia, Loreto and La Paz. We want to take a moment to rant about the bank called BBVA, which charges $9 (US) in ATM fees and gives a terrible exchange rate. Plus your own bank charges fees, too. We’ll only go to BBVA when there is nothing else available, but sadly, today the other bank’s machines were down so we were stuck using BBVA.

From the bank, we walked northeast about 1.5 miles. The farther inland we went, the less gentrified the neighborhood became. Even though we’d driven through this area before, it was interesting to get a closer look on foot.

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Second Trip tp Marina Costa Baja Days 9 – 11

Sunrise on Tuesday, February 7

The weather was back to cold and windy again. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we mostly laid low in the marina. Eric finally completed a project that he’d started in San Diego: creating a system to better secure the anchor. Back in San Diego, Eric had bought a piece of 3/4″ starboard and had cut some slots in it to hold the anchor in place so it wouldn’t rattle around when the boat was in motion. He secured the board in place with some dyeema line that has an anti-chaffing sleeve cover over it and a clip. He strapped the line to the cleat on the deck.

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