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.
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.
On Wednesday (February 1), we awoke to a sunny, beautiful morning. However, we were dismayed to see that the rain had left the boat covered in mud, just as been the case in Santa Rosalia. What the heck was going on with the rain in Baja?
Instead of washing Kosmos, we decided to take care of the dinghy first. Eric got the dinghy down and gave it a good wash down, including eliminating the copious amount of sand that had accumulated inside. He also cleaned the dinghy motor.
After mulling it over overnight, Eric decided that he was not going to try to adjust the belt. on the dive compressor, so he put dive compressor back together.
On Monday (January 30), the wind shifted again. We knew that the rolling in anchorage would increase and soon it would become comfortable. It was time to move again. We also knew that there was a storm coming. We’d decided that we wanted to ride the storm out in a marina. We were excited to be able to procure a “real” slip at Costa Baja, complete with water, power and pump out!
We pulled up anchor at about 0830, right after One World did, and followed them towards the La Paz area. It was a 6.5 hour ride to Costa Baja. We were in small 1 – 2 foot (.3 – .6 meters) head seas, so it was mildy uncomfortable. The day started out mostly sunny with some clouds, but as the day wore on, the clouds steadily increased. By the time we arrived, it was mostly cloudy. The temperatures were cool, but not cold, in the high 60s Fahrenheit (about 16-ish Celsius). Thanks to the wind, we did need our heavy jackets to sit outside when the boat moving. Eric saw two whales while he was on watch, but he didn’t get a close enough look to tell which species they were.
At the turn off into the channel to Costa Baja, we saw that the world’s biggest sloop was on the fuel dock. When we’d booked the reservation, we’d asked about getting fuel on the way in, and the marina had told us the fuel dock was booked for the day. Now we knew why.
Monday, January 9, continued... When we went inside, we noticed that the refrigerator/freezer was off. Eric realized that the inverter had shut down. He started the generator and realized there appeared to be something seriously wrong.
The inverter reported that there was 1.6 volts in the battery connection; but the battery said it had 13 volts. Eric measured the voltage at the inverter and the 1.6 volt reading was correct. He measured the voltage on the other side of main fuse and it registered at 13 volts. It appeared the main fuse was blown.
Eric tried the inverter by-pass switch so we could power the inverter circuit with the generator, but it didn’t work. This created a new set of questions: was the by-pass switch defective or wired wrong? Or was there a bigger problem with the inverter?
