How hot is it? parte dos

I had forgotten that I had written a blog about the heat at the beach last August. To finish up on the August blog, we could not take the heat and humidity , changed our plane reservations and headed back to BC a week earlier than planned. Summers in BC are lovely. We will not summer at the beach in Mexico again.

I arrived back here in Cuyutlan almost two weeks ago. It was hot when I landed in Manzanillo and stayed hot and humid for a few days until a sudden tropical storm blew in, dropped the temperature and a fair amount of rain, along with one of those endlessly spectacular sound and lightning shows that occur in this part of the world. It takes a lot for this Canuck to acclimatize to tropical weather - I like sunshine and blue skies but was never a sun-worshipper and prefer coolness to heat. That's why toques and mittens were devised.

Anyway, today I had to do some chores using our van, Alexa. Into Armeria to hawk some surplus aluminum and steel at the recyclers, pick up some supplies at various stores in Armeria and off to Tecoman. I dined for lunch at our favourite cafe/juice bar, Maggie's, and chatted with the owner, David, about car repairs. Alexa had developed a very strange engine noise. It sounds as if someone is bellowing through a conch shell and happens when she idles or when pressure is taken off the gas peddle. It is distressing to ramble through town bellowing like a sick cow and attracting quizzical stares from town folk. David kindly lead me to his 'taller mechanico' across Tecoman. There, within seconds, a mechanic found the cause of the noise - a break in a hose - and proceeded to fabricate a replacement. !5 minutes and 100 pesos later and we were done.

As I started to drive away I heard a voice in the van. The radio was off. Hmm?? I picked up my cell phone and realized the voice was an audiobook playing back to me. Immediately I scrolled through a slew of apps that I had not opened and turned off the Audio book app. The voice continued. I then closed all the apps that were open, turned the sound down to zip, pressed and held the 'off' button. The voice continued. It continued all the way back to Cuyutlan, some 30 kms. 

On my way to Tecoman it occurred to me that the A/C was not working very efficiently, if it was working at all. Now I realized that it wasn't working and the van had become a sauna. Ordinarily one would run down the windows to get rid of the excess heat. But Alexa in Mexico is not an ordinary van. The windows have ceased to function properly. The driver's window will go down but closing the window requires unscrewing a few screws, popping off the panel and applying a considerable amount of umph to the window to get up to move upward. Suffice to say, I have had the privilege of enduring this procedure, last week, in our garage, with my own supply of tools. It's not fun. The passenger window will go down and down it went. The problem is that it sounds like metal torturing glass when it goes back up. I have booked an appointment with the taller mechanico to fix it tomorrow. Even with the passenger window down, the drive home was sweaty. I chugged a liter of water and was forever wiping the rivers of sweat off my face all the way home.

I just checked Cuyutlan weather. It says 31C, feels like 37C. The humidity is only 64% but it's a cooker.

 As for my phone, although it is not a Samsung product, I figure it overheated (cooked) in the van which prompted many apps to initiate. Much to my amazement, it even changed the keyboard to Arabic. I still don't know why it started that audiobook.

All in all, it's another adventure. Life is good... 

So how hot is it?

Last night was a cooker. I couldn't sleep...I doubt that the thermometer dropped below 30C. Meg and I have not succumbed to the frivolity of air-conditioning so rely on the air cooling qualities of oscillating fans (but even a fan cannot cool hot air all that much) and the fairly constant ocean breezes. 

Today the thermometer hit 34C. The water in our pool is 34C. A dip in the pool is somewhat refreshing but there isn't a heck of a lot of difference from body temp. If there is an ocean breeze happening by, there may be a slight drop in temperature...but it's fleeting.

I noticed that I am sweating a lot...much as I do if I wander into a sauna or near a fire pit. It is trickling off my forehead and into my eyes; through my 'mass' of hair and down my neck. Even my toes are sweating and that hasn't happened since the days I spent fully clothed dealing with the heat in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

So I decided to Google 'heat' and 'humidity'. I checked today's temperature - 34C (which = 94F). I checked today's humidity 88%. I found a Heat Index chart on Google. When I lined up 94F and 90% humidity, I was a little aghast...139F or 59C!! I guess that would account for the rivers of moisture coursing out and over our bodies. 

Earlier today, when we were in El Real, we picked up a cotton hammock which has now been strung up between two columns on our upper deck. That will be my bunk for the night. If the sky gets a little less cloudy I may be able to watch the Perseid meteor showers if I pop open an eyelid.  I am counting on having a restful sleep.

Summer on the Beach...

Since Meg and I had 3 weeks free in August we decided to fly down to our casa on the ocean to enjoy a little sun and surf. After all, the casa has a pool, it's private and it beats the hassle of finding an elusive campsite in BC. 

We flew out of Abbotsford at 6am watching day break over the Fraser Valley as we flew over the clear skies of Beautiful BC on the hour long flight to Calgary. After a short break we were off to Puerto Vallarta. WestJet does not fly to Manzanillo at this time of year so we opted for PV...anything to avoid stopping at LAX. As expected, PV was hot (31C) and humid but it wasn't long until we figured out the AC in our hotel, quaffed a couple of beers and settled in.
                           
We headed over to the bus depot at 6am to catch our Primera Plus bus to Manzanillo. Primera Plus provides top notch bus service - very comfortable lounge seating, internet, movies, two washrooms and a packaged lunch all for about $15 PV to Manzanillo. It sure beats driving that coastal road.

Once in Manzanillo, we were picked up by friends, dined on a yummy seafood lunch, did a little shopping and were at our casa in the late afternoon....just as the clouds broke and the rains started. Rain rarely occurs during our winter stays at the beach but is frequent during the summer. What kind of vacation were we in for?

The rain continued throughout the night, complete with a thunder and lightning show. We woke up to a flooded bedroom - the rain had been blowing sideways all night, under the door, through the jalousie window, splashing on our heads. We grabbed some things and ran downstairs - soaked to the skin in seconds. Palm trees were whipping back and forth in the wind. Was this what summers are like in Cuyutlan? 
                                              

Turns out there was a tropical storm just off the coast - Javier by name - heading to Baja. 
By evening the skies were clearing and we even saw some sunshine...thank goodness.

So our adventure begins...

There seem to be some differences at the beach in the summer - the ocean waves are much gentler and less thundering that the winter waves. The air around out casa is punctuated with kaleidoscopes (I Googled that) of butterflies and many dragonflies. The pool is 90 - 92F (32C) but still refreshing in the heat. Note to self: it doesn't take long to get a sunburn.

One thing that we don't see in the winter is the migration of crabs. They are in the pool in the garage, and have dug holes throughout the garden. No molehills here...we have crab hills.

                     

Neighbors say that they scoop 40-50 crabs from their pool daily. I found 5 in the garage when I swept it this morning...feisty little critters.

                               

Meg and I are adapting as best we can to the heat and humidity. We still get great breezes off the ocean, using portable and ceiling fans to provide extra momentum. It gets down to a comfortable 25C at night.

There are a few of the usual things that we need to replace or repair so we try to get all our chores finished in the morning so we can relax in the pool in the afternoon or sit in the garden watching the butterflies flit and the crabs scuttle (0:



                                            

...and then there are the sunsets...