Lanikai Underway

Bill will finish with the dentist on Thursday morning, so I decided that it was time to uncover the main sail and check it out – as well as to clean the cover of all the accumulated bird droppings.  Checking out the sail I discovered that three of the grommets that hold the sail to the mast slides were bad.  Two were bad enough that it took a little sewing to strengthen the sail before a new grommet could be added.  The chore got done and Bill figured out the trick to getting the tiny shackle to the mast slides reattached, managing to get all four that had been removed, reattached in one shot working over his head.  His arms will notice it later today but for now the cover is back on and the sail is ready to go.

We went to the beach late in the afternoon and enjoyed avocados stuffed with tuna salad for dinner along with some very cold cerveza.  I enjoyed a nice swim in the ocean followed by a short swim in the pool.  The ocean was particularly calm today in spite of the strong Tehuantepec winds that are blowing out in the middle of the gulf.  When we returned to the boat this evening, the internet was up and working.

The last few days have been rainy and drizzly due to a tropical low pressure system that moved ashore south of here – in the Tehuantepec area – yesterday.

We continue with the fuel transfer (from aux tank to main tank) in the daytime while we are onboard.  It finally ‘sucked air’ this morning indicating that the lower tank was empty – its a very slow transfer pump.  We have transferred about 55 gallons of fuel from the lower tank, giving us about 182 gallons in the 200 gallon main tank.  No need to stop at a fuel dock here!!!

Tuesday Bill spent some time in the dentist chair getting started on the repair of a badly decayed tooth that has been breaking off parts over the last two years.  It did not bother him, so it was easy to put off the repair. But time is good right now to get it fixed.  Tuesday was all the drilling for a triple-root root canal; he was in the chair a full 2 hours. He has another appointment tomorrow (Friday) and a few next week – then hopefully his tooth will be as good as new.  He has been spending much onboard time getting started on his UNISYS project.  He needs to get things all set up while we have internet.   As flaky as the internet here sometimes is, he says that he is accomplishing much.

Today we walked over to Santa Cruz to visit the immigration office; the markings on our tourist cards were just scribbles and we needed to know how long we have in the country.  It turns out that they could check on the computer and we have until mid-March to play in the warm weather, not that we will stay that long.  While in Santa Cruz, we stopped in at a favorite restaurant and had tuna and shrimp salads for lunch with cold cervezas and ice cream and coffee for desert.

The restaurant was almost empty as we ate. Doreen went for a swim in the sea. By the time we were leaving (about 2PM) other customers were finally arriving.

Sunday, after we got the boat running again on shore power with the battery charger (and two dead but not shorted batteries) we turned on the freezer.  Monday morning I discovered that the thermostat was not making a clean disconnect after the freezer was cold, so we shut it off again and had to wait for a day before it thawed enough to get the old thermostat probe out and a new one installed.  The new thermostat is a proper Danfoss one that we had brought south with us and is designed to run with a cold plate – it leaves the freezer off for a longer time before cooling it down again.  This has caused us to take the last few days to get it set correctly for our use.  Now we need to hit the store and start stocking it with food!

Today we also had a boat boy clean Lanikai’s bottom.  The prop had become a solid ball of barnacles and other growth, but the bottom paint was holding its own against most of the organisms except the barnacles.  There were large areas of the hull that were polka doted with the white barnacles on an otherwise clean paint.

Yesterday Bill emptied out the oven of all the electronic goodies that had been stored there and installed them.  The auto-pilot, depth sounder, GPS, navigation computer and the radar all worked as did the VHF radio and its cockpit mike.  I got the ham radio installed and it even worked on picking up a weather fax thru the TNC into my laptop.

Today Chris with his car took us to the store where he has ordered batteries in the past.  Just so happened that they had 3 group-31 batteries in stock.  They are not the marine/RV batteries but  Bill grabbed them anyhow, as they are the right size to fit in the battery compartment under the companionway stairs.  And the price was good. Chris drove us to an ATM to get the cash and then we returned to the shop and loaded the batteries into his trunk.  We all went out to lunch before returning to the marina.

