June 15, 2020
We were entering our third week in San
Jose del Cabo. It was dull, but safe enough. One day ran into the
next. I got up to run on Monday morning. I was always looking for
new routes to take. I ran past the dolphins, along the beach, and up
the levee to the main road. Then I crossed over and dropped into the
arroyo. I followed a road that paralleled the kilometer long bridge.
Parts of it were so deep in sand that I had to slow to a walk.
Eventually, I reached the creek and crossed on the trunk of a dead
palm tree. There was evidence that some homeless people were living
under the bridge by the creek, but I only saw one man and he paid me
no mind. After crossing the creek, I had to scale a concrete wall to
get back to the level of the road. It was a bit sandy, but I managed
to scramble up it and only left a few skin cells behind from my knee.
Once on the road, I ran back across the bridge and through the
marina where I was chased by a pack of dogs. Between my yelling,
“No!” at them and a couple of locals swearing at them in Spanish,
they eventually turned tail and left me alone.
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| Stream Crossing |
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| Climb out of the Arroyo |
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| Pack of Dogs at the Marina |
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| Dogs at the Shipyard Office |
Our big outing for the day was to go to
the shipyard office to use the internet. When we arrived, we found
the sofa occupied by a large, napping dog. Leslie and I downloaded
Netflix shows to keep us amused and I completed a blog post.
Leslie made a loaf of whole wheat
sourdough bread and we had that with chili for dinner.
June 16 -17, 2020
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| The Beach Was Narrow at First |
The beaches were finally open, so I
took the opportunity to walk on the beach east of the marina on
Tuesday morning. The tide was just past high and I barely had room
to pass between the booming surf and the cliffs for the first
stretch. There were a handful of locals fishing in the surf, but I
only encountered four other people in four miles of walking.
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| Strange Patterns of Erosion |
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| Undermined Home |
It was a beautiful walk. Some of the
cliffs were eroded in fascinating ways. One of the lovely homes
along the beach had been constructed too close to the edge and was in
danger of collapsing. Further down the beach, I passed condos and
hotels. The color of the sand ranged from white through red to
black. Crabs scuttled down the beach to the water. The waves were
impressive and very loud. I climbed the cliffs at a different place
than I had descended and ended up on a private road where one of the
gringo residents rather rudely directed me back to the main road
when I admitted I was lost.
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| The Waves Crashed |
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| Varied Sand Colors |
The transmission and new battery
switches arrived on Tuesday afternoon, but it was too late to do
anything with them. We arranged for the mechanics to come the next
morning and the electrician in the afternoon. Then we spent another
afternoon hanging around the boat.
I spent a good hour trying to transform
bottled spaghetti sauce into something vaguely Italian using only
what spices were present on the boat. Eventually, between some
Italian sausage and enough cayenne, oregano, Italian seasoning,
garlic, onions, and veggies, I managed to mask the sweet taste of the
bottled sauce and produce a pretty decent dinner. Leslie had baked
another couple of loaves of sourdough and we had salad to top it all
off. I was so full I could barely stay awake long enough to watch
Once Upon a Time in the West, a
1969 western with Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, and Jason Robards.
It was a good one with lots of plot twists.
Marina was busy hunting roaches and
brought us three big ones over the course of the evening. While it
was my job to kill flies and Leslie's job to eradicate common
roaches, it was Jack's job to kill the giant bugs his cat dragged in.
He got two of them, but one escaped into the boat, a somewhat
disturbing event.
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| Sunrise at the Cross |
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| Fishing at Dawn |
The mechanics came in the morning, but
quickly determined that they needed an installation tool. Jack had
offered to purchase said tool with the transmission, but had been
told that they had one. Now, it was nowhere to be found. It would
take another day to locate one. The electrician got stuck on another
job and couldn't come, either. We spent another day waiting.
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| Sunset Over the Marina |
I did some laundry. Leslie and I
practiced our respective instruments. Jack worried about the boat.
