05/30/2012, Providencia, Columbia
Tuesday, May 29. The weather remains blustery and overcast, but no rain today. After breakfast I took the dink over to the landing nearest the gas station, about ½ nm across the harbor. From there it is ~1/4 mile walk to the gas station. I carried all 4 jerry jugs for diesel. As he was filling them, the attendant told me that they hope to get a marina with a fuel dock so we wouldn't have to carry them. Someday. I left two with him, carried two to the dink, returned and got the other two. Dinghy back to the boat and fill the tank. It took all 20 gallons, but it was full (so we had used 40 gallons). I did not have enough money to get 20 more gallons so we had to go in to town to the ATM. While we were there, Deb got a few groceries and I bought some good rum (Medellin 8 yr old) and Scotch which for some reason is cheap here. When we got back to the boat and were putting things away, I remembered that I had not gotten our papers from Mr. Bush yesterday. I called him on VHF and he said he was in his office so come now. Back to town, walk to his office, get our stamped passports, tourist cards, and boat papers from him and return to boat. After lunch I made the return trip to fill the 4 jugs with diesel to have for our return trip to Bocas. I guess I got my exercise for the day. But then we decided to go for a dive. The wind had dropped a little and we figured that in the lee of the island it might be OK. Lorenzo & Joyce of Elaine Farrel were anxious to try the hookah too so we invited them along. I was a bit nervous as we had not yet really tested it since the repair – I just ran it on the deck. It worked beautifully. The wind was OK and the dive was great. We went out just beyond Morgan's Head where we had been before and initially swam away from the point, against the wind. It was fine, the hookah pulled without difficulty. The coral had more algae than I remembered, but the formations were great and there was lots of fish. When we got beyond the next point, the wind began to affect towing the hookah so we circled back. By the time we returned to the dinghies,everyone was still ready for more so we swam around Morgan's Head to the other side and back. Again great fish. I played with two angel fish that just couldn't pull themselves away. I hung motionless except for my bubbles which I released as slowly and gently as I could. They would swim right up to my mask, dart away, and come back. They were so curious. Finally I swam away – just in time to see a huge Goliath grouper (also known is Jew fish). He was just free swimming and didn't seem to care about anything. Not really frightened of us, he just kept his distance. Deb found a beautiful Triton's trumpet. It must have been 14” long and gorgeous. But it was alive and she didn't want to kill it for the shell so she put it back. That side of Morgan's Head had lots of caves (“where they obviously stashed the loot.”) I was able to swim in to one of them ( a bit tricky with the hose, but you can't get lost!) I couldn't find any loot, but it was still cool. By the time we got back to the dinghies, we had been down over two hours – not a problem as we never hit 30' so down time is unlimited. We used less than a half tank of gas. What a cool toy this hookah is. I can tell Lorenzo is going to buy one, he liked it so much. We had invited them to come for sundowners at 5:00, but it was that now, so after everyone got organized and cleaned up, they came over and brought some jambalaya Lorenzo made. Hey, there are some benefits of having lived in Louisiana while fixing up his shrimper! We had apps and dinner but everyone was tired from our long swim so they went home early (Well, 8:30 is actually LATE for cruisers.) and we all went to bed.
