5C's Que Pasa

Jan 23, 2019

A new day and more RV problems

We were up early this morning. Ignore the marks in the sky.

Holland America came in first.

Because the tide was coming in we left on our walk at 7:55AM. A first for us. This was taken from further up the beach.

It was a struggle walking back through the soft sand but I managed. I am in the midst of organizing a catamaran cruise to see the Carnival fireworks on March 2nd. We will be picked up here at the RV park and the boat will leave from the Isla and three hours later will return us here. An open National bar including beer and food is included, all for $59.00 USD. No stress of having to fight the crowds to see the famous fireworks. However I have had the stress of organizing this and trying to find the forty people to keep the rate at that low price. Tonight I am at 35 takers of which 34 have paid me. I have to pay the entire event in full by January 29th on my credit card so I do need a firm commitment from everyone before doing that. That means that I have been busy every day with this project.

We are having maintenance work done on the RV, some involves painting. The painters never showed up today 😥 They were here yesterday!! However Eric our RV tech did come by about 10AM. He had a list of four items but only got two done.

The first required the removal of the RV muffler which was not an easy task. Eric and Gustavo look like they have wrestled a large snake.

We had smelled exhaust as we were driving south and sure enough there were holes in the muffler. Eric will have a new custom piece built.

Then he hooked up the generator after doing the flush and found a leak. It took a long time to find that the source of the leak was the radiator to the generator. It took even longer to realize that there was no way he could remove our generator in order to take out the radiator which will need to be totally rebuilt. Bottom line we can’t drive anywhere until we get a new muffler and we also have no generator. We do use our generator a lot as we head back home. What to do? Well first we need to get the painting done, get a new muffler and then work on the how to fix the generator. We need a facility that we can drive the RV up on a ramp or ?? so that the generator can be taken out, etc.

It has not been a good day for us. We are reeling from all of this ( the painting was an expected expense ) but not these other major repairs. So no sunset photos, nor shots of the two cruise ships heading out. We are both unsettled. Tomorrow the sun will shine again and everything might fall into place. We are strong and always manage to figure things out 😎

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Jan 22, 2019

Yesterday’s happy hour and a part of today

Tris and Merle whom we have known for nine years have stopped driving their RV into Mexico. Instead they now have a five year lease on a casita/small house not far from the RV park. They had their first happy hour yesterday.

They are are actually located on the causeway. When I take a photo of the ships coming in or going out there are some homes in the foreground along that narrow causeway. That is where they are now living. From their deck you can see both RV parks. Our daily walks are from the left of the screen the right of screen, over 3 miles return.

They are well located and as they each have an ATV they are just minutes away from all of us. Colin on the left.

Zooming in you can see RV1. We are the first site on the left.

This is the second such property that David the owner of the RV parks has built. Tris and Merle’s place is on the right. Another friend of theirs and ours has the casita on the left.

The other side of their home faces the shipping channel and El Faro. Great views in both directions.

Today was a clean and tidy day. Some work was happening on the RV and once that is underway I will share the photos.

A new boat came into our small harbor today.

So ended another day here on the Isla. Tris and Merle are located between the back of the ship and to the left of that tall white structure not too far on the right ( about an inch to the right ).

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Jan 21, 2019

Yesterday, Sunday, was a better day

We headed into Mazatlan just after 11AM. The Navy was displaying the colors.

A few tuna boats were in port taking on fuel and off loading their catch. Can you see the red helicopter mid frame slightly left from the right? I saw it take off the other day right from the deck of the boat.

A Baja Ferry in for repairs and a colorful tug in front.

Some of the shrimp fleet.

We were in town to attend a Gordon Campbell Concert, in this case by the Romancero Latino Ventura. They are a group from Culiacan but are better known outside of Mexico. We spoke to one of the members that we know and he said that in that last few years they have performed in France, Denmark and Russia as well as other locations.

At one point the quartet became a quintet. The group was beyond fabulous. I could have listened to them all day. Coin knows the group from his many vistis to Culiacan at the guitar festival.

Colin, Vinicio, Anaid and myself. He was on the left in the above shots.

Colin did some wedding photos for them back on 2013, click here for the link to those photos.

This was a photo that was not in that post. Fun times.

We stopped at a new to us place on the Machado ( el Cielo ) and had some shrimp tacos for lunch. Even better they had a two for one on wine. I had already eaten one of my tacos, they were that good.

So wonderful to have one of the few pulmonias that actually has a view. Most windshields are so low that you can’t see much.

Waiting for the lancha back to the Isla.

Always something new to see. Love how the laundry is hanging out to dry.

We stood waiting for the lancha as several of the drivers rested.

Meanwhile some fisherman were unloading their catch.

..and we are off, passing the Mexican Navy once again.

Home sweet home.

We got back to an unexpected happy hour, an adios to some RVers. From one thing to the next. Thanks all for your comments of support and suggestions re the carpet smell and of my hair. Still not happy about that.

We had a great view of the eclipse last night.

Best we could do with a hand held camera.

Hopefully many of you got to see it as well. What a treat.

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Jan 20, 2019

You just have to take each day as it comes

This is my post for Saturday which is about Friday and for Sunday which is about Saturday. I wish I could write at night about the day that was ending and I really like it when I do but it usually just never works out. For instance last night I started this post but only got two photos in when dinner was ready. I just had to let the post go. As it was, I ate dinner and was asleep within minutes on the sofa. I have been very tired the past few nights.

We had a great beach walk Friday morning. We saw an arch in the sand. It reminded us of Arches National Park but on a much smaller scale. However the principal is the same, the forces of nature pushed the mountains up and in this case, somehow, from under the sand this tiny arch was formed.

This is our ninth winter walking this beach. We have always wondered how these very small intricate formations came to be. It happens at low tide. The simple arch above gave us the first clue. As we walked the last two days we have actually seen the sand being pushed up ever so slowly and the shape changing. You can see how it starts from the middle.

We are still dealing with a stinky carpet. We have used two types of liquid disinfectant and have let that dry. Today ( Sunday ) we rubbed a full box of baking Soda into the carpet. We will leave it for a few days before vacuuming it. Hopefully it will make a difference. Our neighbor has a small carpet cleaner which will be our next step. If that doesn’t work then we may have to cut the carpet out. I can’t live in in a bedroom that smells like sewer water.

So being as it was Friday I went to get my hair colored and cut even though my appointment was supposed to have been Thursday. My hairdresser was 40 minutes behind. I had a bad feeling about it all. Colin came to get his hair cut while I was still processing. She cut his hair, then took my foils out and washed my hair. As she started to dry my hair I was shocked to see how dark it was. Colin maneuvered around so he could whisper to me without her hearing “too dark “. Yes I know. I was devastated. She said don’t worry, once it is dry it will be blonde. No it was not. She told me to wash it a few times and it will lighten up. All I can do is give that a try.

We were meeting Jenny and Brad for dinner and it took a lot of energy to get myself out of the dumps. Where did the blonde go?

It was a lovely sunset.

We ate and they were off to a concert and we headed home to drink lots of wine and eat chocolate.

We did some gardening Saturday morning and then walked the beach. Best part of the day. We hadn’t been back more more than 30 minutes when the RV tech showed up to redo the pipes that got messed up last Saturday. That was the error that caused our RV to flood and has created the still very stinky carpet issue.

While here he decided to do some of the things on our work list. One of those involved some welding which required that all the RV computers be unplugged and of course the power shut off.

A generator flush was also done which required the generator to be run for a full hour. Not too great for our neighbors nor myself who were trying to relax on this perfect Saturday.