Life in Paradise has its ups and downs. This week would prove to be ours.
We arrived in La Paz with water as flat as glass. We picked a Virtual Marina. What this means is that the marina has no docks. Just a dinghy dock. There is wi-fi (sometimes, if you sit in the corridor of the building), washrooms and showers (which we don’t need as we have on board) and an advertised swimming pool (not). Now we decided to stay when we arrived because it was cheap (retired you know), and it is downtown therefore easy to get around without taxis. We grabbed a mooring line and attached. We just hope the mooring anchor is in good shape.
Well the anchorage is so close to downtown that we have stayed up until 0400 hr every night listening to the disco, bad mariachi bands and the occasional good group. It seems when the music is done the roosters begin to crow, the dogs begin to bark and finally the church bells begin to ring. Who goes to church at 4 in the morning? After 7 days of this I resorted to ½ a sleeping pill that was given to me by a fellow boater. If you know me you know I do not like taking any pills. I figured when I wanted to stand on the top deck and yell NO MAS NO MAS, POR FAVOUR, not to mention jump into the water, it was time to take some measures. I slept well only to be awoken by approximately 15 vehicles with sirens and a new boat for the Port Captain being shown off to the locals. It was a parade.
Ken proceeded to wash out the dinghy as it was coated in sand from the previous locations. It was about at this time paradise decided to give us a few tests. Ken fell and hit his chest while twisting his upper body at the same time. It knocked the wind out of him and the colour left his face. I grabbed ice and put it on the chest then radioed over to Mike and Julie to come over. Julie is a nurse and brought her blood pressure machine. Luckily, Ken only got bruised and not broken ribs. It reminded us all just how easy it is to get hurt and it might be in a remote area.
Next came the boat Issues: the battery charger packed it in. This means that the batteries are not recharging therefore the inverter can not be used (unless the engines are running) and it is our main form of keeping the freezer frozen. The generator now needs to run to draw down the freezer. It is very noisy inside the boat. So … the next thing to act up is the generator. Ken now has to climb in and out of the engine room so the sore back is not getting a chance to heal. West Marine is sending us a new battery charger and it should be here by Friday.
Our flat seas turned into Northers. This is a strong north wind of 30 knots, too bumpy to take the dinghy to shore, unless you want to get real wet. We rode these out for 4 days.
We got wet as I had decided to attend Spanish school with some other boaters. So every morning off we went. Ken was in pain getting over to the dingy dock but he did it.
There were 11 of us taking classes. We were split into two classes, ours having 5 persons. This was a good refresher course for me but I didn’t really learn anything new. I am just hoping it helped my pronunciation. Practice is what is needed. I may take classes again but I will have them evaluate me first as it is expensive to not learn new material.
Ken and I have not really had any time to go explore as he hasn’t felt up to it but he is now on the mend so off we will walk and the next blog should have some information in it.
Now we have heard that the temps in Calgary will reach -30. They are +30 here. Its just the mas or minos.
Until the next blog.