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05/29/2012, Providencia, Columbia
Monday, May 28. It rained and blew (mostly blew) for most of the night. By morning it had stopped. Our water tanks barely registered the added rain. I called Aurelio and agreed to meet him at 10:00 although it looked like it might rain again. It didn't and he did, so we took the dink to the sand beach next to the commercial dock and pulled it up backwards so he could work on the motor. He dropped the lower unit and extracted the impeller. For those of you that don't know, an impeller is a paddle wheel that has 6 rubber blades that move the water. This had one blade and it looked about ready to die! Problem found. Now can we get an impeller? The Yamaha 15hp two-stroke is the work horse of all of Central America so surely someone on this island has a spare impeller. But who? Where? And how do we find him? Aurelio jumped on his scooter and went off in search. I stayed on the beach (like I had an option?) and waited. I talked with a local fisherman who had decided it was too rough to go outside the reef today to spear fish. He showed me his arm and told me the story of how a shark wanted his fish and got his arm instead. He had to beat it on the head with the butt of the gun to get it to let go of his arm. Then his friend hauled him into their boat (just a 24' panga). He saw the spear gun resting on the bottom. The shark was no where to be found so he jumped back in and retrieved the gun. Then he had a four hour ride in the boat through open ocean to get to San Andres to get his arm fixed, bleeding all the way with a tourniquet bound around his upper arm. Amazingly, they managed to salvage everything and his hand still works normally despite a bite that must have severed most of his tendons. We then talked about our families, the weather, diving and spear fishing, etc. In about an hour and a half Aurelio returned with the impeller. In five minutes it was back together and good as new. While he was working, I asked him about the possibility of getting water. “Oh, I can help you with that. I fill up some barrels and bring it down to the dock in my pickup. You tie up to the dock and we fill you up.” “How much would you charge per gallon?” “Oh, I don't charge you for the water. The Lord, He give it to me so I give it to you. You just give me a little something for gas for my truck.” Deal. Then he asked what brand my watermaker was. I told him Sea Recovery. “Oh, I am the local agent for Sea Recovery. I just installed a big one in a local hotel. Maybe I can help you.” At 5:00 PM we weighed anchor and motored in to the dock. The end of the dock is a huge concrete affair, not very inviting. It was still blowing 17+ kts but at least it would be blowing us off the dock, if only I can get to it without ramming it. I swung out and approached with my starboard bow. If we can get a line on, I can power back to secure the stern. There are always guys hanging out n any commercial dock and this one was no different. Several cam out to help. I approached faster than I wanted, but necessary to avoid being blown off. When we were way too close for comfort (but not close enough as it turned out), Deb threw the line and missed. I immediately let us be blown off and came around again. This time Deb's throw was better and the guy caught it and secured us to a bollard that would have held the Queen Mary. He left enough slack so that I could back around without hitting the concrete. It took all the port engine had, but slowly we came around and started pulling in to the dock by the stern. Deb threw another guy a midship line and he secured it to an equally large bollard on that side of the dock. We adjusted the lines so our bow was almost, but not quite touching - with Big Bertha (our giant fender) there just in case - and the stern was 5-10' off the dock. When Aurelio arrived, he had two 50 gallon drums and several smaller ones. Using a 1” ID hose that he brought, we filled the tanks. It took just over 100 gallons. While it was filling, Aurelio came to look at the watermaker. Now Aurelio is a large person and the watermaker is tucked into the lazaret by the port engine bay and he could barely squeeze in to look. I told him that if he thought he could fix it, I would remove it and bring the ETD in to him as he clearly was not going to accomplish anything in that space. He took down all the numbers and said he would call the mainland tomorrow to see if they had the parts and let me know. He asked how long we were planning on staying. I said originally, about a week; but without the watermaker we would need to leave earlier. “Oh, don't you worry about water. You have my phone number. Anytime you need water, you just give me a call. I'll check on the parts and call you tomorrow.” They cast us off, bow first then spring. We drifted away from the concrete, motored over to the anchorage, and re-anchored. Now we have a fully functional dinghy and outboard, a fully functional hookah, and enough water to stay and enjoy some diving. If the wind will only calm down a bit, we'll be all set. Things look a lot better today than yesterday. And possibly Aurelio can fix our watermaker. Life's good.
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05/28/2012, Providencia, Columbia
Sunday, May 27. I slept until 9:30 and Deb, 10:30, but finally felt less sleep deprived. The day was overcast and windy with squalls. Now a real rainy day I wouldn't mind. It would fill our water tanks. But this was mostly wind with enough rain to be obnoxious, but not to fill tanks. So, I attacked the watermaker. Just removing the ETD (the “heart” of the watermaker and the part that fails) is a major undertaking as we bought the “compact” model with everything mounted in an aluminum enclosure. Once the ETD is removed, there are two 'repairs' that are sort of like routine maintenance every 500 hours, except ours has not seen nearly that service. When I disassembled it to do the service, I found that one of the pieces was missing a tiny spring (sort of like the kind in a ball point pen only smaller). The idiots at Yacht Services obviously assembled it wrong! There was some rust in the chamber and the shaft was stained with rust so maybe the spring was there, but NOT stainless and obviously without the plastic cap that held it in place as that was nowhere to be seen and would not have disappeared. Fortunately I had a spare of that part from previous repair and it had both springs intact. Unfortunately doing the repair did not solve the problem. It appears that I will have to have the ETD rebuilt again to the tune of another $1000. I will email the company, but I am seriously thinking of just replacing it with a different brand. This is ridiculous. We use it for 3 months and it fails. As I was reinstalling the ETD to test it, Orville came by and said his friend would meet me at the dinghy dock @ 4:00 to fix my outboard. Except that at 4:00 it was raining fairly steadily and he didn't show up. I finally got Orville's phone number, got Aurelio's phone number from him, and have a date for tomorrow. Then it started with the lightening. It was all around us. Heavy crashes with thunder (none of that dry lightening). We unplugged everything, put the computer and handheld gps in the oven, and made sure the mast ground was in the water (it was). Lots of wind, not much rain, lots of lightening – for about 2 hours, then the lightening let up and we just had rain and wind into the evening. Deb had made a delicious beef stew which was just right for such a night. Just another shitty day in paradise.
