On Thursday (March 2), we went to our favorite restaurant in Ensenada, El Rey Sol, for lunch.
El Rey Sol opened in 1947 and is the oldest French restaurant in all of Mexico. “The Sun King” was a title given to French Monarch Louis XIV. The founder, Virginia Geffroy, was born in Santa Rosalia and educated in France, including cooking school. We’re guessing that she was likely the daughter of a French mining executive. After returning from Mexico, some relatives in Ensenada invited her to open a restaurant in their motel. The restaurant grew from 10-tables to being an internationally venue with seating for 240-people.
On Monday, February 27, we woke up at 0300 to do the last-minute things needed before setting out to sea. We pulled up anchor at 0400. Christi station-kept while Eric went out to set his custom made anchor plate locking system. He could not get it to lock into place. Later, in the daylight, it was clear that mud from the anchor/chain had gotten into the mechanism. While Eric speculated it may be mud, at that moment it was too dark to tell, so he just tightened the chain on the windlass to secure the anchor lock system as good as was possible. By the time we finally got going, it was 0430.
We were not excited about leaving in the dark, but unfortunately, the weather window was small and there was no leaving any later. The 3/4 full moon was luminous and offered a little bit of light; having some light was reassuring.
As soon as we got out of the bay, Kosmos started hobby-horsing like crazy and the ride became uncomfortable. Maybe a better analogy was bucking like a rodeo bull. While standing, we had to hold onto the boat at all times to keep from being knocked over; on the stairs, we needed to hold on with both hands. The sea conditions basically stayed the same for about 30-hours, then they very gradually started to calm down. During the 30-hours, we guesstimate that the swells were 6 – 8-feet at 6 -8-seconds with the occasional 10 – 12-foot wave. When the bigger waves came, Kosmos smacked down hard. Once there was a bit of green water coming over the bow at one point. True wind speed was about 15-knots. Here was sunset on Monday evening:
In the morning, we went to shore to enjoy dry land. The wind had shifted and the waves were coming from a different direction now. Even with the paravanes, the anchorage was rolly. Not rolly to the point of uncomfortable, but rolly enough to desire going to shore.
On Friday, we stayed aboard all days and did chores. All three boats took us up on our offer to come over, and we had a lovely time visiting with the other cruisers in between chores.
The only chore of interest to report on (beyond the mundane regular chores such as cooking, cleaning, school work, etc) was that Eric changed the belt on the main alternator. We’d mentioned that when we were in Puerto Don Juan, Eric had removed one of the alternator belts. He did this to stop the vibration issues that was caused by using belts made by different manufacturers. The alternator has been running great with only one belt. Even though it wasn’t supposed to be time to change the belt yet, Eric was concerned that the belt was making too much dust (and thus deteriorating too fast), so he swapped it out with the other belt.
On Saturday, we went to shore with the crew of two of the other boats. Enrique picked up all of us from our respective boats and took us to shore at once. We had no real goal; we just wanted to wander around and see what the town had to offer. We started by walking north up the main drag, Calle Benito Juarez, until the pavement ended and it became a smaller dirt road. We even followed the dirt road for a ways until we realized it was going to dead end. We then followed random streets back towards the water.
This morning, we got dinghy down and went to shore, along with a fellow cruiser named Garth. Not wanting to deal with the scary pier, we opted for a beach landing on the south side of the pier. With the waves coming into the bay, the landing was a little bit tricky, but the shoreline was sheltered enough that we managed just fine. Here are some shots of the buildings along the shore where we’d landed.
