Dalke's Encanto House: July 2009

I had been about 45 days since our last trip to the beach. Too long for me, but baseball and other summer things had kept us away. This time of year is for the tough....with temperatures close to 100 degrees and the humidity about double that of Phoenix only those who love this place and or who need to be in RP are there. We arrived on Thursday not knowing what day type we would have. It started with a call to our house in Phoenix @ 6:30 am (as Lourdes said, one never gets good news at 6:30 in the morning) It was Yolanda telling us that we did not have any power at the house. She said she would clean the house the best she could, but she wanted to warn us before we got to the house. With that news, we prepared to stay in a hotel if needed, but we had to go the house first and see what was really up.

Gin and tonic....and a little sun screen spell summer on the beach.

We were able to get out of the Phoenix by 3:30 or so, and arrived at the house right at 7:30pm. The house power was not on, but the batteries did have a charge. With a reset of the inverter, we were back on line. We had to clean out the refrigerator, but the generator started and we had air-conditioning. That evening was nice with a great breeze that helped keep the main room of the house cool. Due to the power usage, we typically air-condition the bedrooms, but not the main room of the house. Once we get city power (more on that later), we can then run the three ton AC unit for main area of the house.....maybe next summer. Matthew and his close friend Shane came with us, and they settled in for some PlayStation while Lourdes watched a movie and I sat on the patio enjoying the night. I slept like a log....I did not worry about the generator not running or anything.

Some high tides you feel like you are living on an island

The next morning I made a pot of coffee and really enjoyed the quiet on the patio. We still had some cloud cover and it had the morning even better. I read for about 45 min. and then did a few odd jobs around the house and then took about an hour ride on the ATV. The tide during this stay at the beach was very high; one of the highest of the year. The water was so high that the low road to the north of our house was flooded. It was fun to just ride around and check out some of the areas close to the house. There may have been 20 people total in Playa Encanto that morning....no one on the beach, and just workers doing odd repairs on people's homes. We finally got going around 12:00....Gerry came by to check on the power situation. We could not set the auto start on the generator so we drank two beers and decided we would tackle it the next morning.

The beach was good. I loaded up the ATV with all our beach gear and we spent the about three hours on the beach. Not a single person on the beach. I got a little too much sun. It was so humid you are in the water a lot, and that combined with the humidity I should have re-applied the sun block one more time. We got back to the house, took a quick shower, and made a trip to town. We stopped at the fish market for some shrimp, a quick drink at the Boo Bar, another stop for fireworks (one can not take Shane to Mexico without allowing him the ability to blow something up) and then it was back to the house. The evening had less wind then the prior night with almost no breeze until around 8:00 pm. We got hot and fired up the main room air-conditioner and watched some TV and then off to bed.

A couple of drinks at the Boo Bar never hurt anyone.

The next day, Gerry and Steve were at the house at 8:30 to work on the auto start issue. With a little investigation we found that the generator battery had so much corrosion on the terminals that the control wires that we had hooked up to the battery were corroded through. We got that all cleaned up, and with a couple of test runs we had it all set. The boys did not get up until 10:30 - 11:00 and after getting something to eat, we made our way to the beach around 1:00 for a nice day. I put my chair in the ocean and relaxed. Lourdes was hot and stayed in the house with the fan and a cool drink.

At around 6:00 that night I noticed a black mass about 300 yards off shore. I got the binoculars and confirmed what I thought...which was a dead whale. You could see a slick around the animal about 50 feet past the animal as the whale bobbed up and down in the swell. I did not want this thing coming ashore in front of the house. We went up to the guard house and let them know as well. By the look on his face he did not want it to land on our beach either (he and the other guards would have been stuck cleaning up that mess I am sure). The tide changed as the evening wore on and we lost sight of the whale as the the sun set. The next next morning we had no whale on the beach (thank god) and the animal was no where in sight.

Summer in Mexico can be a great time.....the water is warm and the beer is cold. This summer like the last few for us has been consumed by baseball, but we will get there before school starts I am sure. For our house, like all of those in Playa Encanto, we run on solar power and a generator, so the summer adds an level of stress on the overall system. One would think that summer would be the best time to generate solar power; the sun is always out and and you have have the long hot days. The reality is that the summer is the toughest time. Heat actually diminishes the rating on the solar panels so one creates less power as the temp goes up. Add to that the added load of the refrigerator, and all of the fans running, and the generator is needed. The generator on the house can run all four of the bed room air-conditioning units, but it can not run those for the remainder of the house at the same time....put power is coming to our small community. We had thought that by this summer we would have "city" power, but it is Mexico and that has been delayed. It is close to being a reality with most of the infrastructure installed. I had hoped that it could be done by labor day...but who knows. What we do know is that by this next summer season we can enjoy not having to worry about making power; Instead we can worry about being able to pay the high Mexico utility rates.