After the Amiga net session I tried to listen "Baja California" at 7.15 AM on 7.230 KHz and "Chubasco Warm UP" at 7.294 KHz with no success. There are other nets later in the day that I might try out later.
I re sited that dome light in the head so that the swinging door no longer clobbers it. It is in a good position, closer to the mirror and higher up.
Yesterday afternoon I turned on the refrigerator to see what would happened. By sunset the evaporator was cool which was good for the cooked fish that I had in the compartment. At 8 PM I realized that cool was as good as it was going to get so I shut the compressor down lest it chew through 5.5 amps all night long. Given that the compressor works fine and the evaporator is brand new I must conclude that some of the gas has leaked out. Perhaps in La Paz I will be able to have someone look at it.
We went ashore and did our clothes washing at the well. We took 3 plastic buckets and a long thin rope. The well had looked deeper than it actually was, being about 40 feet deep. At the bottom was maybe 2 ft of water and a plastic bucket that had probably broken its handle and dropped from the weight of the water. The water looked very clean, although nobody will drink it without boiling it first. Arnold and I got to work, each with his own washing bucket. While we were there we met two different sets of people drawing water from the well. To the second pair, two men from Canada who are very experienced in motor camping in this part of the world, I remarked that people must have been socializing at water wells for thousands of years. Before leaving the well Arnold and I ate the fish that I had cooked the morning before and it tasted great - better, probably, than it would have tasted immediately after cooking.
We took the clothes back to the boat and hung them on those overhead life lines that I have running from the cockpit to the shrouds and inner forestay, which make great clothes lines. Then we set off for the hill.
Arnold had expressed his intention to scale Cabo Los Frailes. I had said fine, you climb and I'll go to the restaurant for lunch and a grande bottle of cerveza. He mumbled to himself that he'd like to go up with somebody else so I agreed to accompany him. The climb was not easy. Arnold had a hard time but would not give up and managed to get to the top. Up there we shared some trail mix and took photos of our 360 degree views. It was good to look down on the raptors and even a sea plane flying around. When I got back to the boat later I check in our guide and found that the summit was 755 ft high, and it had been a hot and rough climb that was at least marked with little red plastic ribbons that the surveyors use.
We got down to the beach and Arnold was too buggered to walk the two miles to the restaurant. He took the Zodiac back to the boat and I made haste to the beer and the food. I ordered a grande cerveza and started to quaff that down while I settled down and cooled off. To the left were two Canadians and an an American talking about retirement plans, IRA's, rates of taxation, etc. To my right were two Mexican working men and the proprietor. I found myself in an exquisite position right in the middle: trying to communicate in Spanish but not quite being one of them, and in this setting not part of the English side either. The little girl came over and I said proudly "Me llamo Roberto" (my name is Roberto).
I had only 350 pesos on me and I wanted to make sure that I could cover my bill, so I laid the money on the table and asked "cuanta cuesta comida?" He indicated that there I had plenty of money. So I had an entree of their great guacamole and a main meal of 3 or 4 fried scallops and 6 big fat shrimp with carrots, rice, and cauliflower with plenty of bread. That came out to 180 pesos which I considered to be reasonable, given that it included a 940 ml bottle of beer. So I asked for "dos cervezas grande cerrado por favor" (two large beers unopened, please) and the cuanta came to less than 300 pesos. I paid and said in halting Spanish what I had just read in my "Spanish for Cruisers": "Me gusta la comida aqui" (I like the food here.) Both the proprietor and his wife who did the cooking beamed with appreciation. "Muchas Gracias" and with a wave of my hand "Adios."
It was dark when I got to the brow of the hill overlooking the beach. I pulled out my portable search light and like a partisan in WWII started flashing at the boat. Soon I saw Arnold's return flash so I knew that he would be under way soon. His arrival took longer than expected because he could not get the outboard engine to start so had to row in. Nevertheless I got back to the boat OK.
I was tired and dirty from all of the climbing and walking so I had a moonlight bath in the ocean. Back in the cockpit I rinsed with fresh water and as I dried off I savored the scene of the white beach with the soothing sound of the waves and the big orange moon coming up and shining across the water and thought that this would be one of those moments that I would remember.
From my discussion with Arnold it looked like we would stay another day. We would plumb the water tanks and bring more water from the well if we had to, using chlorine bleach to purify it. When I think of it, most of the water that we drink on this boat is boiled either for coffee and tea or for cooking. It would take little trouble to boil water that we put in our water bottles.
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2 comments:
Robert, your Spanish is really handy. Well done!
Perhaps I should purchase a small campers water filter for you to use. Comes in handy when out and about and there is a questionable water source.
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