Photos to Fill Time

A few photos to fill time while we're still waiting for our environmental impact study to be completed. I'm glad we live in such a peaceful environment. The permit process is getting very frustrating. On October 10th we were supposedly two months away from starting construction. We had to wait nearly a year for the final paperwork to correct the property line error before we could apply for the environmental permit, and now we've been waiting three months for the environmental approval.

In addition, we've discovered that along with the impact study, we have to come up with a "plant rescue" program. An environmental engineer has to visit the site to determine if there are any plants in the construction footprint that need to be transplanted. This will add another approx. $1000 dollars to the permit process. Mexico sure has learned well from it's northern neighbor.

Thunder and Lightning

Construction is still on hold while we wait for the environmental impact study to be approved. Who knows when this sloooooooowwww process will be completed...October? Meanwhile it's been too hot and humid to do much other than watch the thunderstorms:

It's only temporary, but at least the rains cool it down some:

Some Progress

We finally have the property line errors corrected. That took nearly a year. Our neighbor has a theory: Processes in Mexico are directly related to the Peso exchange rate. Right now it's 12 pesos to one Dollar, so anything that should take one month, takes 12. It took 12 months to fix our property line errors. He may have a valid theory.

We were finally able to submit the environmental impact study documents two weeks ago. That's supposed to take two months. Let's hope the theory doesn't apply here.

Here's an aerial picture from a friends plane. You can see the truck delivering block to the right of the garage and guest house:

Looking out from the guest house patio:

Fresh Greens

Everything is coming in nicely. I built an enclosure around the entire area so the rabbits wouldn't eat the watermelon once it spilled beyond the border of the planter:

It's nice to pick a salad we grew. July was about as long as the lettuce lasted before it became too hot though. The watermelon is progressing nicely and we've replaced the lettuce with tomatoes.

May is Horrible

We were warned that May is the worst month to be on the Pacific side of Baja. So far it's been true. The wind has been relentless. Every day...day after day...the wind blows sand and dust into everything. It's nearly impossible to work outside. I need to install solar panels, but with the wind that's been impossible. The winds won't quit until the tropical weather pushes further north, usually sometime in early June.

Sunrise through the dust and haze:

We've managed to get a few things accomplished though. The generator's installed and running. Now I can use my welder and make a gate:

We also started a garden so we could have fresh lettuce and watermelons. We had to build the boxes to keep all the critters out.

And we received our first load of Block. This is the first 1000 of a total of about 4500 that will be needed to build the house. Unfortunately the road is so bad right now the truck can't carry as much block, so we'll have to pay for extra trips unless they grade the road pretty soon.

Here's the truck backing up the road on our back lot:

Doesn't look like much after it's been unloaded:

Hopefully

The building permit process is moving along at a snail's pace. Because we're on rural land, and not part of a municipality, there are extra steps we need to complete in order to build. One of those is an environmental impact study. Unfortunately, before we can apply for the environmental impact study, we have to correct some survey errors on our property. We began this process in August of '09 and we're finally within a few days of getting the lot coordinates registered correctly.

The federal surveyors didn't follow the curvature of the coastline when surveying the front of the property. They got lazy and shot a straight line, leaving chunks of our land outside the boundaries described in our title document called a fideicomiso. Hopefully, the final registration of the corrected coordinates will take place today or tomorrow...hopefully.

When the lot coordinates have been corrected, we can finally apply for the environmental impact study, a process that takes two months... hopefully. Meanwhile our builders have taken on another project during the delay. They won't be done until late July which will...hopefully...be when we're ready to start construction. I had hoped we'd be well along in the project by now.

In the meantime there's lots to do. We just finished the rough construction for the generator enclosure:

Now we're trying to figure out how to get the 500 lb. generator from the garage to the enclosure. We slid it down a ramp from the trailer to the garage, but moving it to the enclosure is going to be interesting. When the generator is finally in and hooked up, I can start upgrading the solar power. We'll run off the generator while I have the solar disconnected.

We also built some raised beds to start a garden. It's impossible to get good lettuce here, so we're growing our own, along with some watermelon and green onions. We'll see how it goes before expanding the project. The lettuce sprouted yesterday, so we have some optimism this will work.

Another project I've yet to tackle is to set up the travel trailer to use as a temporary guest house until the main house is finished. Maybe manaña...