At the marina, Bill talked to the guard at the gate and soon had a friendly boat boy to bring the new batteries down to Lanikai.  He even hefted them into the cockpit for us.  His fee for service was to cart the old ones away later in the afternoon.   Then our work began: in the heat of the day Bill removed the three batteries and replaced them with the new ones while I tore the boat apart looking for the studs to attach the wires to.  I finally found the studs and then spent some time putting the boat back together while Bill wired in the new batteries.  Bill turned on the solar panels and the batteries started taking a charge, then we added the dock powered charger and they took in more amps but within an hour they were full and quit taking power.  We then removed the two other old batteries that were hiding in the back corner of the engine room so that all five batteries were ready to be hauled off.  And hauled off they were, as the boat boy picked them up gladly right after he got off work; he made good money taking them to be recycled for their lead.

We had had a nice taco lunch at Chris’s favorite taco stand, so I did not feel bad just fixing Top Ramen for dinner.  We both enjoyed it, too tired for much else.

We arrived back in Huatulco late Friday afternoon after an interesting full day of travel.  We drove into Portland leaving Tillamook about 5PM.  Bill and I treated Ginger to dinner at the Olive Garden since we did not have Mauricio with us.  Gretchen had been nice enough to take him home for the night with the promise to drop him off at school the next morning.  It was about 8 when Ginger dropped us off at the airport and returned to Tillamook with our car.  Bill and I got checked in and wandered out to the gate, knowing that we would have a long wait for the 12:20AM flight.  But the wait became much longer as the plane had been delayed in New York and did not arrive until 2AM.  We were finally in the air sometime before 3AM and did not arrive in Houston until 8:30 missing our connection to Mexico City.  Bill had luckily talked to the agent as soon as we discovered the delay, so we had standby tickets in hand for the 9AM flight to Mexico City and discovered that gate just across hallway from our arrival gate!  They were just calling the standby passengers, and we were first on their list!  We were in the Houston airport all of 15 minutes and onboard the plane for the next leg of our journey…  Of course – we only had to walk a short distance, but our bags did not make it to the flight.  We got to Mexico City, went thru immigration and customs – but had no bags to clear, except the computer cases that we were carrying.  They told us the bags would follow us to Huatulco – and they did! – as we were able to pick them up Saturday afternoon.

We arrived at Lanikai to find 5 completely dead batteries and a cool, but clearly not frozen, freezer.  I emptied all the meats and such from the freezer into the trash.  Luckily the freezer was still at 32F so the meat had not started to smell.  I got the rest of the items out of the freezer and dried it out as best I could.  We got the shore power cord attached and attempted to charge the batteries – only to discover that three of them were getting very hot (dangerously very hot) so we shut down the charger.

Bill got the salt water valve turned on and two of the drain outlets opened also.  But the valve for the galley sink proved to be cantankerous and the handle broke away from the innards. So Friday night found us under the galley sink removing the valve and prying it opened and replacing it so that the galley sink would drain properly.

No electricity means no fans, but we slept soundly anyway.

On Saturday Bill took the three overheating batteries offline, leaving us with two that we applied shore power to.  They do not take a charge but at least the do not get hot and they serve as a buffer for the battery charger to provide us with 12V electricity.  I left the freezer empty until today so that it could warm up and dry out completely before starting it up again this afternoon. We have been needing to do this for a long time.

The inside of Lanikai was quite free of mildew, but little birds had been sitting on the triadic rigging each morning for months and had left quite a mess on the deck below.  Saturday morning I got the hose out and a bucket of soapy water and mopped down the deck (the parts that I could get to) getting rid of much of the bird gifts.  Today we pumped up the dinghy and swung it overboard and I could finish the deck clean-up job.  Of course, the birds will still be back each morning but at least they are tiny shore birds and not the larger fish eating ones that are also around.

Saturday afternoon Chris from M/V Misty Michael took us out to the airport in his car to retrieve our bags.  Then we stopped off at a vegetable store and a super market.  Bill and I picked up fresh fruit and vegetables as well as some bread.  Not having a working freezer at the time, I was limited as what would keep on the counters in the galley.

Getting the dinghy overboard today (Sunday) allowed us to open the forward hatch and use the wind scoop.  We also got the cockpit cushions out and the cockpit shade curtains attached, so the boat is becoming quite livable again.

Tomorrow we are off hunting for new batteries to replace the 5 dead ones.