Marina Life

When we pulled into the marina in Santa Rosalia, it was the first time we had stayed in a marina since we left San Diego.  There are good and bad things about being in a marina versus anchoring out, but in Santa Rosalia, the bad was represented more than the good.  In places like La Paz and Puerto Vallarta there are luxury marinas that seem like mini-vacations within the larger cruising journey.  However, in Santa Rosalia there is one option for a marina, and it’s the small, government-run, Marina Fonatur (Singlar).  When we first pulled in it was great fun for about 2 hours.  Other cruisers we knew were already there, and they came and helped us with dock lines, then we all did the same for Lady Carolina, who came in just after us.  We all brought our safe arrival cocktails out on the dock and it was a little social gathering while we chit-chatted about recent events, made dinner plans for the evening, and joked about the very close quarters we have at the marina (no naked showering on the swim step, etc.)  However, the novelty soon wore off, and we all tried to get out of there as quickly as possible.  One of the worst parts about being in the marina was the immense heat while not being able to just jump in the water any time you want (yuck, you don’t want to swim in the harbor!)

The good things about being in a marina are: 1) Shore power, 2) Wifi, 3) Laundry facilities, 4) Dock water, and 5) Shower facilities.  In Santa Rosalia, most of these became a bit of a challenge.   With shore power we can charge the boat’s house battery bank, so we aren’t solely dependent on the sun for our power, and we can directly run AC devices (like the microwave and electronics) without using DC from the battery through an inverter.  In Santa Rosalia, I think the best thing about having shore power was that Lady Carolina had these large AC powered fans.  The boys brought one over one evening and let’s just say Tim hijacked it for a while.  We did end up buying some fans for ourselves.

They had decent wifi in the marina office but for some reason we had trouble getting it from the boat.  One OK thing about that was that the office was air-conditioned, so we would just take our devices and computers up to the office to use the internet.  The boys did that a lot.  I wonder if the marina office staff was glad when we left since those noisy kids wouldn’t be spending all their time there anymore.

Like the marina in Puerto Escondido, the laundry facilities took tokens that you had to purchase at the office.  The problem was they only had like 4 tokens for the whole marina.  Just between the two families of four (Lady Carolina and us) this was a huge problem and we weren’t the only ones in the marina.  You had to do a couple loads, then go get the marina guy to come and open the washer and dryer to get the tokens out to buy more so you could do all of your laundry.  And that’s assuming you were the one with the tokens in the first place.   I grew tired of that pretty quick and just carried our laundry to a place in town where I could just leave it and have them do it and pick it up later that day.

The dock water was nonpotable, but that was OK.  We didn’t put it in our tanks but we used it for everything else: taking showers, hosing down exodus, and hosing down ourselves in the middle of the day when we just couldn’t take the heat anymore.  We were able to purchase potable water and it was delivered in large “Sparklets” jugs and the delivery guys were unbelievably efficient in how they got the jugs on board and poured them in the tanks.

The shower facilities weren’t worth using since they didn’t have hot water, and we could just use the deck water hose dropped down the hatch of our bathroom and shower with that in our own shower.  For the most part the bathrooms and shower facilities were kept pretty clean, with the exception of the day after a huge birthday party for a little kid where clearly the adults did more partying than the kids.  The entire marina and especially the bathrooms were a disaster.

One good thing about being at a marina is it’s a good stable place to give Exodus some love and clean her off and do some boat projects.  The Exodus and Lady Carolina boys teamed up and would do work on both boats together.  Among other things, they were responsible for the care and cleaning of both dingies, and maybe working together made the chores a little more fun.   The kids were also in charge of running to the store every day or so to pick up ice and milk.  They also “hand bombed” some jerry cans to the gas station to fill using the hand carts.  They didn’t exactly do all this without a grumble, but they did do it.  And no one can say boat kids are spoiled!