A rainbow framing our view of the port of Suva

While at sea, a day before making landfall in Suva, we were able to do some preliminary examinations of Yanmar the Magnificent's raw water difficulties. First let me set the scene: SCOOTS was encountering 3.5 meter (10 foot) waves from one direction and 2 m (6 foot) waves from another, sailing in about 20 knots of wind. Not exactly smooth sailing. Access to Y the M was via the engine room or through a hatch set into the wall of the aft cabin (where we were sleeping), depending on which parts we needed to get to.

[For those readers who wouldn't enjoy embarking on our whole mechanical and plumbing diagnostic journey of discovery, I've included a summary at the end for you.]

Eric was hopeful that the cause of problem was the raw water pump losing its prime. Back in April, when we'd installed a new transmission oil cooler, the raw water pump had lost its prime, resulting in the raw water alarm blaring. Back then, we'd fixed the problem by pulling off one end of the the raw water hose and filling it with water, to prime the pump. Now imagine Eric sitting cross-legged on the engine room floor of our constantly-moving boat, trying to pour several cups of water from a red Solo cup into a one-inch hose. He got it done, and rinsed some of the floor in the process, but sadly, this time priming the pump didn't fix the problem.

This left two possibilities: (1) the raw water pump was shot, and (2) there was a blockage in the raw water system. We were confident that the impeller was okay, as we'd just installed a new one about a month earlier. Into the aft cabin we went. We folded back our mattress and took off the hatch in the wall, so we could access the starboard side of the engine, where the raw water pump resides. Eric removed the face plate of the raw water pump and when I started Y the M, he could see the impeller turning and that its blades were intact. So that wasn't the problem.

That left possibility #2, a blockage in the raw water system. To assess this possibility, we'd need to remove and check several hoses, the raw water strainer and its connections. We couldn't check all of them while we were at sea, but we went back into the engine room and took off all the easily-accessible hoses and blew through them to see if they were clear. They all were. Now we knew that the raw water system had a blockage in one of the difficult-to-reach parts. Of course.

At this point we also knew for sure that we were going to have to sail into Suva Harbour and anchor under sail. I wrote about that adventure in the last blog installment.

Now, anchored in Suva Harbour, and after sleeping from 7pm to 7 am - we were dog-tired from our passage and arrival - we began our diagnosis of Yanmar the Magnificent's malady. We spent the entire day taking things apart, and pulling off hoses, sucking or blowing through them or pouring water into them to check for blockages. As each hose was exonerated, Eric would (half)jokingly proclaim that the seacock must be plugged, and suggest that I go for a dive under the boat to check whether the engine inlet was clear. No thank you. Not in dirty Suva Harbour. Each time he brought it up, I came up with another hose we still needed to check. He even tried to convince me that a mussel had taken up residence in the seacock; when its shell was closed, water flowed in, but when its shell was open, it blocked the flow. Yeah, right. We eventually determined that all of the hoses were clear AND that the seacock was working just fine.

We opened the raw water strainer and cleaned it, though it wasn't that dirty, and began checking its connecting hoses for blockages. All the rubber hoses were clear; all that was left was the stainless steel elbow connecting the strainer to the hoses. When we took off the elbow, we could see that two or three jellybean-sized chunks of zinc (pieces of former sacrificial zincs that protrude into this metal elbow to protect Y the M from corrosion) had lodged in the narrowest portion of the pipe, blocking the orifice. Aha! When we removed the zinc nuggets, water flowed freely through the system. Blockage found!

Cool! Back in business...right? Well, not so fast.

Early on in our blockage quest, we'd removed one of the air cooler's covers, and were surprised to find several chewed-up impeller blades, evidence of some destructive raw water pump event that occurred before we owned the boat.


The chewed-up impeller blades

We removed the blades, which weren't causing a problem, but later discovered a BIG problem when we ran the raw water to check that all the hoses were clear: air was blowing out of the water side of the air cooler, indicating that salt water and air were mixing in it, spraying salt water into Y the M's cylinders along with the air. Not good.

How long this had been going on, we didn't know. And we wouldn't have even discovered it, if it weren't for the blockage in the raw water system, which, on the other hand, was easily detected. The air cooler couldn't be repaired; it needed to be replaced. Sadly, we didn't have a spare on board.

Eric got online and began sourcing a replacement air cooler, eventually finding a distributor that could - after a three-week lead time to get the part from Japan, and a couple thousand dollars - ship one to the Royal Suva Yacht Club, where we can dinghy over and pick it up. So, for the next month or so, while we wait for our part to arrive, we'll be hanging out in Suva Harbour.

