Wednesday, December 22, 2010

North or south?

When motoring south to Agua Verde from Puerto Escondido on Sunday, the engine was revving up, an indication of a foul fuel filter. So on Monday, Jordan changed the 2 filters and bled the lines, which turned into a 3-hour job. We then departed from the beautiful, turquoise green waters of Agua Verde at 11:15 to...continue heading south??

No. We headed all the way back to Puerto Escondido.

Why?? While changing the filters, we received a call over the VHF from a man with a dinghy outboard for "swap or trade" (in Mexico, gringos are not supposed to sell items as this takes much-needed business away from the locals).

So we returned to Puerto Escondido to hopefully get a replacement motor for our dinghy, arriving at 15:15. It's unusual to have south winds at this time of year but this was in our favour as it meant we could sail instead of motoring. After meeting up with Mike of sailing vessel Joan D III, we discovered that the motor needed a couple of parts so we struck a deal for "as-is".

We watched the total lunar eclipse (when the earth is directly between the sun and moon) from our boat. Or should I say we kept peeking out at it as it took about 2 hours before the moon was covered. I thought the moon looked much more 3-D or rounder when it was in total shadow. It looked very pretty with a soft, hazy, orange glow behind it. Another total lunar eclipse will not occur again on the same day as the winter solstice in our lifetime. But of course there will be many other lunar eclipses.

This morning at 11:30 we left Puerto Escondido...once again...to head back to Aqua Verde...once again.

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