20220516 – Santa Rosalia redux. I say redux because we drove through and spent the night in Santa Rosalia in February going to and coming from San Diego. Our stay in Santa Rosalia was delightful, apart from NOT picking up my nephew as anticipated. Santa Rosalia is an old mining town, small but with plenty of interesting sights and plenty of places to eat. We ate pizza and pannini and drank mango smoothies. We visited the supermarket and reprovisioned. We re-watered. We got the bottom of the boat cleaned and changed the anodes which were due. Jimena cleaned the boat inside and out. We used the showers and the internet, and socialized with the crews of all the other boats in the marina.

We passed by S/V “Arpata” and introduced ourselves in broken French but were very warmly recieved by Jacques and Francoise. We also met again with James and Tanya and their dog Ramey from S/V “Stella J”, and of course we hung out with Kevin and Wendi from S/V “Kopai”.

We met several new folks too, John from S/V “Bad Bunny”, a Valiant 47, helped us in and ade sure I got a spring line on before the blow so I didn’t bend up our bob stay; he sails with Kay and their cats., And we got boat cards from everyone.

During three of the days we stayed tied to the dock inside the breakwater at Santa Rosalia there blew north winds of up to 30 knots which whipped up whitecaps even inside the harbor. Outside in the ocean there were huge rollers. We were glad to be hunkered down in the marina.

We visited the parish church of Santa Barbara, who besides being the patron saint of artillery is also apparently the patron saint of miners. The church was pre-fabricated of iron, some believe it was designed by Gustave Eiffel (though there is no direct evidence of his involvement), was displayed at the 1889 Paris Exposition and then shipped to Santa Rosalia from Belgium for installation. It is interesting to see regardless of its provenance. We also walked by the ruins of the old French copper mining operation and the Mahatma Gandhi public library.

Finally our time in Santa Rosalia was come to an end and it was time for us to move on. The winds had abated and then swung around to the south (favorable for us going north) and we had a schedule of sorts to keep. On our last night we went out to dinner with all the other crew from Boats in the marina: Kay from “Bad Bunny”, James and Tanya from “Stella J”, Joe and Vanessa from Munday’s Off, Kevin from “Kopai”, Jacques and Françoise from “Arpata” and Christine and Patrick newly arrived on “Claire de Gouet”. It was great company and a great outing, We will be sorry to leave our friends here but “Arpata” and “Claire de Gouet will both go north as well so we will likely see them again.