PS. In the interest of wanting to be able to motor out of any situation that requires it, we've rigged a bypass around the old air cooler. Employing a C-cell battery and a wine cork to plug the two open ends of the air cooler, and a long new hose to reroute the salt water, Y the M can now run if we need him to. (Though we hope not to need him to.)


The bypass. Note the battery, cork, and new hose for the raw water. Not particularly classy, but it works.

For those readers who aren't interested in the whole diagnostic process, here is the summary I promised you:

Summary: The blockage in the raw water system was caused by the remains of several sacrificial zincs that had protected Y the M from corrosion. When we cleared these, the water ran smoothly through the system again. We also found that Y the M's intercooler (think radiator) was damaged, the air and water mixing within it. Eric sourced a new one which should arrive here in Suva in about three weeks to a month. We rigged up a bypass of the air cooler so that we can run our engine in an emergency if we need to. In the meantime, we'll enjoy ourselves here in Suva.

Back on SCOOTS, life is getting back to normal for Eric and me. Normal, for us, means a steady supply of projects balanced with a good amount of play. We've been having our fair share of each.

The list of projects we arrived home with, in spite of our tackling several each day, hasn't shrunk much. This is because of what I call “trifectas”: the inevitable expansion of one job into at least three jobs. No matter how quick and simple a task seems to be before we begin it, we can almost always count on doing at least two extra tasks before we're done.

Tuesday's trifecta is a perfect example. I wanted to check the float switch in our shower sump, as it seemed not to be working properly (Job #1). This should've been (and actually was) a relatively simple task, involving the removal of several floor boards to give me access to the sump, running water into the sump, and watching the operation of the float switch. When I did this, I could see the problem, and fix it quickly and easily.

However. While I had the boards up and a sizeable area of the bilge exposed, I took a look around, to make sure that everything else was ship shape. Sadly, everything was not. The bracket holding the strainer for our fridge input line was coming loose (Job #2), and one of our new seacocks had a drip where the elbow connector attached to it at the top (Job #3).

Once we've seen these problems, and we know that they're there, lurking beneath the floor boards, we can't unsee them and hope they'll go away, as much as we'd like to. We might as well dive right in to take care of them. And so, putting aside the jobs we'd planned to do, we spent the rest of the afternoon, and most of the next morning, attending to Jobs #2 and #3.

Job #2 and Job #3, it turned out, were two aspects of a larger issue, this larger issue being that when we had the new seacock installed last year, the hose chosen to connect it to the strainer was the absolute minimum length that could be used to bridge the gap, thereby imposing a constraint that made servicing either the strainer or the seacock a royal pain. And here we were, needing to work on both.

So, rather than fixing both and leaving the larger issue unresolved, we decided to redo the whole shebang.

[The picture indicates the main players in the trifecta, though as it was taken midway through the process, the short, heinous piece of hose has already been discarded and isn't in the picture.]

To do this, we began by removing – and tossing unceremoniously into the trash – the heinous short piece of hose. Then we removed the bracket for the strainer, drilled new holes in the supporting piece, repositioned the bracket a few inches to port of where it had been, and remounted the strainer. We removed the seacock elbow connector, cleaned the old, failed sealant out of it, and wound it with about 14 inches of Loctite 55 Pipe Sealing Cord – a dental-floss-like alternative to teflon tape recommended by the seacock manufacturer, and which Eric finally found after visiting quite a few hardware, marine and sporting goods stores in Whangarei yesterday– before screwing it back into the seacock. We cut a new, much longer piece of hose, and attached its ends to the strainer and the seacock. Then we opened the seacock and watched for leaks.

No leaks! Hooray!

Then we quickly put the floorboards back in, before I discovered anything else we might want to fix.

To balance out our work trifecta, we also enjoyed a social trifecta yesterday: happy hour, dinner, and fun conversations with friends. Because balance is important.

SCOOTS and her crew recently returned to the Whangarei Town Basin Marina after spending three weeks "on the hard" at the Norsand Boatyard.

Rather than write about everything we did there, I made a video giving you a flavor of what our time there was like. After watching the video, you might have some questions. I'm going to guess at some of them, but if you have others, please feel free to ask.

Click below for our video:
Photo credits: Eric and Vandy Shrader, and our new friends, Tama and Carmen McGlinn

* Why did you have SCOOTS hauled out? She needed some repairs and improvements that were best done out of the water; we were going to drop her rudder to diagnose - and then fix - a "clunking" sound that had developed on our trip from Mexico to the Marquesas last year; and she desperately needed a new coat of marine critter-repelling bottom paint.

