La Paz - Week One

Date: 4/7/2009

Location: La Paz

One week in paradise and we're still having fun. We've walked around town until our feet ache, we took a taxi to and from a large shopping plaza, we've ordered some lycra diving suits, had the outboard motor fixed, and with the help of a retired navy expat, nearly doubled the output of our water maker. Not bad for one weeks work. Ok, not really work in the traditional sense but we've been busy. 

The taxi rides were fun, the second ride was certainly worth the price just for the entertainment value. The ride out was so-so, almost boring. The ride back was fun. Radio blasting Mexican songs with the driver singing along, it was either full speed ahead or full breaks. Fortunately in the city traffic we never got over 30 mph so nothing too scary. At the shopping plaza we bought some shorts, shirts and groceries. The grocery store, called Soriano, is similar to a Fred Meyer or small K-Mart. 1/3 clothes and kitchen hardware and 2/3 groceries. Earlier in the week we walked to a CCC grocery store near the marina. Both stores are equivalent to a well stocked grocery store in the states. Not all the same goods but there is no shortage of items in either store.

We had a local expat do a complete tune up of our outboard motor. There are numerous Americans that live here, most are retired from American jobs but some have lived here most of their lives. They have legitimate Mexican companies and do work on boats. The outboard was fixed by a 20+ year resident of Mexico, 'Sea Otter' Jimmy. 'Sea Otter' is the name of his boat. He came down here over 20 years ago, married a local women, and makes a good living repairing outboard motors and skippering charter boats. We consulted with another expat on our water maker, Bill is retired Navy and worked in the Navy on water makers. He has a shop on his boat that has more water maker parts than  most dealers in the states. With a little advise from Bill we were able to improve the output of our water maker by 75%.  It's a good thing Bill is here because we've been trying to get some help out of Village Marine in Seattle via email but VM just got bought out by Parker Marine and it seems they are too busy reorganizing to answer their emails. 

There is a 46 Nordhavn named Mc Mac from Panama, photo above, anchored off a marina towards the head of the bay from us that has an interesting story. Nobody is on the boat and hasn't been for many years. Seems the boat was impounded by the Mexican Navy 8 years ago for carrying drugs, don't know what happened to the people on board but I assume they're in jail, but the Mexican law does not allow for the government to sell impounded property. So the boat just sits at anchor, uncared for and rotting away. In the last hurricane it broke free of it's mooring and was blown against the breakwater where it was scratched up but being a Nordhavn, it's too tough to sink so easily. So it just sits, a sad sight. 

We still have many things to do before we leave in 3 weeks so we'll keep busy. It's been warm and sunny since we got here. Today is in the high 80's with a light breeze. Shorts and t-shirt weather all the time. More later...