Blog #2

We're getting ready to go but we are having a hard time getting everything done.

Just like every other cruiser everything seems to come down to the last minute. We think we're all set. It's two days before we're scheduled to leave but I should check our emergency bilge pumps that haven't been used in several years. The hand bilge pumps works fine BUT the 3700 gal/hour pump only worked once. Every time I fill the bilge with water the damn pump wont prime itself. After 3 hours of sweating bleeding and swearing I have no idea what to do. Why I waited until the end to check this who can say. We can't leave without this pump properly working....and we've been waiting weeks to go through the canal so we certainly don't want to reschedule and lose our slot. At a good-bye dinner the discussion about the pump comes up and someone mentions that it might be a back -pressure issue. The check valve is mounted adjacent to the pump. Frenetically that night, I get more advice from my friend Greg, the mechanic and after and hour in the dark with him in his pjs, he came up with the same thought that the check valve is preventing the pump from priming. Voilaˆ!

The next day I spent all day in town running around trying to buy a six inch long piece of PVC pipe to bypass the check valve. Ê They only sell 20-foot sections! Yikes! With the boss gone, the employee cuts 6 inches off a new PVC pipe for me but then the boss returns and the small piece of pipe gets thrown franticly into a pile until the boss leaves. All is clear.. I get my small section and the employee gets a nice tip. We shop like mad, go to the ATM machine, run to the chandlery to buy spare main engine impellers and race-back to meet the bus just in time.

Now we're racing to put everything away and Nancy remembers we have to check out of Panama, TODAY...it's 4:20 pm. I race to customs and immigration and get there 5 minutes before it closes for the weekend. Now I need 2 copies each of 4 documents and I need them in 5 minutes or the customs official is gone... The marina office just closed! I run to the mini mart and prevail upon Carol to stop everything and generate the copies. Race-back to Immigration and complete the process. Whew! I'm now $45.00 lighter in the wallet including an over-time charge. That's why the official was willing to wait for me. Now we can go.

Well that's the way the last two days were and then Saturday comes!