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05/27/2012, Providencia, Columbia
Saturday, May 26. We awakened about 9:30 still feeling a bit sleep deprived. I made a nice breakfast / brunch of sausage (real American Johnsville Breakfast Sausage) and pancakes with VT Maple Syrup. After that we felt better (In the short run, food substitutes for sleep fairly well.) I hailed Mr. Bush on VHF and agreed to meet him in his office @ 2:00PM to clear in. Deb collected our laundry and I took it in to Miss Barbara who said we could get it back Monday evening. I stopped at Bamboo and used their computer stick to access internet and refresh my memory on how to recharge my Comcel stick. While I was there, I asked Orville about my outboard and, yes, he had a friend that he thought could fix it. Probably tomorrow. He works, so Sunday is good. He will let me know. From there I went in to town (Dink still works – spits out water – at high rpm. So as long as there is no STEAM, I don't think I am doing any harm to use it.) I went to the pharmacy and recharged my phone and then immediately entered the code to transfer the charge to internet. Since I also got “bonus” minutes, this leaves me with time on the phone to make local calls as well as internet. We had some Pesos left from before, but not enough to buy the amount of diesel we will need, so I hit the ATM next. I then met with Mr. Bush and presented him my papers. It cost $120US total(he much prefers US$.) for both in and out. Not bad. A very successful morning and back at the boat by a little after 2:00 (I had gone to Mr. Bush a little early.) Back on board, I first filled the tank from our 4 spare jerry jugs. Twenty gallons brought the tank up to 2/3. Another 20 will probably fill it, and then 20 more to refill the jugs. That means two trips in to town and taxi to filling station as the nearest dinghy dock to the filling station is a bit of a walk and would take two trips each time. Taxi is better. While I was filling the fuel tank, I turned on the watermaker to fill the water tanks. But it didn't work. I heard an all too familiar “chirping” sound coming from the watermaker while I was pouring diesel but trued to convince myself I was wrong. Sure enough, when I checked, there was no “Pure Water” being made and the gages showed no high pressure. Grrrr. After I finished with the diesel, I changed all the filters on the watermaker – the intake was pretty gross, but the others looked fine. Same results. There are two fairly easy repairs that I can do (tomorrow, I'm still too tired today), and they claim this usually solves the problem, but my faith is not high after all the problems we had with this last year. It is strange. I know watermakers like to be used rather than sit, so I had specifically run it for quite a while prior to leaving to make sure it was working well, and it was. We have used it a bit more than usual on this trip as we gave water to both Silver Sea (they do not have a watermaker) and Salida (their watermaker was on the fritz, making un-Pure Water), but that should have helped, not hurt. I don't know. I sent another email to Sea Recovery to see what they say, but I am discouraged. Maybe I should have bought a different brand. Lorenzo & Joyce on Eileen Farrell, an old converted shrimper, suggested we get together at Bamboo for dinner so we went in about 5:00. Real (her actual name is Oreal), the owner, was sitting at a table picking chicken for a special chicken salad she was making for a group of 20 this evening. We got a couple beers (Deb walked around to the inside of the bar and got them out of the cooler) and joined her at the table. We chatted as she worked. We told her that both Silver Sea and Salida made it safely to the Rio. She told us that her daughter's birthday is this week. She will be 12, she wants a laptop computer for her birthday, and wants to be a doctor when she grows up. She served us our second round of beer. Real is worried about how she will pay for college and medical school. She is also considering having another baby. Orville does not have any children of his own, though he is great with Real's two, so he wants her to have another with him. She wants to lose some weight first (“Only 40 kg. Maybe I'll go to Bogata and have that stomach balloon thing done.”) They are also considering moving to Canada. Their application for visas was just approved, so they must decide soon. Real has a relative living near Montreal and if