A note to update you. We haven’t posted anything in a week as we have been working hard on boat specific items. After our dive last week we left San Cristobal and motored about 45 miles west to the island of Santa Cruz. We had hoped to be tourists but soon after we arrived our generator died on us. Our whole refrigeration depends on the 120 volt generator so a generator failure must be corrected immediately or the whole freezer is at risk. At first the genset failed quickly after maybe 30 minute
s. It sounded electrical and since we had previously had problems with the solenoids I cleaned all the electrical contacts and switched all the solenoids around. That took care of that problem. Then the engine started overheating. Well I did all the normal things. First you check to see if you have a blockage of the intake…plastic bag in the seacock etc. Then you clean the strainer. No Joy! Then you check the impeller. Ours had a missing blade which must have migrated into the end cap of the heat exchanger and could be blocking water in the tube bundle. I changed the impeller, fished the missing parts of the impeller blade out of the end cap and thought I was done. Not so fast. Damn thing died again. It ran nice and cool for 30 minutes or so and then quickly overheated. I checked the thermostat. It was fine. Now this was getting esoteric. I ran it again and found that one of the refrigeration units was overheating. Then I discovered that the main seacock even full open was plugged. Went over the side and removed some barnacles from the gen set water intake and a plastic bag on the main seacock. Ran the gen set again. Now the refrigerators were fine. Gen Set DIED AGAIN!. Damn it! It was getting to hiring a mechanic time and the last idea I had which was quite remote was that the gear on the water pump was slipping and the impeller wasn’t spinning. As a last resort I took the raw water pump off and tightened the nut holding the gear. It was a little loose. VOILA! Genset runs fine. All of this took place in ONE day.
We motored to Isabella another island 45 miles west and hoped to hike the active volcano. But now it seems as if a favorable wind is coming in a few days and if we want to avoid motoring for the first 3 days through the doldrums we’ll have to leave sooner than we had hoped. Of course there is new list of have to do items to fix and buy before we depart. So we’ve been here in the Galapagos and all we have been doing is sea trialing the boat still. This has got to stop. Hopefully soon. Hopefully our 3000 mile passage west will be without any serious or difficult failures. It doesn’t seem that there is anything left to break! Well you’ve heard my rant. Better days ahead.

More on Isabella Tomorrow.
Sorry, but no time for pictures!