5C's Que Pasa

Yet another stuck car.  I have no idea if this guy thought he was Superman or what.  Somehow he managed to get very far into the soft sand before he sunk.  He definitely needed a tractor to pull him out.

Yesterday was another busy day dealing with some issues like our mail being returned to a major company that we deal with.  Took some time to sort that out.  Must have been a glitch.  The research on Greece is mostly completed, time to move on to the next place we will be visiting.  I had hoped to take a few hours off for reading in the afternoon but somehow I ran out of time.  We did enjoy sunset with Laura and Alan.

We also got to watch a large net being pulled in just as the sun was setting.

Our plan this morning was to head into Mazatlan as we had several to dos and needed to do a grocery shop.  Just as we finished watering our gardens and were about to head out we were surprised with visitors.  I have mentioned Carol and Gary over the years in my blog posts.  They are from Maine and have in the past spent their winters here on Stone Island.  Wonderful people, Colin and I call them real people.  We had a lovely long chat and it appeared that we would not be able to tear Gary and Colin apart but finally I managed. They are only here for six days but we will be seeing them again in a few days.  I was surprised when I went to add that date to my calendar to see that we are going to be out at a function for each of the next four days 😉

This photo is for Peter who is back in Maine.  Peter used to visit the Isla way back when there were only a few restaurants on the beach and the coconut trees came right down to the beach.  I met Peter in March 2011 when he came and knocked on my door.  He had Googled Isla de la Piedra and found my blog.  To this day Peter reads my posts to keep up with the Que Pasa of the Isla.  Wish you were here with us Peter.

Another photo of last night’s sunset.

I have no idea where today went.  Non stop activity.  Best part of the day was our usual beach walk.  We do a good deal of planning and decision making as we walk.  I spent a good deal of today on the computer for our Europe trip and then I tended to get involved in a bit of this and a bit of that with some que pasa’s here in the RV park and somehow my free time just dissipated into thin air.

By the way, both parks remain full to the brim and we even have at truck camper boondocking in the parking lot @ RV1 tonight.

The good news is that our first two weeks in Europe have been researched and Colin and I are both in agreement.  Not so many planned activities and museums this trip.  We are going to just try and wing it when we get to a new destination.  Of course I still have to plan accommodation, transportation between locations and sometimes airport transfers.

The bad news is that we received an email last night from Erik our RV tech, ( I finally have it right, spelt with a K ).

Hi Colin the generator is turning into a bit of a headache. The radiator has been reinstalled and that all went fine but the other problem is the belt tensioner pulley, the bearing is finished on it and it damaged the pulley. I spent most of today in a futile search for bearing and pulley but no luck so I think the only solution is to use a slightly smaller bearing and have a coller made for it that will fit into the worn hole in the pulley and have a machinist fit the pieces together or make a new pulley entirely.  If the pulley was metal a machinist could weld it in and machine it to the correct size but the pulley is plastic and so that complicates the problem. The belt wasn’t new either but I was able to find a belt that would work, its slightly narrower and thinner but an original belt is nowhere to be found and this belt is better than leaving the old one on. So basically its a matter of solving the pulley problem now and then we can reassemble the generator and run it for a couple hours before installing it. 

Those of you who are familiar with Mexico have an idea of what those many parts places look like.  I can just imagine Erik walking among those many parts piled up here and there.  It is a miracle that he found a used not quite right part but something that would work.  Now we just need him to find someone to rebuild that plastic part.  He is so confident.  So happy that he is on the job.  I had more money transferred to our checking account today.  I think I may need to be sitting down when I get the final invoice 😎

Colin’s reply to Erik was….Ohhhhh.  This has turned into a bit of a horror story.  I get what you are doing and I guess the option is to keep moving forward.  If this was Canada, a new generator would be the only way to go.  They don’t make these things to last, however 18 years here on this one. I guess this is probably not far from normal.  Thank you for everything. Don’t push yourself. This year has been our worst for problems, rv and otherwise.

Definitely that kind of day 🙄   One of my favorite Mexican sayings is ‘poco a poco’.  Bit by bit or ever so slowly or even one step at a time ( one of my favorite expressions ).

We really try and get out every day and do at least 3.25 miles return walking along the beach.   However nature affects the tide from time to time and that affects our walking.  Today the tide conflicted with my scheduled massage which of course I am not giving up.  It pains me to say that I only walked 1700 steps today but the day is not over.  I was very close to 70,000 steps for the past week 🙂

I just got this a few weeks ago.  Pretty impressive.  Hmmm, maybe we should go to Egypt in 2020 and take a cruise along the Nile.

