As mentioned in the last blog entry, rain began falling in the wee small hours which Art slept through. Gillian went out to cover the back of the car as wind can blow water through the screens that we use for back windows while we are in Mexico.
By morning the rain had stopped and it looked like it may be a nice day after all. At least we can let the car dry out a little.
Today Gillian had another dentist appointment for another
temporary crown. She'll go back next week for the permanent one.
We thought that the estuary would have broken through the sand but it is still holding out. The water level seems a bit higher but so is the sand.
Tuesday the 9th was the start of Carnival. Carnival hasn't been a big deal in Zihuatanejo for a long time but a few years ago the tourist department began trying to encourage it. The new administration has obviously got firmly behind the idea and things are a bit hectic in Centro today, lots of entertainment and vendors, just no parking! We don't plan to take in any of Carnival until perhaps later in the week.
The estuary is still filling--almost ready to go. This was also a good day for some wildlife photos at the restaurant.
These are high resolution photos, click for good detail. Can you find both baby crocodiles in the picture below, right?
The middle picture is of a large well camouflaged iguana and the left one of course, a squirrel. This nut tree is right above and over the path to the restaurant. It is not unusual to have pieces of nut shell dropped on your head as you pass below!
Today Gillian was off to centro to Curves and a hair appointment while Art went to the Vet in Ixtapa. (see the End of January blog page) Here, after a chat with the doctor, Art went through a bio-magnetic treatment followed by an acupuncture treatment which was augmented with an electric component. And finally a series of injections of 1% solution lidocaine into his shoulder. To locate the most effective spots the doctor poked Art's shoulder with a long slender probe. If Art reacted with an “OUCH”, that spot got the shot!
All in all a successful appointment—the shoulder felt a lot better for a few days. Art is still a bit skeptic about the bio-magnetics thing but what the heck! Most of the communication was done in Spanish, switching to English if Art didn't understand exactly the doctor's comments. Or when he wanted to ensure that Art understood fully.
On the way back Art stopped off at CM (Commercial Mexicana) for a few things then carried on home. As he entered the traffic circle on the road home his cell phone rang—suspecting it was Gillian, he bypassed this exit and went round once again while he answered—He was right; she was hoping for a lift home from centro. (cell phone use while driving is still legal here—but we are very aware of traffic around us before picking up. Often just not safe)
Back at home we were just settling down when Art's cell phone rang again. It was our friends Peter and Celine who we were expecting on the 15th. They were a couple of days early, in were fact only about 10 minutes away! We knew there was no space here and had been waiting for confirmation from the park across the road. Art walked over and a space was ready by the time they arrived.
We had first met Peter and Celine here at El Manglar about 4 years ago and again when they came in their sail boat to visit us in Victoria. They have been busy building and moving and just got time to visit Mexico again. Great to see them again.
Sometime that afternoon Gillian mentioned to Art that he should go for a massage in the next day or so. Not half an hour later a lady walked into the park with flyers on her massage service. She had a portable and would come to the rig. Art immediately made an appointment for the next day!
We heard a strange crunching noise coming from somewhere nearby and on investigation discovered Keith and Steve busy crushing cans.
They will give these to a Mexican lady, one of the beach vendors we have befriended over the years, who will sell them to the recyclers for about 8 or 10pesos per kilo! (80 cents!) There are 67 cans in a kilogram! Makes you think about the value of a peso. Or dollar.
That night we went out for dinner with Peter and Celine to Puerta del Sol, a hillside restaurant over looking Playa Madera. Well it over looked the bay until a couple of condos were built in front of it!
Drinks, Caesar Salad made at our table, Filete en salsa verde times 2, Flambe of Beef Medallions in mushroom sauce, Filete Strogonoff flambe, crepes flambe, bananas flambe, herbs and zambuca shooters, bottle of wine: 1500 pesos We felt quite safe as the fire department is just down the hill! Of course, no camera!
Thursday noon the masseuse arrived and as she was setting up her equipment a neighbour walked by. The masseuse noticed her, did a classic double take and called out Elaine? Elaine glanced over and she too did a double take before the two of them, emitting shrieks of surprise, hugged and laughed. The had been good friends, had worked together years ago and not seen nor heard of each other in 7 years! They made arrangements to meet for breakfast and the massage began.
Art pronounced it excellent by Mexican standards—there are very few qualified massage therapists here, but many provide a very good relaxation massage. A few really know what they are doing. He will likely call for further appointments. You will note of course that the standby photographer got a good clear shot of Art's bald head!
After lunch: siesta? Or a cup of black coffee and tackle battery maintenance?
