Third Trip to Puerto Escondido Days 2 – 4

Sandy had offered to take us to Loreto with her on Tuesday (October 25) to run errands. Christi took her up on the offer and spent most of Tuesday shopping. Christi and Sandy had lunch at a Birrieria stand that was packed with people.

Birria is a type of stew that is traditionally made with goat meat, though any type of meat can be used. Someone nearby told us that this stand used beef. It sounds like chili paste makes up the base of the stew, and any vegetables added, such as onions or garlic, are pureed into the base. We’re told that birria is usually served in a as a bowl as a stew, but at this stand, they used the meat to make tacos. Christi found the meat to be bland. The tacos were served with all the usual accoutrements to doll them up. 

Meanwhile, Eric did chores. Eric repaired the smokestack and lubricated the snaps on the window covers. He dropped off our empty propane tank at the marina office. The place that fills propane tanks is a few miles away on Highway 1, and the marina will take the tanks over to have them filled for a $5.00 service fee. 

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Second Trip to Santa Rosalia, Days 11 – 12 

Full moon about to set behind this house on the morning of Monday, October 10

Followed by the sunrise

Monday was our usual routine: chores in the morning and a trip to downtown in the afternoon to run some errands and have a late lunch in restaurant.

Eric had equalized the batteries overnight. He started the process right before we went to bed. Then he set an alarm for the middle of the night so he could keep up the process for the recommended 8 hours. In the morning, he changed the primary fuel filter (Racor filter) on the tank that had already finished filtering and started filtering the other tank.

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Second Trip to Santa Rosalia, Days 8 – 10

Friday, October 7, continued… After the museum, we headed back to Kosmos. We noticed that most of the piles of mud were gone, and realized that we hadn’t seen the soldiers in a few days. 

In the late afternoon, it rained. There was a stunning double rainbow.

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Second Trip to Santa Rosalia, Day 4

Monday, October 3 was a TLC for Kosmos day. Eric started the day by changing the generator impeller. Then he put away all the tools from oil change and impeller change projects, and stowed extra oil containers (Santa Rosalia doesn’t have any place to dispose of used oil). Christi and Keith started washing the boat as soon as the water was turned on. However, it was already hot, and they ran out of energy halfway through.

The last time we were in Santa Rosalia, we mentioned that our dive compressor was broken. At that point in time, we’d had about a tank and a half of air onboard, and Christi had continued to used it to clean the bottom until we ran out of air, which was a few days before the hurricane. Since Christi hadn’t been able to do the bottom in almost a month, we made arrangements through the marina to hire someone to do it. He came today.

We also got the bottled water issue straightened out. It was a simple miscommunication. Normally, the deliver the water, we dump it in the tanks right then, and they take the empty bottles back. The higher number was because they thought we wanted to keep the bottles.

The next thing on the to-do list was to walk to a store that sold oxygen to see if they could fill our SCUBA tanks. The shop was on Highway 1, not far past AutoZone. Unfortunately, they couldn’t help us, and told us there was no one in town that could.

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Second Trip to Santa Rosalia, Day 3

When we woke up on Sunday, October 2, it was very windy. The wind was pleasantly cool and refreshing! Christi needed a jacket when she went out to watch the sunrise. Once the sun was up, the wind died and it warmed up fast.

Does anyone know what kind of bird this is?

Eric started changing the engine oil and filter first thing in the morning, as planned. Unfortunately, he’d failed to notice that a valve was set wrong, and accidentally drained out the transmission oil simultaneously with the engine oil. And then, unbeknownst to him, while filling the engine with oil, he was also simultaneously filling the transmission with engine oil. It didn’t take Eric long to figure out that the engine wasn’t filling up with oil proportional to the amount that he was putting in. That’s when he noticed the valve.

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