* What's the purpose of the big muddy hole? That's the "rudder hole." Because there isn't enough room underneath SCOOTS, while she's on the trailer, to remove her rudder, the boatyard guys back her rudder over the hole. Then, while Eric is inside SCOOTS' engine room releasing the rudder, the guys stand on a couple of two-by-fours straddling the hole and lower the rudder blade into the hole enough to allow the whole rudder structure to come out of the boat. The process was reversed when we left, only this time I did the re-attaching in the engine room (my small body fits into the space better than Eric's does).

* How is living on the hard different from living in the water? Well, for us it meant that our toilet (which uses saltwater to flush) didn't work; our fridge and freezer (which use saltwater to cool the compressor) didn't work; and we had to be very judicious with the amount of water that we ran down the sink drain. We used the toilet in the boatyard's main building; we froze four half-gallon bottles of water in the boatyard's freezer, then swapped two at a time into the fridge to use it as an ice box; we ran a hose from the sink drain into a 20 liter plastic jug under the boat, which we had to cart to a drain across the boatyard when it was full of dirty dishwater.

Of course, it also meant that anytime we came and went, we had to climb up or down a twelve-foot-tall ladder.

* What did you do while you were there? Lots and lots of projects. Here is a partial list of the things we got done while SCOOTS was on the hard...
...replaced two seacocks,
...diagnosed the rudder problem, had parts made, installed them,
...repaired the kayak with epoxy, sanded, varnished, sanded, varnished, sanded, varnished, ad nauseum,
...had the oldest portions of our standing rigging replaced,
...drove all over town looking for a place that would make new propane hoses and fittings for our tanks, had them made, installed them,
...disassembled our teak cockpit table, revarnished it, cleaned the metal fittings, reassembled it,
...had SCOOTS' bottom painted with new antifouling paint,
...removed the boom vang, had a new one made, reattached it to the boom,
...end-for-ended our anchor chain and re-marked it at 30-foot intervals,
...cleaned and scrubbed the anchor locker,
...had two coats of nonskid paint applied to our swim step
...replace the inlet hose for the toilet,
...changed the oil in our autopilots

In addition to all the projects on SCOOTS, Eric also wanted to repair and revarnish our kayak, which was showing some wear after three years and many miles. This turned out to be quite a frustrating undertaking, as the weather was windy and rainy for much of the time we were in the boatyard, making it very difficult for Eric to do what he needed to do. Fortunately, our friend, Rich, who was also spending time on his catamaran in the boatyard, just across the way from us, offered to let Eric use the space underneath his boat as a garage. This proved to be a perfect place for Eric to work on the kayak. Thank you, Rich!

Spending time in a boatyard is the flip side to spending time anchored off of white sand beaches; the inglorious underbelly of "livin' the life" of endless umbrella drinks that some people think we live all the time; a necessary endeavor to keep our floating, traveling house in safe, tip top condition.

Now, back in the Town Basin Marina, we - along with hundreds of other cruisers - are keeping an eye on the weather between us and our tropical destinations, waiting, and waiting, for a good weather window to head north, back to where it's WARM! The next window looks to be sometime late this week. If it's in fact a good window, we'll set sail for Fiji. If not, we'll wait some more.

We're still docked in Marina Riviera Nayarit, still working our way through our To-Do list, still having fun with old and new friends, still excited about heading for Polynesia in the next few weeks.


Another La Paz sunset

Because I'm assuming that you don't really want to see photos of boat parts and the interiors of grocery stores, I've sprinkled in some photos from our recent excursions in the Sea of Cortez.



Here are some of the tasks we've gotten done, since arriving in La Cruz:

-we've had SCOOTS' rigging washed, in preparation for having it inspected later this week


How Mexicans ask visitors not to use the bathroom on their beach

-removed the stanchion that was bent by our dinghy in the Norther (which required Eric to disassemble the ceiling and part of the wall in our forward cabin to reach the bolts),sent it to the machinist for repair, then reinstalled the beautiful, straight stanchion


The bent stanchion

-we've also had her deck and hull washed and waxed, a spa treatment she rightly deserves


Van among the boulders

-two trips to the Mega supermarket and one trip to Costco, with the resulting chaos and Tetrisification of the purchased items. (And we're not done buying stuff yet...)


