Coffee to go

Puerto Chiapas, Chiapas, Mexico

It is winter here but you couldn't prove it by us.  Every day the high temp for the day is 33C and the low every night is 18, although inside the boat it never cools down below 20.  We usually get a nice breeze in the afternoon so with our bimini and the new side curtains that we had made in La Paz, it is quite comfortable sitting in the cockpit, reading or whatever.

What is not really comfortable is working on boat projects, of which we seem to have a few. My main project has been to try and debug the water maker. After following the suggested troubleshooting guide, which told me to send it to the factory, I have been in email contact with the manufacturer to see if I cannot attempt a repair myself. At this point I believe it is a user-fixable issue - just have to install the seal kit that I actually do have one of. The only thing holding me up is trying to locate some non-petroleum silicon grease (I seem to have already used up all of the stingy amount they supply with the seal kit), the only type of lubricant allowed for the water maker. I may have to put this project on hold until we get back from Canada, which will be early next month.


A more successful project for me was my modification to our Engel freezer.  The freezer works great but because of the location that we keep it in, it does not get much air-flow around it and it has to work very hard, which uses up a lot of power.  Recently we have taken to putting one of our cabin fans on top of it, to blow air into it, and it does help, but we keep bumping into it or unplugging it accidentally because of its unfortunate location under our bed.  I have now made a more permanent installation, using one of my spare computer fans, complete with a nifty on/off switch.  So far, this seems to be working like a charm.

As for our ailing Balmar alternator, we have given it to a local mechanic who says he can fix it.  He says that not only are the bearings seized but some of the parts on the inside are actually melted.  He says he has all the parts he needs, although it will cost around $100US.  Considering a replacement costs around $750 from West Marine in the US, I think it is worth a try.

Meanwhile, to keep ourselves busy, we are doing a little touring around.  We started small, with a walk about 1-1/2 km to a small resort hotel and restaurant - really the only place in walking distance from the marina.  The food was just OK and they charged us a cover charge just to go into the place, in spite of the fact that there were only maybe a half dozen people there.  We will probably not be back.

Marina entrance, where we wait
for the collectivo.

Next, we took a trip into the nearby city of Tapachula via one of the local "collectivo" taxis.  It only costs 16 pesos (about $1.25) for the 25 mile ride, but you have to put up with squeezing 18 or 20 people into a van that could comfortably hold 12 or so - always an adventure.  After buying a few essentials (Diet Coke and some new pillows), we took a regular taxi back - much quicker but the cost was 250 pesos.  Tapachula is more or less just a regular city with not a lot of appeal for a tourist.  The population is about 300,000 according to our guide book.  The do have a Sams Club, Home Depot and Walmart, so it will be a good place to do some provisioning when we are finally ready to leave here.

Today, we took a tour of a coffee plantation, about an hour and a half by air-conditioned van, on the other side of Tapachula.  Coffee is best grown at higher altitude, so the road was mostly uphill on the way there.  We had breakfast at the plantation, then were given a tour of the whole process, from picking the beans to finished products ready for shipping.  It was very interesting in spite of the fact that it is not really harvest time right now, so the machines were all idle.  The did serve some pretty mean coffee for breakfast.

While at the plantation, we also got a tour of their flower gardens.  They have started growing exotic flowering plants for export to the US and Europe.  It is cool to see how easy it is to grow these things in this tropical climate - just stick a seed in the ground and it can't help but grow - at least that's how it looked to us.

Tomorrow we are going on another short day-trip to see a chocolate business, then on to what is reportedly one of the most important Mayan sites at Izapa.  Later this week, or maybe next, we have booked a 3-day Mayan tour to San Cristobal and the Mayan ruins of Palenque and the Misol-Ha waterfalls.  It is so nice to have the boat in such a nice, safe place that we can easily leave it without any concerns about security, or weather for that matter.

As mentioned earlier in this post, we will be flying to Canada for a couple of weeks.  We leave here on February 22nd, returning on March 9th.  We strongly suspect it will be a bit cooler in Edmonton.