Guilt? Who knows, but something prompted Art to forgo his siesta and attack the batteries. First step was to retract the bedroom slide to make access to the battery compartment easier. Then collect the tools and pull out the lower battery tray. This contained the two batteries used to start the engine, referred to as the chassis batteries. These batteries also supplied power to a few other things in the coach such as the hydraulic pump motor for the slides and stabilizer jacks, front steps, security alarm and for some strange reason the gauges that show the levels in holding tanks! Everything else on that panel is powered by the house batteries. (Lights, water pump, fridge, furnace, inverter etc) Go Figure!
When Art was retracting the bedroom slide he noticed that the chassis battery was very low—12.1 volts. This is very very low for a “12 volt” battery which is 12.6 volts when fully charged and 11.8 when completely dead ( and probably ruined) It actually dropped to 11.8 when the pump motor was running. This was not good news.
So pull out the battery tray. Try to pull out the battery tray. Try really hard to pull out the battery tray. Try really really . . . well you get the idea. Get the hose, spray the heck out of the tray slides to dislodge the suspected dirt and gravel. Eventually there was a bit of movement; more water, more pulling and pushing and eventually the tray was working normally.
With the tray extended the batteries were accessible and we could see quite a lot of corrosion on the terminal where the small 900 mA. charger attached. The cables were removed and the batteries lifted out and carried to the back of the rig to be washed, inspected, cleaned and serviced as necessary. Both jumpers that paralleled the battery were badly corroded as well so there was more work for the water and wire brush. Soon everything was as clean as possible, next was the chemical condition of the batteries.
Because these batteries are powering a few things all the time they are discharging continuously. For some reason, known only to the design engineers and the manufacturers, these batteries charge only from the engine alternator. When parked there is no charging even when plugged in. There is a tiny solar panel on the roof that is supposed to maintain a trickle charge but although the panel is putting out current it is not reaching the battery. Haven't been able to trace that yet. To top up the batteries from these small current draws the small charger and turn it on and off as battery voltage indicates. Obviously he hadn't checked recently! He had obviously left it connected for too long sometime as well, as the electrolyte was below the plates—another bit of permanent damage. The “good” news being that only about 1/8th of an inch of plate was exposed—could have been worse. Also the previous owner had put deep cycle batteries here and they stand up a bit better to deep discharge than “starting” batteries.
All cells were down seriously low on electrolyte except one—this may mean a bad cell—just what we need. We will see how things look after adding some distilled water and charging them up.
We did have some distilled water on hand, just enough to cover the plates with about 1/8 of an inch to spare so Art distributed it equally and connected the battery charger to let it run its course. It will switch off when done. We will have to try to get some more distilled water tomorrow.
When the charger had been on for a few hours there was enough power to extend the bed room slide so Art called it a day and we went across the street to have a beer or two with Peter and Celine.
Friday
Today started off with Gillian's morning to do her own thing. It began ( after breakfast and dog walking) with a trip to Curves with our friend and nighbour Anna, then to a pedicure and a stop at Commercial Mexican (department/grocery store) for a few things—like distilled water if they carried it.
Art stayed home and made a toggle for the screen door out of half a wooden cloths-peg. The latch had broken a few weeks ago and Trekker had finally figured out that it wasn't latched!
The chassis batteries seemed to have charged up well over night. Maybe when Gillian gets back with the distilled water Art will top them up and then attend to the house batteries.
Well CM didn't have any distilled water so Art decided to drive into one of the many auto electric/battery shops to look for it. He lucked out at the first place he tried and while there noted 8 6 volt deep cycle batteries lined up on the floor—1,622 pesos each. Nice to know—they can be very hard to find in Mexico.
As he pulled out onto the highway the car coughed, sputtered and died. He managed to coast across the 4 lane highway, going about half a block on the wrong side of the road then onto the lateral (frontage road) and coasted half a block the wrong way to the GM dealer. (Here he had an appointment for service this coming Monday!) Closed for lunch/siesta, back at 4:00 PM -- an hour and a half (I'm in Mexico) Left the keys and a note for the service department and took a taxi back to the RV Park. Phoned them a while ago, they are looking for the problem.
He somehow found the inspiration to tackle the house batteries. First he topped up the chassis batteries with the distilled water and let them charge a bit to mix the electrolyte.
The house batteries looked good--just a bit of dust which was easy to brush off and this tray worked just fine. There was no sigh of corrosion on any of the terminals and all the cells that could be reached tested good with the hydrometer. The last three cells on the inner batteries can't be accessed without disconnecting the battery cables as the positive cables are too short to let the tray pull all the way out.