Kayak on the beach

-First World Internet tasks and phone calls to the US
-multiple visits to local chandleries for boat parts


Van and red rocks

-Eric took the boom off our mast and had the gooseneck and boom vang (boom to mast connection piece) machined by a local machinist; then we reinstalled the newly-fixed pieces.


Ensenada Grande beach

-we collected a bunch of items that we could part with, toted them to the biweekly swap meet at the marina, and sold most of them (hooray, more volume for food!)
-one 40 peso haircut (I'll probably get mine this week)


Eric on the rock "stairs"

-Eric spliced a new halyard for our spinnaker and went up the mast to install it, and started the process of installing a new halyard for our mainsail


Van and Eric at the top of the bouldering hike

-Eric helped organize a radio net for the Pacific Puddle Jumpers, so we can keep in touch with each other while we're out there on the ocean


A rocky beach waaaaay down there

But it's not been all work. We have been very good at knocking off at sunset and spending time with friends every evening. I haven't cooked dinner even once, since we've been here....

Still to do...
-have SCOOTS' bottom scrubbed
-keep an eye on the weather (as always!) to decide when to leave
-buy more supplies and figure out where to put them
-get my haircut
-rigging inspection
-officially check out of Mexico
-leave for the Marquesas!

SCOOTS has traded the warm water of the Pacific for jackstands in the Fonatur Boatyard, Mazatlan. She'll remain here for the next few weeks, getting her topsides - meaning her hull, not her deck - and her bottom, painted, and having some minor repairs.

On the appointed day, SCOOTS' date with the Travelift was scheduled for 1 pm. This time of day is not particularly ideal, as the thermal winds would be blowing, which could make maneuvering SCOOTS in tight spaces a bit interesting; but on this particular day, 1 pm was also right at slack tide, which meant that we didn't also have to contend with any current. We talked it over and decided that as the more experienced helmsperson, Eric would drive SCOOTS over to the boatyard, turn her around, and back her into the narrow Travelift slot. And it is narrow.


A skinny place

We have to fit between those two cement walkways...
He did a great job, and soon SCOOTS was positioned between the concrete jetties like a horse in a starting gate, and with just about as much space to spare on either side of her.


In the slot

Having your boat hauled out of the water, and transferred to some flimsy-looking jackstands, can be a nerve-wracking experience - especially when she's 51 feet long and weighs about 33,000 pounds! Imagine having your home lifted up, moved down the block, and set up on jackstands!

But the professionals at the Fonatur Marina and Boatyard dispelled my anxiety as soon as they set to work; all the workers made sure that SCOOTS had a safe lift and got settled comfortably onto her jackstands. Myriam (yes, a woman lift operator!) drove the Travelift with skill and confidence;


Our skillful Travelift operator

...after taking a look at the diagram we provided her, which showed the correct placement of the lifting straps on SCOOTS, she climbed into the control booth, started the lift, lowered the straps into the water, slid them underneath SCOOTS, and came up with them in just the right places.


A tight fit

Since we're in Mexico, where things tend to be a bit more relaxed, Eric and I got to stay on SCOOTS' deck and ride up with her in the lift. Once she was suspended high enough, we jumped across the gap from SCOOTS' swim step onto the pavement.


In the slings

Now that SCOOTS is "on the hard" as they say, work has begun in earnest.

I was AMAZED at the amount of marine life that had made SCOOTS its home, even though her bottom was cleaned and scraped not 6 weeks ago. These waters are extremely prolific! Little crabs skittered around in gaps and crevices; barnacles covered the hull like an upside-down starry night, filled the gap between rudder and hull, occupied all the through-hull openings, and had even found a way to live on the propeller!


Crusty marine life

Encrusting organisms had wrapped much of SCOOTS' metal prop shaft in a calcified blanket, reminding me of how Spider Man gets encrusted with the Black Spiderman suit (here's a link if you're not familiar with this reference: Spiderman

For the first few days, Eric and I have been living on SCOOTS in the boatyard.


SCOOTS getting settled in her temporary home

Though the boatyard has some excellent facilities - electricity, clean showers and restrooms, a lounge for reading, washers and dryers, even a small pool (though it could have used some cleaning when we were here) - for visiting boaters, it's still a bit like camping: neither our fridge nor our toilet will work on land, as they require saltwater for their operations; we have to climb up and down a 15-foot ladder to get to and from SCOOTS' deck; we have to keep the hatches closed while the guys are sanding, which really heats up the interior; we have to take our shoes off before going below, so we don't track in boatyard dirt. We also had a layer of green dust everywhere, until the workers at Active Marine finished scraping and sanding SCOOTS' hull two days ago, and gave her a thorough washing.