Semana Santa

In Mexico Easter break (Semana Santa) is like the 4th of July and Memorial day wrapped into one package. EVERYONE goes to the beach. This year they added a surf contest to the mix. Waves were very small, but it attracted a lot of people:

Someone even brought their burro:

Next year the Mayor promised a bigger and louder speaker system:

This guy set up a tire store capitalizing on the people who didn't realize how bad the road is. I think he did quite a bit of business:

Feeling Like Home

Finally finished the guest house. It's nice to sleep in a real bed! Lately, our time has been divided between trips to Ciudad Constitucion (Banking, auto parts, materials) and La Paz, which is 5 hours away for immigration.

So far it's taken two trips to the bank and two trips to immigration.

Setting up the bank account was interesting. Since we don't live an an area with streets, we don't have any utilities, or and address; it was difficult to open an account. They need some proof of where you live. To remedy this, we got an official letter from the Mayor of the closest town saying we're residents in good standing, but the bank wouldn't accept it. Fortunately a Mexican friend happen to be in the bank at the same time. After some rapid fire Spanish between her and the banker, she disappeared for a few minutes. She returned with a receipt from the hotel where we were staying. The bank gladly accepted the receipt as proof of address. So a letter from the mayor, on official city letterhead wasn't good enough, but a hotel receipt was? At least we opened the account. Often, things just don't make sense.

Last week on another trip to town, we stayed at the same hotel. When we checked in, the receptionist handed us a letter. It was our bank statement! According to the bank, that's where we live! Fortunately with on-line banking set up, we can eliminate the paper statements.

On-line banking is a bit different here. You can only sign up at the bank. You sign up with the usual user name and password, then you're given a little device that looks like a calculator. When logging into the bank website, you enter your user name and password as usual, then an additional window with a number appears on the computer screen. You enter that number into the device; the device generates another number which is typed into a blank space on the website. If the number combination matches the bank records, access is granted. The numbers change every time the web page is accessed. It's actually an extra level of security not present in the U.S.

Lots of Whales

Almost every day now the bay is full of whales. We've seen several breeching (jumping out of the water) right in front. Last night we were treated to a show when a passing mom stopped right in front of the house to nurse her calf:



Looks like it's waving at us:

Misc. Pictures

The road home:


Sunset:



Sunrise:


Osprey and bass breakfast:

Moonrise:

Organizing and Not

The last several days have been so incredible we couldn't get much done. We've had good surf and great weather. We did manage to finish the closets though, and we're getting out of the boxes. We'll soon have a place to sleep so we can finally get out of the camper.

We wen't to La Paz and got some supplies from Home Depot:



And finally finished the job:

Slowly Getting Organized

Added a window:

No permit necessary! Just cut a hole and put it in. Tacho finishing up the rough cut.

We're also building closets to get the boxes of clothes off the bed so we don't have to sleep in the camper anymore:

We're finalizing the house plans:

And occasionally remembering to look out the window!

Tangled Nets

An episode of Deadliest Catch played out right in front of out house:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84ko6mCZafg

Last night the wind was howling, 40 mph. It was out of the south, so our bay didn't provide much protection for the shrimp boats. I think there was about 30 of them anchored trying to get out of the weather. These guys arrived late and probably didn't want to risk fowling someones anchor in the dark, so they set his anchor right in front of our house.

We're located a bit outside the mouth of the bay. I woke up at about 5:00. In the dark it looked like they had run aground. They were actually anchored outside enough, but if there had been swell, they would have been toast. In the dark I noticed that one of the outriggers was swinging wildly. When it was light enough I could see it had come loose and was fouled on the boom. Watching these guys shimmy out onto the boom to free it, I thought for sure one was going into the drink and we'd have to figure out a rescue. I'm sure they can't swim.

On the other side of the boat you'll notice a guy in his underwear wrestling with the other boom. Must have woke him up... no time to dress!

They eventually wrestled the outriggers onto the deck and moved further into the bay.

Move is Finished

The second trip went so well it's not worth posting about. We've finally moved our goods to our new home. Just in time I might add. The storms that hit California have also affected Northern Baja. Several bridges on the main highway have collapsed. If we didn't leave when we did, we'd still be in California waiting for the roads to be repaired.

Getting Settled

The rains from last summer's two hurricanes left a lot of weeds to pull. This time I hired someone to do it. Must be getting old (or wise).

Before:

Unpacking went a lot faster than packing because Cindy was wearing several hats:

It didn't take long before we had time to play. Here we are filling up for the morning commute:

We did run into some traffic:

But eventually secured front row parking:

The view from the bleechers wasn't bad either:

Enough play....storage is costing a fortune. It's time to head back up and get the final load of our junk...