After Paul

Morning light on Sierras

October the 25th

No worries, Mon

So here we are, a week after Paul swept by us, still sitting in the anchorage. There are other places we wanted to experience: Coronados, Honeymoon Cove,  Tres Candeleros...but we have spent many of the last seven days either waiting for someone to come out to the boat to look at our failed refrigeration system or in the port trying to find someone who knows someone in Loreto who might know where a part can be found.
We had a compressor motor rebuilt just before heading out (that was what had delayed our trip), but now neither the compressor nor the mechanical refrigeration component are working. Despite a daily "ice run" in our dinghy the thermostat slowly climbs and all those steaks, hamburgers, chicken, sausage and bacon are now compromised, not to mention my frozen veggies and soy products as well as milk, eggs cheese and cold meat in the refrigerator portion. We won't starve; we have plenty of non perishable foodstuff on board, but we hate to see all of the other goodies go to waste.
A boat refrigeration specialist from Mazatlan in anchored here and he comes to take a look. Although he doesn't have what we need with him he believes we can get the thing fixed with parts from Loreto,  After five days of running back and forth we learn we can't get what we need here.

Fire in the sky...same Sierras

We're still having a good time; the people are friendly and it feels good just to do some lazing about. I do a bit of kayaking and we take the dinghy out. Voyager has rented a car to make the 14 mile trek in to Loreto and we join them. What a nice town, smaller and less touristy than La Paz it still offers some good shopping (an amazing little "gourmet" store that a great goodies...most of which I can't purchase due to a lack of refrigeration, There are some nice restaurants and even a feed store where I find a birdseed mix for Buddi. We spend the day there - disappointed that Ettie's famous pie shop is closed but delighted to have been there on green market day - then enjoy the drive back to Puerto Escondido.We make a few more attempts to find a fix for the frig, have a local shipwright repack the propeller shaft seal, then finally decide: as nice as Puersto Escondido is it's time to head back to La Paz, a little bit earlier than planned.  If we go out to an anchorage we'll have no way of getting ice. We've had a good time and learned a lot about the boat; we'll return to La Paz with a list of projects to complete this winter.
There's a norther coming in so we'll enjoy Escondido a bit longer, then head back to La Paz to regroup.