Category Archives: Repair

Where we fixed something that failed.

Days 3 and 4 in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle 

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Sunrise on Thursday, December 12 (taken from aboard Kosmos):

Eric changed the engine oil first thing in the morning, before it got hot. He also tightened a hose connection for the engine’s oil drain, where a slight oil leak had developed. Then we took Kosmos over to the fuel dock to top off the fuel tanks. 

After returning to our slip, we decided to get lunch at the Iguana’s Garden Sanctuary, as the name piqued our interest. It was located near the port captain’s office. Much to our disappointment, when we arrived at the address, we saw it was a condo complex with no sign of any kind of garden or restaurant. 

The closest restaurant was on the waterfront at the north end of the boardwalk that surrounded the protected basin, so we ate there.

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Stabilizer Failure

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Tuesday, December 3, 2024 – It was supposed to be an uneventful day. The plan was to do chores around the boat in preparation for our 6.5-day passage to Puerto Vallarta, then head out at around 1500 (3:00 pm). 

Since we weren’t paying for another night, the marina encouraged us to leave earlier since check out is officially 1300. Their nudge turned out to be a giant blessing in disguise. Eric started up the main engine at around 1330. There was an issue with the stabilizers – when turned on, the screen said “server rebooted, call factory.” 

Eric has spent the last 1.5 years renovating Kosmos. We plan to write more extensive posts about the renovation, but for the moment we’ll summarize the work with: 1) The boat was 18-years old and many things had reached their life limit and needed to be replaced – including a lot of components on the stabilizers, and 2) We outfitted the boat 18 years ago when there were only two of us. Now that there are three of us; we needed to configure the electrical and water to be better suited for three people.  

Eric immediately called John Gumb Yacht Services, the company that did our stabilizer work, to help troubleshoot the problem. John Gumb had no silver-bullet answer, but the initial trouble shooting indicated it may have been electrical in nature. Eric called Weber Marine next, the company that did our electrical work (and more!). Weber also had no silver-bullet answer. 

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Second Trip tp Marina Costa Baja, Day 13

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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.

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Second Trip to Marina Costa Baja, Day 12 — La Paz and Black/Grey Water Tanks

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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.

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Second Trip to Marina Costa Baja, Days 3 – 5

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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.

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