We walk ( and I mean walk, not a slow walk, but fast paced ) until we reach our current turn around point.  This newly constructed home is our midway mark.  Hard to see because of the truck but more similar homes are being built directly behind this one in a precise row.  Colin and I think that someone owns this narrow tract of land and is perhaps building these homes as a rental income.

Often we ask other RVers, how far did you walk today?  The answers vary, to the first white building, to the second white house and to the third house.  Some even say they go another mile or more.  I took my photos backwards, starting from the furthest point away from the RV park.

This is the second white house.  It was abandoned before it was finished.   A panoramic view from all the windows and the deck.

Standing here, I turn and look back at the 3rd white house, our turning point.

Looking ahead towards where we live, I see what is called the first white house.  It used to be the Iguana Restaurant and now it is a fish farm of sorts.  Often we see tenters long here as they actually do have bathroom facilities.

From this spot you can see that RV1 is just past that taller yellow building which is the Maria Coral Hotel.  RV2 is just this side of the Maria Coral Hotel.

So as you can see it is quite the walk from the RV Park ( 1 ) to what we all call the third white house.  You can of course go all the way to Estrella del Mar but that is another 8 km/5 miles or so.

We watched some surfers doing their best.  As the tide changes so do the waves.

Good for this girl, she did get up and surf out the wave.

This was the second car that got stuck in the sand yesterday.  It was a young woman and her 3 -4 year old child.  The fellow with the shovel just happened to be walking along the beach with a shovel on his shoulder as well as a machete and other items.  He spent a great deal of time digging her out ( 40 minutes or more ).  He dug out the front, then the rear and the sides.

Sadly as she hit reverse the sand wedged under the car pulled the front bumper away.  She did finally get out.  We were concerned that she did not pay this fellow who offered his aid.  Once the car was free he immediately began shoveling sand into the holes.  A first that we have ever seen.  What a great guy.  (photo by Laura)

Yet another day here on the Isla.

We did our beach walk early this morning and were surprised at the amount of folks camping out.

These folks are camped just a bit south of RV2, in front of an abandoned restaurant.

At first I thought that this tiny tent was just for two people, certainly not four.  They were closer to the beach and that is their vehicle in the background but in the photo it looks closer due to compression.

This was the second day that we saw this van backed onto the beach.  No idea re the license plate.  I bet he didn’t know that this was where the horses hang out for a bit every morning ( once they are brought up the beach very early morning ) until they get busy making money for their owners.

This was day two as well for this tiny tent. We have not seen who resides here.  Whomever it is, they are as far from the ocean as possible.

A rather large group of tents not too far from the high tide line.  They are set up close to the old Iguana Restaurant now referred to as the fish farm.

As we kept walking I was surprised to see four more tents set up under the old restaurant overhang.  They were well away from the surf.

Much to my surprise we had someone set up a tent tonight just in front of our RV park.

It has been an uneventful few days.  The weather is coolish with overcast skies and a lot of afternoon wind.  We are still doing our walk as early as we can in the morning but the tide is not cooperating at the moment.  So it was about 11AM when we headed down the beach yesterday for our 3.2 mile walk and saw no one and nothing worth taking a photo of.  Because of the winds many of the fishing vessels have been hanging closer to port.

That changed as we got closer to the RV park.  Can you spot the helicopter?

It was very windy.

Trying to land facing into the wind.   The pilot did a great job.

If you look closely you can see the anchor line to the right of the first shrimper.   Definitely need to get this camera in for its third cleanse this season.  However it did come back with some dust spots last time.

Apparently while we were out on the beach an RV came in called ‘Adventure Taxi’.  You can read about them in this blog post from when we met them in Bullhead City last November.  We spoke with them briefly and told them to drop in here on the Isla and say hola as they passed through Mexico.  Sadly we were on the beach and missed them.  There is no room in either RV park  ( we are full for a bit ) and they had to go elsewhere.  Sadly the original team who set up the bus and the trip had to fly home in early January due to a family emergency.  The bus is being driven back to Vancouver by another team of friends.  You can still read about their trip on FB under ‘the Adventure Taxi’.  I wish them well.

Photo taken last November.  Hopefully things will go well for them at the various border crossings with different names on all the paperwork. 

Today was mostly cloudy again with wind so another good day for me to stay inside to do my Europe research.  I went out to take a sunset photo for this post.

I figured that this was the best it would get tonight.

But a tiny bit later I was in for a wonderful surprise.