Friday drew to a close with yet another ho-hum sunset. Boring!
The water in the foreground is the estuary just about ready to break through. I would like to catch is as it starts and take a series of pictures as the estuary discharges; starting from a trickle to a fast flowing stream, cutting quite a deep channel in a relatively short time.
Saturday, last day of Carnival
This morning Peter gave Art a ride to the GM dealer were he had a talk with the service manager—they would look at the vehicle Monday. Art gave him the list of things that needed to be done—including the driver's seat belt that is hard to release. On the way back they stopped at CM for a bag of ice and to visit the bank machine—we needed some cash to pay Peter for the solenoid he had brought down for us and to pay Gillian's dental work on Monday, as well as what the car was going to cost. Fortunately the Canadian dollar had regained some of its position and we got 12 pesos to the dollar.
During the afternoon we just lazed around and at 5:30 caught a taxi to go into town for the last night of Carnival, hoping to catch at least part of the parade. The taxi was unable to get even off the La Ropa road to centro—the police had the road for the parade. Art suggested that the taxi drop us off at the end of Calle Adelita where we could take a foot bridge over the canal and just be a short walk to the basketball court where the parade would end and the entertainment would be. The taxista was quite surprised that we knew the area so well!
As the taxi proceeded along Adelita we could hear the parade on the other side of the canal, but by the time we walked in to the front things were pretty quiet, nothing starting yet so we strolled a few blocks in to Zorro's sports bar for a drink. Half an hour later we could hear the noise approaching so we walked the two blocks to callle Cinco de Mayo where we spent the next couple of hours watching the parade roll by, just a few feet away.
Spectacular and imaginative floats, wonderful costumes, dancers—one of whom dragged Gillian out into the street to take part. As the last floats approached we set off back to the basketball court. Not a chance to get close enough to see anything, let alone cross the road through the parade, which was still passing this final point. We were hoping to go to one of the beachfront restaurants for dinner but opted instead to head inland a block to two and settled on Hija del Capitan. We all had lasagne with salad and garlic bread which we all enjoyed very much.
PICKS TO COME
Art had been on his feet for long enough by now so he flagged a passing taxi and headed home. Not before however giving Gillian the key to the RV Park gate! Gillian carried on with Peter and Celine to investigate more of the end of Carnival. Art got home just in time—as he walked through the gate the staff was just leaving, locking up behind them!
Some time ago the plastic tip on the latch for the screen door broke off. Trekker's favorite location is sitting on the steps watching the world go by--It was only a matter of time before he realised that it wasn't quite closed and that a little gentle nose pressure would yield great results. Art scrounged around looking for something suitable and settled on a wooden clothes peg as a stop gap (pun intended) measure. Not pretty but it works. So far.
Sunday
The estuary is starting to fill again after being drained the yesterday. The level is still down a couple of feet. I will try to post a series of pictures showing the cycle of the estuary draining, the waves and tide rebuilding the sand bar and the estuary re-filling. Watch this space!
Not much doing today; walked the dogs, did a bit of house cleaning, lunch in the restaurant watching the squirrel with a small coconut. Trekker thought that was interesting!
It was quite windy for much of the day which kept things relatively cool though we did put the AC on for a while this afternoon to cool the interior of the rig to make it a bit more comfortable to work in. You can see the wind on the beach; one of the parasail operators was able to get up in the air without a boat; just the rope just tied off to a beached sea-do!
Oh Yeah! We watched the Olympics thanks to our satellite system!
And of course it's Valentine's day.
To celebrate this day we went to dinner at Zihua Blue, a restaurant with a 5 star reputation. We have been meaning to go for years, but heard that though good it was very expensive. But what the heck; Damn the expense—full speed ahead.
We had not made a reservation so of course we did not get a table overlooking the bay but we weren't stuck in a blind corner either. Besides the regular menu which was extensive (Art wants to go back to try the Duck a l'Orange) they had a complete 54 course dinner;
Appies of vol au vont with pate and a cheese ball of goat cheese, grape and ground nuts.
Shrimp salad in a vinegret.
Vichisoise
choice of Filet Mignon in mushroom sauce or Mahi Mahi with lemon capers
white chocolate mouse
We both went with the Filet Mignon, ordered a bottle of Madero Syraz (Mexican) which was very good.
We relaxed for a while over with espressos while listening to the very pleasant voice, guitar and panpipes of the musician.
Of course we forgot the camera again!
Back home we sat back to let our dinner settle while we watched Alexandre Bilodeau bring home Canada's first Gold Medal of the games.
more picks to come
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