We ate leftover pasta and salad for dinner and started watching the
documentary about Jeffrey Epstein,
June 18, 2020
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| Marina Helping the Electrician |
We had arranged for the electrician to
come at 7:00, figuring that the mechanics would be late. Of course,
the mechanics arrived early, also. Fortunately, Russell the
electrician was able to assemble most of the jumper cables and such
that he needed to install the battery switch out in the cockpit.
Marina plopped herself in the middle of the project. He thought she
was trying to help until we informed him of her propensity to chew on
anything that looked like wire. I feared for his multimeter leads.
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| The New Transmission |
Leslie and I set off to walk to Walmart
about 9:00. It was a hot walk uphill. Nothing seemed to have
changed since our last visit. No tourists were in evidence. We
stocked up on provisions for what we hoped was the last time. I
finally found a whisk broom and dustpan in the dollar store section
of the Walmart. I also bought a pair of slippers to wear on watch.
My running shoes were too bulky and didn't slip on and off easily.
The only other shoes I had were flip flops which didn't work well
with socks. I had been keeping watch in stocking feet. While there
were all kinds of cute women's slip on shoes that I would have liked
to buy, none of them came in my size. I had to settle for a cheap
pair of men's slippers.
We called our favorite Uber driver,
Gabriel, to ferry us back to the boat. The electrician had just
finished when we returned. The mechanics had somehow managed to get
the installation tool stuck on the shaft and were unable to remove
it. No amount of hammering on it had any effect. They decided to
try freezing it, but broke for lunch, first.
We scrounged some lunch and then
retreated to our respective corners to nap, read, or write.
Nothing would budge the installation
tool, so they eventually had to cut it out. By the time that was
done, it was late in the day and they resolved to try again the
following morning. We started getting antsy. We didn't want to be
stuck over another weekend.
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| Sexy Power Boat |
Being tied up to the Marine Group's
dock, we got to see all the dry stored boats being put in the water
and taken back out. Some of them were larger than you would expect.
One very sexy power boat was tied up next to us for a few days. It
wasn't a fishing boat and it didn't have much living space. It just
looked fast. We decided the only good use for such a boat was
running drugs unless you were using it as a tender to a mega-yacht.
We finished watching the documentary
about Jeffrey Epstein, after dinner, and went to bed early .
June 19, 2020
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| Reinforced Thumbnail |
It was Friday of the third week we had
spent in San Jose del Cabo and the transmission still wasn't in. I
was up early, drinking tea in the cockpit, when the first mechanic
arrived at 7:30. I couldn't wake Jack, so asked him to return at
8:00. Jack was up by the time he came back.
I just couldn't make myself run that
morning. I had run out of interesting places to explore and was
ready to be gone.
The mechanics worked on installing the
transmission all day. Leslie and I spent a good chunk of the
afternoon in the office, downloading Netflix, and using the internet.
I rushed out another blog post. When we returned to the boat,
transmission was in but we were still short a hydraulic hose. The
mechanics swore they would get it made overnight and be back by 9:00
the next morning.
As a guitar player, breaking my right
thumbnail is a nightmare. Usually, I keep the nails on my right hand
coated with acrylic to avoid the problem. Since the coronavirus hit,
I had not been able to get my nails done and I had finally torn my
thumbnail right at the quick where it would take months to grow back
if I allowed it to tear off. I laminated a piece of Post-It Note to
my nail with Superglue and then painted it with clear nail polish.
It kept the nail intact but made me look like I had painted my
thumbnail neon green. It was a toss-up as to whether I would get my
hair cut or my nails done, first, when I got home. Both were driving
me mad.
We were still a little concerned that
we might be delayed over the weekend, but still decided to go out for
dinner. We were craving pizza, but there was no pizza restaurant in
La Playita and no one wanted to deliver to us. Leslie and I took an
exploratory walk and discovered that the Marinero Borracho was open
for dine-in service. It was empty when we scoped it out at 17:30,
but much busier when we returned with Jack at 20:00.
