Last Tuesday, Tracy and I gave a talk to a bunch of cruisers about our trip across the Pacific. What we did. What we took. What we found and saw. Even what we liked and didn't like. There were about 30 cruisers in attendance. Of course it didn't hurt that the place we gave the talk extended "Happy Hour" for drinks while we talked. It was great with several people asking us questions and actually knowing the answers. We'd spent several afternoons putting together notes after notes about what we came across. In the end, about 6 pages of things. It was amazing the memories it brought back for both of us. Hard to imagine it been over six years since we left Mexico to cross the Pacific and now here we are, with in striking distance of finishing our circumnavigation!!

This morning(Friday) we were off for the grocery store on the free bus with me making stops at Napa(new spark plugs for the Tohatsu out board), Island Water World, and Budget Marine(looking for a replacement fan for the stern stateroom. Years ago as we were just starting our voyage, we were told about a fan by Caframo called the Sirocco. I really neat fan that you can swivel the fan in all sorts of positions plus it has a timer so you can set it to run for 2, 4, 6, or 8 hours and it shuts off. In the heat of the night it runs and in the morning coolness, it shut itself off. Cool feature. Our first one died after about 4 years and we replaced it with another. Last night, it looked like it had gone to meet it's maker. Gave up the ghost. We both love our breeze at night to keep us cooler since the humidity is high here. It looked like the on/off switch had finally died. Tracy pounded on it over and over and just couldn't get it to run. Todays job was to find a replacement(as well as pick up our laundry).

I got the spark plugs and walked down the road to Island Water World. They had our fan--Price $180US. In the US, you can get it for about $101 at one of the marine stores. Now there is a nice markup. I walked down the street to Budget Marine and they had the same fan on SALE for $130US!! Guess which one I bought????? Well, I would have bought it but I didn't have my "boat papers". They are the papers that show that we are legally here in Curacao. Rats!!! So I then walked down to the grocery store(thank goodness they are all close) and with Tracy, we took the bus back to the marina and back to Zephyr. There, I tried to get the old fan off so I could install the new one. Nope, the two screws that hold it onto it's bracket refused to come out. Finally after having another great lunch, I finally got the screws out and could remove the fan but I had to take off quickly or I would miss the regular city bus we take when we go to town. Once off the bus, I hiked again back to Budget Marine, gave them our "boat papers", got everything filled in, handed the credit card over and got out as quick as I could as I had to catch the bus back to the dock. I was slowed a bit as i wanted to get some money out of one of the ATMs and it took three before I could find one that would recognize my card and give me money. My return bus showed up shortly after I got to the bus stop and I was back on Zephyr by 1515, just over an hour since I'd left. A quick trip.

I headed for the stern compartment ready to get rid of the old fan. Instead upon closer examination, I found that one of the nuts that holds the wire onto the fan had a ton of corrosion on it. The other was perfectly clean. I took off the nut and washer as well as the wire fitting, cleaned then with a wire brush and once back together, the fan worked just fine!!! As the fan I bought for the replacement is not that easy to find, we'll just stow it somewhere in the boat till the current fan does actually die.

Today, Saturday finally was our "Pump Out the Black Water Tank Day". We pulled up the anchor just about 0700 after getting the engine started(more on that later)and headed down the narrow channel to the sea. No real problem except that it gets shallow here and there as you go so we were always watching our depth sounder. Don't want to go "bump" this early in the day. As we neared the entrance, we were greeted by a nice big cabin cruiser/yacht coming in as we wanted to go out. Oh, we did make sure we had some sprinkles as we pulled up the anchor. What would pulling up the anchor be with out the regular rains we get just about every time we do it. We gave the yacht plenty of room as they set up their fenders to go into the marina right at the entrance to Spanish Waters. Once out of the bay, about a half mile, we pushed the buttons and out came the nasty stuff. Always makes me nervous that they won't pump it out and I have to do a syphon job and that's never fun. We turned around once the tanks were empty and headed back and had the anchor down by the time the 0800 radio net started. Over and done with in less than three minutes. Once everything was stowed, we sat down and had breakfast but before that, we started up our generator again. Got to have those volts to make everything run.

As for starting the engine, well we've pretty much come to the conclusion that the start batteries are toast. They show 12.5 but when that kind of power is needed to start the engine, it has a hard time putting it out. We'll be renting a car on Monday and heading out to see what we can find in new batteries. These are 6 years old having been bought in French Polynesia. Just your average everyday car batteries. At least with a car we can get them back to Puff easier.

If you read our post from a few days ago, you saw about the bad plug that ran off the generator and how we replaced it. Tracy took off the plug from it's fitting where it leads the electricity into the boat and thought that it was a bit hot. I'd already bought a replacement plug so after breakfast, we took the plug apart which isn't easy as it's covered by a very tight fitting rubber housing. After a bunch of work and numerous flat bladed screwdrivers, we finally slid the cover off and could get at the insides of the plug. Sure enough, there was some discoloration on the housing. Maybe caused by the plug at the other end of the cord. With a bit of work for the two of us, we got the old plug off and the new one installed. We'll be checking it later when we run the generator. I'll put the rubber cover back on once we check the plug to make sure.

When I got up this morning, I sent an email to my chiropractor to see if he can get me in in the next few days. Something is pinched in my back and it's making my right had feel like it's asleep which isn't a nice feeling since it's been join on for hours over the last week or so. Time to get my back torqued.

It's now Sunday late afternoon and we've done a few things today. As for the Caframo Sirocco fan that I took of, fixed and put back on(connection problem), well, it died last night. Heck, when it went, it even blew the circuit breaker on the main panel. Checked it again today and yes, there is power going to it but it's toast. Nothing works on it so out came the new one that I'd bought(and didn't actually need at the time)unboxed it and installed it while the generator was humming on deck. Now we have a nice new one all ready to keep us cool at nights. And we just came in from refilling our out boards fuel tank so we don't have to do it in the morning when we are trying to get going.

We made arrangements to rent a car on Monday and Tuesday. We need to get one of our propane tanks filled and see about replacing out two start batteries, plus maybe doing some sight seeing.