Nov 16
Well we have another day to practice patience. The part is in the hands of the daughter/sister of Orelio and son. She was supposed to get here last night, but let’s get real for a minute. This is about a 200 mile drive, with the last 40 or so on dirt roads with no lights that stated sometime after 5 pm Friday night in Ensenada (rush hour traffic). Oh and she has relatives in San Quintin. Realistically she would have stopped for the night with them, and will be back on the road sometime this morning. Hopefully.
In the mean time, I have verified that I have wrenches to take the broken part off and put the new one on. I have also verified that I have “Tef-Gel” the go-to grease for stainless steel and other dissimilar. Metals. So, we practice patience.
We started our day with breakfast of pancakes and honeydew melon. Then our devotions were from “Morning Mercies”. Then it was time to consider what to do while we wait. Renee’ cleaned out the cockpit, finished putting the dinghy and its stuff away. I cleaned strainers, one each for the engine, and generator, then I checked the one for the water maker (clear plastic, so I can see that it is still clean). Then cleaned the strainer for the shower drain pump in our head. I will clean the strainer for the forward shower the next time we get into the storage area under the port settee. It is more work getting into the settee storage than cleaning the strainer, and nobody is taking showers there for awhile.
We got the kayak down and setup, Renee’ is going to get Josh from “Merry Lee” and their dog Bodie and go ashore where she can get WiFi and send a text to the daughter. Patience does not abound around here. As many of our friends are aware, patience is something we have asked God for on occasion, and some have suggested that we should be careful what we pray for like that as we will get opportunities to practice patience. This is an example of that practice. We have tried texting via the Iridium but some combination of numbers is not right and the iridium only says “Sending” whether the number is right or not. As a result, I don’t know if she got the message. In Mexico to send a text to a cell phone you have to dial “11” before the number. To dial an international number, you have to dial +52 before the area code etc. I am not certain that you have to use the 11 to dial a cell phone from the Iridium. So far we are not communicating.
So, as the frustration builds…. Finally about 3 pm, Renee’ noticed that there was a truck on the shore that was flashing their lights at us. We had been expecting the part to be delivered. Since, our dinghy and kayak were stored on deck and on the davits. We asked and Jeff from Lost Pearl took Renee’ ashore who was convinced that the part was too small when she had it in her hands. We were communicating by radio and I said well bring it back anyway. The surf was pretty heavy and they got pretty wet.
The part was the right one, Jeff and Josh both came over and helped installed it. Josh installed in Jeff helped and I handled the lines to get the boom in the right place to put the part in. A bit of Tef-Gel on the threads and a change of a washer position and we were back in business! We have taped the small tear in the mainsail (it is in the Sunbrella material over the corner of the mainsail that sticks out of the mast when it is put away), and the top of the dodger that had the mast sitting on it and tore just a bit. Nothing significant, except we are not good at sewing canvas, and when we get to Cabo or La Paz it will get fixed. The total repair took about 1 hour and 10 minutes, that included all the time from the part is here to the guys showing up and doing the work and then cleaning up the deck, putting the lines back etc. All in all a pretty small job, but VERY important.
It is really great to have friends, some in the states to get the parts and handle the details, some made along the way to help fix the little things in life that break. All of this is working with God’s help.
I just checked our tank levels, Water is 60% (of 260 gallons) waste is 70% (of 55 gallons) and just over fuel 3/4‘s of a tank (of 160 gallons). Tomorrow we will be out more than 3 miles from land (far enough to dump the holding tank) and then make water and wash clothes etc. I really want to do some research in to the best (and quiet) wind generator to add to power sources. It seems like we have some really power hungry devices on board, like a freezer, two refrigerators, an anchor light (it will be changed over to LED but that did not happen before we left San Diego) and several other odds and ends.