The jobs begin.
21 March 2010 | La Paz, Mexico
Sunny and warm.
We continued today with more jobs. Tracy took on defrosting the freezer while I got the job of removing the black water tank in the stern head(OH BOY!!)
The freezer plate in the freezer gets covered in ice and needs to be defrosted about every month or so just like the freezers of old. No such thing as "frost free"on a boat. There was quite a bit of ice on it and as we had planned to buy more meat for the freezer today, we needed to make sure it was nice and clean and ready to go. Out came the hair dryer and the scraper and in she went. I meanwhile took off the wall panel that covers the tank and headed in for a smelly job.
For quite some time, the stern head has been malfunctioning. It continually gave off bad smells when used and would pump back in when you flushed what had been pumped out after the previous use. I'd tried to clean out the breather valve but the installation was so tight that there was no way to get to it with out removing the tank. Out came the screws and off came the hoses(yuck!!). I crammed paper towels into every hole in the tank(of course some of the paper towels fell out as the tank was removed--yuck). There were were 6 brackets that held it in place all with 2 screws in them. Each brackets screws had to be labeled so that the proper screws went back in the proper holes they came out of. After a good hour, out it came.
We carefully took it off the boat and onto the dock where I could better check it out. Yep, the vent on the top of the tank was totally blocked. I pulled out my electric drill and reamed it out. It was now nice and clear. I cleaned the bottom hole(where stuff comes out) as it has some "stuff" stuck to the pipe. Back in it went. We had to align the pump out pipe on the top with the pump out fitting that goes through the deck. Once it was on, I wedged the tank in while Tracy made sure the screw holes lined up. In went the screws and the tank was fastened back in. Then on with the rest of the hoses and the clamps tightened and we were done--sort of. I stuck paper towels under each fitting to check as it gets used the make sure that there are no leaks(yuck). Tracy had cleaned the wall behind and under the tank and then scrubbed the tank before it was put back in. Might as well get rid of anything that might bring on an odor. Now we will see if we have solved the problem.
Once Tracy was done with the freezer(I had yanked her away to help me several times) we had a lunch of left overs and headed for the 1330 shuttle to town. We had provisions to start buying. We been clued in as to where the local "farmers" market. Great vegetables and meats at good prices and much fresher than what is available at the big box stores. We bought four kilos(8.8 pounds) of really good looking hamburger and two really thick rib eye steaks. They will cut the steaks to any thickness that you want and they packaged the hamburger in kilo bags to make it easier to freeze when we got back to Zephyr. Tomatoes, onions, limes and cucumbers were just some of the veggies we bought. We've gotten in the habit of taking cloth bags to make the trip back easier and these bags don't break.
We then took off for the local Issste store. It's government controlled so the prices are as low as possible. More great buys of more things we needed for our next journey. We were the only "gringos" in the place and we had other customers staring at us as we shopped. I guess not that many cruisers visit their store. We were a bit out of place. Tracy had asked around when we got here as to where it was and was repeatedly told by locals that they had never heard of the place. I guess it is a secret place meant for locals to use. We had been shown this type of store by the Linda and Dale off Moxie when we were in Escondido a while ago. We then headed to the local tortilla factory next door and bought a good supply of flour tortillas to shrink wrap for the future. They were still warm. We bought so much stuff that we took a taxi back to the marina.
As we were taking our provisions to the boat, another boat was trying to come in to the marina and didn't like where they had gotten assigned. We helped them tie up to the end of the dock until it could get straightened out and another slip assigned. We helped them get into their slip once the decision was made by the marina as to where they wanted them. They had just come over from the mainland and will now be making their way up the Baja side.
With everything on board, I headed off for the showers. After what I had been working on this morning, I thought it was a good idea to clean my self up properly. Boy--it sure is nice to be able to stand under a never ending stream of hot water and not having to worry about running out of both hot water and water. Ah, the luxuries of being at a marina. I talked to another cruiser on the way back to Zephyr. They had come into the marina expecting to stay a week and have now been here two months!! They had gotten stuck in the La Paz vortex. You come in and never leave.
Tomorrow, I have fans to install fans and plugs to replace. Plus, there is a swap meet at one of the local yards this afternoon that we will be heading for. Lets see what we can find that we might need someday.
The journey continues.