On Tuesday morning (August 9), we left Puerto Escondido at 0830 to go to Loreto to get our park pass and do some more grocery shopping. We went to the park office first, arriving right before it was supposed to open at 0900. It was a good thing we hadn’t started the process yesterday; what we thought would take five-minutes took 1.5 hours to complete.
As part of the process, we had to go to the bank in the historic town center to pay for the pass. As we mentioned in the last post, Loreto was the first Spaniard settlement in the Californias, and was the capital until 1777. This is the Capital building.
Here is a shot of the town center plaza
Some of the streets surrounding the plaza have tree canopies
Eric spent the morning working on the dive compressor. The first order of business was standard servicing: changing the oil, filters, and hose. The hose completely disintegrated, so it is probably safe to say it was time to change it.
As he started up the compressor, air was not coming out of the final hose. He spent some time trying to troubleshoot the source of the problem, but at noon, he had to put the project aside. It was time to pick up our rental car and play tourists!
On Friday morning (August 5), the water was again calm and clear when we awoke. We got Kosmos ready for sea first thing in the morning. This included bringing up and securing the dinghy, bringing in and securing the flopper stopper plates/paravane poles, bringing in the snubber line (which is basically a shock absorber for the anchor chain), securing all loose items on board, etc. We weren’t leaving early; we just wanted to have everything done before the tourist pangas started roaring past us, creating wakes. Then we went for a swim around the boat and saw a lot of fish, including a pair of puffers sitting on our chain at the bow of the boat.
We set off for Puerto Escondido a little before noon and arrived around 1500. It is less stressful for us to go someplace we’ve been before. This time we were assigned to a different dock. We spent a couple of hours at the pool and had dinner at the marina restaurant. In the evening, we got to know our new neighbors.
Here is a picture of the sunset, looking at the north end of the bay. The topography of this picture is important for the next part of the story. While there are taller mountains to the west and south, the east and north parts of the bay are protected by low hills with gaps.
On Saturday (August 6), in the wee hours of the morning, Eric was awoken again. He saw that wind picked up to 23 knots. There was lightning, thunder and later a heavy rain. Eric was shocked to see that the waves were big enough that they were splashing over the end dock where the big boats tie up.
Here is a photo of the area we went snorkeling in on Saturday. We were in the small, shallow strait between Isla Carmen and the tiny rock island. The anchorage is just to the right (south) of where this photo ends.
On Sunday morning, it rained again. The rain didn’t last as long as it had yesterday, but it rained harder, so Kosmos got a good wash down. Undeterred by the heavy rain, the Erics went for a hike onshore.
They literally watched the flora and fauna come to life with the rain – flowers blooming and bugs and lizards coming out of hiding.
On Sunday, Dan, Liz and Drake came to the marina at lunch time. The males went to the pool. Another cruising family was also at the pool, with kids who were 9 and 11. The four kids had a blast and played all afternoon and into the evening.
One of the tricks Christi and Eric learned while circumnavigating is that cooking can be difficult at times, so we need plenty of frozen foods onboard that can be easily re-heated. We’d eaten quite a bit of our frozen food stockpile on the passage, in Bahia Falsa and in Bahia Candeleros, so Christi spent the afternoon cooking in order to re-stock the freezer supply. Liz kept her company.
First thing Monday morning, Eric started on the battery charger project. Eric had located and read the manual, and had psyched himself up for a major repair project. He was delighted to find that it was just a breaker that needed to be re-set. Christi spent most of Monday cooking and doing chores. The boat kids came over and played in the afternoon. In the evening, we had dinner at the marina restaurant with the boating family and our neighbor on the Nordhavn 40.
