Yesterday and today we are getting a serious taste of Summer in the Sea of Cortez. It has reached 104 both days, and staying cool is definitely a challenge. Unfortunately, because we are in a marina, we can’t just jump over the side of the boat to cool off. But, we are doing our best to stay down below with the fans going during the afternoon. And, yesterday we found a coffee shop with AIR CONDITIONING!
There are a few boats here in the marina that have air conditioning, but that’s pretty rare. A lot of people cover the entire boat in canvas tarps to try and keep the inside a little cooler. When Mike redid the headliner a couple of years ago, he put insulation in, which really helps us stay at least 10-15 degrees cooler than outside (at 104 that’s still pretty warm). I think a lot of boats just bake from the sun hitting the decks.
104 is officially too hot to move…
Other than the heat the last couple of days, we are really enjoying our time here in La Paz. We have met a lot of great people here in the marina who have given us all kinds of tips for cruising Mexico and the South Pacific.
La Paz is a lovely town, which may be big for Baja, but compared to Southern California is really quite small. We’re able to ride our bikes from the marina into town along the beautiful Malecon and have found all kinds of shops, restaurants, bars, etc. Two days a week, there is a street market with all kinds of goodies. Today we got some home baked peasant bread, chimichurri sauce, pate, dried mango and mezcal. We ran out of pesos, or we definitely would have bought more!
We’re also getting some serious stuff done on the boat. We took the fried SSB into a local electronics guy and we’re hoping that it is going to work. We were dreading having to put out the money for a new system, so we’ll see. Mike found a guy who does custom stainless steel work who is going to help him with the installation of the fuel bladder. This is going to allow us to carry about another 30 gallons of diesel, which will be huge when we do a long passage.
We’ve also been making screen enclosures for everywhere on the boat that will allow us to let the air in and keep the bugs out. We haven’t had too much of a problem with mosquitoes here, like we did in San Jose. But, we have had the occasional one find us at night. The other night one apparently bit me on my eyelid and I woke up with my eye practically swollen shut. I looked like I had entered the boxing ring in my sleep!
Well, that’s about all the news for now. I’m off to go try and take a really cold shower and cool off!
~katie