they moved, they could make more money than they can here and the children would have a better chance at education. (Real herself went to college in Bogata.) Orville had to run in to town to get a few supplies (“I'll cook dinner for you as soon as I get back.” ) and Real had to go into the kitchen to finish preparing her salad, but Lorenzo & Joyce arrived about then so they joined us as Real left. What a great experience! Sitting in this cool restaurant (it has a poured cement floor but is totally open with a tin roof supported by bamboo framing. It is on the water with its own dinghy dock.), talking about life with the owner as she picks chicken. Lorenzo & Joyce turned out to be interesting people too. He is from “Manhattan and San Francisco by way of Jackman, Maine.” and worked as a contractor. The Jackman stint was as a “raging hippie.” They bought their boat in Louisiana. When the price of gas went up and the price of shrimp went down, the owner turned to gin and ended up losing the boat to the bank which happily gave it to Lorenzo. It was a disaster, but they have fixed it up and now live on it quite comfortably. They are headed for Bocas for hurricane season. We enjoyed swapping stories over an excellent dinner – they had calamari, Deb had curry shrimp, and I had garlic crab claws. Then it was home for an early bedtime. Tomorrow, hopefully Orville's friend can fix the outboard and I can fix the watermaker.
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05/26/2012, Providencia, Columbia
Friday, May 25. By 0400, it was clear that we would not make Quito Sueno during daylight. It was just too far to the East. We were still motor sailing into an ESE wind and could not do better than ~4.5 kts. Even if we ran both engines all day, we wouldn't make it by dark. So, fall off 30* and head for Providencia. AND SAIL! Thirty degrees was like the difference of night and day. Suddenly we had wind to sail rather than fight. We were close hauled at 40-60* apparent, but we were sailing at 6-7 kts instead of motorsailing @ 4.5. This will mean a second overnight, but we should arrive before dawn depending on wind so not a full overnight – maybe as early as 0100! Unlike Quito Suenos, Providencia is a very well buoyed entrance and we have “breadcrumbs” from before. I have no hesitation about arriving there after dark. Today, like yesterday, was full of sail changes. Clear weather, full sail; squalls, reduced sail. Little rain. We cannot make the 150* for Providencia yet, as the wind is still too South, but it is supposed to back to East. (Yeah.) In the mean time, we are having a great sail, up to 8 kts. With relatively calm seas. And the wind eventually did go East, shortly before sunset. We were making an easy 7 kts, which even with a 1 kt adverse current, put us in Providencia by 0100 – not bad. I slept first as usual. Deb got me up because of a strong squall with winds in mid 20's and lots of lightening. It was what the locals call “dry” lightening – no ground contact or thunder – but still worrisome. I put in a double reef and things calmed down nicely, but there were lots more squalls on radar. With all the squalls, most of which had winds to 20 kts, we decided to go with double reefed main and ~2/3 gennie for the rest of the night. This made for slower going in the predominant 15-18 kts breeze, but was safe up to 25 kts for the gusts. Above that we would need to feather the sails into the wind to relieve stress on the rig, but that is easy to do for a short while. Slowing down meant that we were then scheduled to arrive in Providencia about 0500, a pretty full night. Since I was up, I sent Deb to bed and took my watch then (2100). By 0200, the 0500 arrival was still looking accurate and I thought of getting Deb up to relieve me for a couple hours. About then another squall hit. Winds to 25 kts and just staying there. The squall passed, the wind stayed. For the next hour and a half the wind never went under 20 kts. Seas weren't bad, but that is a lot of wind sustained so long. I did not want to leave Deb alone on watch through this, so I let her sleep. By the time the wind calmed down (to 17-19 kts) I could see Providencia and there was no point in trying to sleep. I got Deb up when we were 3 nm out so we could power up, drop sail, navigate in to the harbor and drop anchor. All went without problems and by 0530 we were asleep for the night, safe and secure.
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