Category Archives: Maintenance

Where we did maintenance to keep the boat running well.

Las Fiestas de Dia de Los Muertos

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Sunrise on Friday, October 28, looking at the channel from the edge of the docks

On Friday morning, Eric flushed the grey water tank. Then he filled up the tank and added Seazyme, an enzyme that dissolves some of the bio-solids that tend to build up in tanks. He turned off the pump for a day so Seazyme had time to do its thing before being pumped out.

It has taken us a while to figure out how to keep the smell from our grey-water tank under control. While the things that go into grey-water tanks aren’t as inherently gross and smelly as what goes into blackwater tanks, things such as hair and toothpaste tend to get stuck in the tanks, build up and smell bad. It actually creates a grey sludge. In the past, we’ve mentioned a few things that help, such as doing laundry at sea and turning off the pump so that warm, soapy water sloshes around and helps clear out some of the icky stuff that builds up in the bottom of the tank. Seazyme is another trick that we’ve learned. (Side note: in 2021, we did a major overhaul of both the blackwater and grey-water tanks, which has also helped with the smell.) 

Earlier in the week, we’d told Claire and Phil that we were planning to go to two Dia de Los Muertos parties in Loreto on Friday. We’d mentioned that we were going to rent a car to get to Loreto. Claire and Phil told us that that they wanted to go to the parties, and they had a vehicle and could drive us. How perfect! Claire also offered to take Christi grocery shopping in Loreto on Friday before the parties.

Grocery shopping was uneventful. We’re now pretty well stocked up for a while. Keith and Eric did chores. We’re not sure if we’ve ever mentioned this before, but the drive between Puerto Escondido and Loreto is stunning. The road is hilly and offers spectacular views. This is the ex-pat community just south of Loreto

There wasn’t much time between returning from the stores in Loreto before heading back to Loreto for the parties. Our first stop was Dan, Liz and Drake’s house, where Liz did face painting on all the willing participants. 

Initially, Keith was going to wear this as his costume:

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Third Trip to Puerto Escondido Days 2 – 4

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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 

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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

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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

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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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