While those guys were working on the hull, Eric and I were working on other jobs. Here's a sampling of some of the fun projects we've done in the past few days...
...going through our vast collection of cold-weather clothes (why did we think we would need these?), sorting those to bring to the Bay Area and those to send to my sister in New York,
...removing the last items from the the fridge and freezer, and washing the shelves and compartments,
...removing the engine's raw water filter, getting the top off (which didn't budge until a vise and a big oil filter wrench were brought to the task, thanks to the calcifying effects of marine life), cleaning out the detritus, and replacing the filter on the engine,
...sopping up the leftover liquid in the bilges,
...removing the compass and the cockpit table, opening the steering pedestal, cleaning and polishing the housing, and lubing the steering mechanism,
...cleaning the crusty marine life out of the through-hulls and applying seacock grease,
...fixing a couple of cabin lights,
...choosing a font, colors, shading, and size for SCOOTS' new name and city decals,
...pulling out the old alternator and sending it out to be rebuilt.

The inside of our boat, like the outside, is in a state of disarray at the moment. That's how it's going to be, for a little while.

Later this week, Eric and I will say adios to Mexico, and fly to the States for a few days, to spend time with our family and renew our 6-month visas. While we're away, work will continue on SCOOTS, with an estimated completion near the end of May.

When we return - and until SCOOTS' makeover is complete - we'll be staying in a little apartment we've rented from Airbnb, in the Historic section of Mazatlan. We visited the apartment and picked up the keys a couple of days ago; we're both really excited at the prospect of exploring Mazatlan from the inside!

That's it for now. Hasta luego!

We've been living on SCOOTS for about a month now. On land, our house was indeed emptied, painted, carpeted, cleaned, staged, shown, and traipsed through, as planned. We received an offer, did a couple rounds of the Counteroffer Dance, and are now currently in escrow, which is due to close in about a week. Things move fast around here.

We've been spending most of our time getting SCOOTS--and ourselves--ready for our planned September departure. Here's a sampling of some of the jobs we've done or started since moving aboard last month: rebuilding the watermaker; cutting and installing a new hatch (a shout out to Wayne from Capricorn Cat for giving us the tip about using alcohol to remove excess Sikaflex--it works great!); cutting our mattress topper to size; stowing, stowing, and more stowing; replacing our old crusty anchor chain with shiny new anchor chain; replacing our 66 lb. anchor with a 110 lb. anchor; replacing our vinyl-covered steel jacklines with new high-tech Dyneema jacklines that Eric cut and spliced himself; getting our liferaft inflated, inspected, tested, certified, and repacked by Sal in Alameda;



cutting and installing new cockpit seat cushions; fixing the clock so it doesn't ding 31 o'clock anymore; replacing the shower sump (the pump had stopped working and it was stinky); sewing a mesh bag for our 600 feet of polypropylene shore tie rope and stowing it in the aft seat locker...And did I mention stowing?



In between all of our boat projects, we've also been taking items to the nautical consignment store; helping a friend move into a new house; listing our vehicles and some other last items for sale; hosting dinners, lunches, and a drop-in open house to say goodbye (we've made a few friends here in the past 30 years); getting new passports; making the hour roundtrip to our house every couple of days, to get the mail, fill up the bird bath, and generally check things out at the homestead.

Yeah, life is pretty crazy right now. I'm longing for a quiet anchorage somewhere...

Last weekend, we took a day off from our preparations to take some of our friends sailing, which was a blast! Most of the people had sailing or boating experience and it was a treat to have a crew! San Francisco Bay was windy enough for SCOOTS to have a good romp. It was nice to get her out of the slip for awhile. We were pleased to learn that our stowing job had been about 99% effective: only a couple of items ended up on the cabin sole, despite our guest helmsmen's best efforts to dislodge them.



We're very excited that our daughter has moved aboard! She'll stay with us for a few weeks, and sail south with us as far as Santa Cruz, where she attends college.

With only a few short weeks left before we leave, I'm feeling a complicated mix of emotions at the prospect--after six years of planning--of finally beginning our cruising life. I have a saying on my computer desktop that reads: "Accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be." I've been living by those words for the past few months, as we've navigated all the transitions that must occur, to make our cruising life possible. I know that soon we WILL find that quiet anchorage, and there, with nothing but the sound of the wind in the rigging and the waves lapping SCOOTS' hull, we'll finally take some deep breaths, release all the tension of the past few months, and begin our next adventures.