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| Jack and Leslie at Marinero Borracho |
It wasn't jam packed, but every gringo
in the marina seemed to be in the restaurant. They had set up table
outside along the street and inside downstairs, so we weren't cheek
by jowl. The servers wore masks and face shield and we had to walk
through disinfectant to get it. They were not allowed to have
physical menus. I had to download a QR code reader so that we could
view the menu. Leslie and I had tacos chinos with fish or shrimp,
cabbage, pineapple, mint, and cucumber. Jack had soup and shrimp
enchiladas. Everything was delicious. Perhaps the best part was
being able to order margaritas. It was a good celebration.
June 20-21, 2020
Hoping that Saturday would truly be my last run in the San Jose del Cabo area, I decided to take a short run out to the hotel zone to see if anything had opened. Saturday morning traffic was heavier than usual and a couple of cattle were sharing the road.
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| Sunrise Over the Arroyo |
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| Empty Hotel |
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| Cows in Morning Traffic |
It was further to the hotels than I
remembered. Vidanta was still barricaded, but the other hotels had
removed their walls. Still, they looked deserted and I saw no one
but gardeners and security. I was curious and kept running down the
strand. Eventually, I decided to run over the hill past La Comer,
Chedraui, Soriana and Walmart. By the time I returned to the boat, I
had run over 10k. So much for a short run.
The mechanics didn't show up by 9:00,
but they did arrive with the hose by 10:30. By early afternoon, the
transmission was working. We went back and forth at the dock and
ripped one of the undersized cleats out of the dock in the process.
My friend, Carlos, and his girlfriend,
Ruby, came to meet Jack and see the boat in the afternoon. We had
invited them to come with us to Ensenada as crew. They spent most of
the afternoon with us and decided to come along.
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| Carlos |
Leslie and I made ready to leave and
filled the water tanks. The valves had not been properly set and we
accidentally filled the drinking water tank with non-potable water.
We then had to empty it back out and refill the tank with bottled
water. Carlos helped Jack shuttle bottles of water to and from the
Oxxo with his car. Late in the afternoon, we took a short harbor
cruise to test the transmission. It worked fine.
I made pork chops, zucchini, and
risotto for dinner and we watched The Kingdom.
We planned to leave the dock in the morning.
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| Motoring Out of San Jose del Cabo |
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| Locals Enjoying the Beach in San Jose del Cabo |
We
spent a leisurely Sunday morning, doing last loads of laundry and
taking showers. Then I topped up the water tanks and we cast off
about noon. The wind was blowing us off the dock and Leslie, who had
been untying the lines, was unable to get aboard. We tried,
futilely, to approach close enough to the boat parked behind us for
her to jump aboard, but ended up having to switch to the opposite
side of the dock where the wind worked in our favor. Magic
Carpet has a high freeboard and
it wasn't a pretty entrance, but we got Leslie aboard safely and
motored out of the marina.
The weather was
perfect and we had a nice ride along the coast to Cabo San Lucas
where we anchored in the same spot we had occupied three weeks
before. It was Father's Day and the beaches were crowded, although
the hotels were mostly empty and the crowd seemed to be local.
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| The Arch with Sand |
Cabo's iconic arch
is usually clean of sand but once or twice per decade the sand builds
up the arch. This was one of those times. Leslie, Jack, and I piled
in the dinghy and zoomed out to see the arch. The surf was big and
it could not have been more beautiful or impressive. Rays were
leaping out of the water all around us. A few tour boats were out
but we mostly had the area to ourselves. It seemed like a good omen
for our journey.
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| Waves on the Outside of the Arch |
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| Cruise Ship Anchored in Cabo |
Carlos was due to
meet us at 6:00 for a last-minute grocery run. Leslie and I took the
dinghy in and parked it at the dinghy dock near the launch ramp where
the security guard would watch it for 60 pesos. We failed to meet up
with Carlos and grew impatient. After half an hour of
miscommunications, Leslie and I took an Uber to the Soriana to do our
shopping. Carlos met us there and brought us back to the boat.
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| Magic Carpet in Cabo |
It was so late by
the time we got back that we each just scrounged something for
dinner. I had a can of tuna and some rice cakes with cream cheese.
Soon it was time to hit the hay. We were due to meet Carlos and Ruby
at the fuel dock the following morning at 8:00.
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| Cabo by Night |
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