Ballena Point, Cabo San Lucas

Posted 23 November 2010

We moved the boat to Ballena Point to avoid paying for anchoring. Ballena Point is just out of the bay with more of a rocky shoreline. This works great for snorkelling, much more fish to see. The port authority (API) charge 130 pesos a day for anchoring and 30 pesos per day to leave your dinghy at the dingy dock. With us having to wait for the Solar Boost unit this adds up.

The ship’s compass was loosing the oil inside creating a huge bubble making it difficult to read. This morning we decided that it is time to fix this problem. This compass is as old as the boat (29 years) so not too bad. When we took the compass apart we noticed that the screws that hold the compass together and keep it sealed were corroded thus the oil leaking out. Easy enough to fix. Well we could not find any compass oil, nor any premium mineral oil that are recommended for this compass, so we had to use the next best thing until we can find the right oil. We bought the lightest oil we could find (pure Soya oil) and the job went very smoothly. The oil viscosity is thicker than the normal compass oil, but all that will happen is that the compass will react slower to direction change and we can live with that.

There are currently 3 Canadian boats here and we all went shopping yesterday. It was quite a sight and we could not take the bus back as we had far too much groceries. So we club together and got a minivan taxi to take us back. Now we only came with 2 dinghies (3 people per dinghy). Well after packing one dinghy with all the groceries with the driver and 1 passenger and the other dinghy with the rest of us and the rest of the groceries that could not fit, you can picture the sight. What a pity I did not have my camera with me.