It begun simply enough: We'd been in the marina for a long time and wanted a change of scenery, despite the daily heat.
I also wanted to scrub the hull and check our zincs.
So we left Puerto Escondido mid morning, and soon found a cool breeze out on the water, making a very pleasant change from the marina.
It wasn't to last long however. As soon as I altered course to round the island, with the breeze dying out and now coming from our stern, the boat once again started to heat up.
I started the generator, closed all doors and hatches, and a couple minutes later we were running the 3 on board air conditioning units.
It didn't take long for the AC to do its job and soon we were once again cruising in full comfort, following the coast and looking for a nice place to anchor for a while.
Just like we were cruising in heated comfort in the Alaskan fjords, we were now cruising in cool comfort in the Mexican heat.
As we rounded the north of the island, we found what we were looking for: A beautiful little cove -V Cove- nested between medium height cliffs, with a white sandy beach at its head. Even better, the white sand bottom made for beautiful water colors, ranging from almost white to emerald green.
We anchored a short distance from the beach, a few minutes by kayak, and soon started seeing turtles, and all sorts of tropical fish. A local pod of dolphins kept going by, following the coast back and forth, hunting and playing all day long. That evening they delighted us with an incredible stunt show of high jumps, loops and other aerobatics you more often associate with SeaWorld than a wild pod.
Being so sheltered by the deep cove we had no breeze to cool us down, so we decided to keep the generator and ACs running as long as needed. That proved to be all the time!
There is a boat size, usually much larger than us, where they basically have to keep running their generators all day long to keep all the necessary systems going. We decided that for once, we'd try living "large", like the big yachts do.
Having the generator on 24/7 proved real pleasant. Not only did we have constant AC as needed, but we could also run the hookah when I went to scrub the hull, or use the microwave, TV, Starlink and other systems just as if we'd been in the marina connected to shore power. Water consumption wasn't much of a concern either since we could easily fire up the water maker as needed.
I could even keep all my pilothouse electronics on, making it even easier to check that our anchor was holding tight.
To our surprise, the constant generator hum wasn't a problem at all. The generator is deep in the engine room, and isn't loud anywhere in the living areas, and can barely be heard at all from the main cabin.
We both slept very well, the cool air in the boat helping a lot. Before that we spent time on deck, stargazing the dark sky full of stars, the milky way highly visible crossing the sky from one end to the next.
We'd originally hadn't planned on staying long, but having all the comforts of a marina in such a beautiful place made us reconsider. "Let's stay another day" we both said a few times. Princess was sure enjoying her new home, especially the long swims in the morning and finding and spotting large crabs in the evenings. They're much too fast for her to catch, but it's a real treat to watch her try.
Over the days I got the entire hull scrubbed once again, and all zincs checked. Some will need changing soon, but can hold on a little longer. It'll just give me another excuse to take the boat out.
Eventually we decided we'd head back to the marina, vowing we wouldn't hesitate to "live large" if conditions warrant.
A really nice little cruise, where we felt we had the best of all worlds: All the comforts of a large yacht with all systems running as needed but not the horrendous costs that come with it. After all Enfin remains a small boat and running the generator all day long adds maintenance but isn't a crazy proposition.
We'd much rather be out there enjoying ourselves, than either stay in a marina or be miserable on the sweltering heat.
An interesting lesson for us. We were already not shy about using our generator to make our life homely on Enfin, but now we'll hesitate even less to "Live Large"!
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