We got up at 7am, had breakfast and Renee’ took the laundry in while I worked on trying to figure out what is going on with our water heater. It has a small intermittent leak. First I vacuumed all the water out and tried to see where it was leaking. I thought perhaps it was the safety valve, as it is as I said intermittent. But that is not it. I checked the cold water in and hot water out lines and did not find it. Finally I called for help. Probably a significant reason I did not find the leak is that I did not want to fix it. The marina fixit guy was down, and looked at for awhile, and said, “the water heater leaks”. So, I looked online for a replacement, and checked with other Island Packet 445 owners on how to take the old one out and get a new one in. The problem is that the water heater measures 16 inches W x 22 inches D x 16 inches H, and the access hole is 17.5” by 11.5” (actually about 1” smaller in both directions as that is the measurement of the plate that goes in the hole. So, the situation is that the water heater leaks about 2 gallons per hour, and as built there is no shut off valve for it. So, we installed one, and will have to be careful how we use the water heater for the time being. This is a boat water heater and it is heated by the engine when it is running (like the heater in a car) and by an electric heater when on shore power. We have to keep it turned off when the water is turned off, and we will have to keep the water in it when the engine is running, which means keeping the water pump one while motoring. I found the heater on line for about $500, but the hard part is not finding and buying the heater but getting it to the boat. It weighs less than 40 lbs, and will be delivered to our sons home in the Sacramento area and will fly back to the boat with us as luggage. The other issue is how to go about getting the old one out and the new one in. I asked other IP445 owners if any had done it and how, and one replied that he did it about 3 years ago in St. Thomas (US Virgin Islands). He described the cut that he made in the settee and how he used aluminum blocks behind it to rebuild when he was done. I plan on taking a bunch of pictures as this is done. I also sent an email requesting help from the factory on how this was supposed to be done.
Regarding this trip that we just completed, we were very blessed to be able to see God’s handiwork every day, both in the mountains, and canyons as well as in the people. We saw the missions and we saw a very gracious people. We took the time daily to read the Bible, we are in the process of reading through the Bible in a year, we have missed one day so far, we were late for breakfast and our tour guide was a little bit early, then we forgot when we got back at the end of the day. As an example of the people, our taxi driver here in Topolobampo sent a series of GIFs via WhatsApp this morning that were all christian with great meaning.
At the end of the day, I have tightened all the fittings on the aft head pump (which has been running periodically) and I think I slowed down the cycle, I tightened the spring on one of the hatches that was drifting closed, the isolation valve for the water heater has been installed, and the laundry has been done. I have also gone through all the pictures from the last week. The kitchen faucet screen has been plugging gradually for some time, and it (of course) is not obvious how it comes apart for cleaning. Well, I finally thought about where we bought it (Lowes) and looked through the receipts until I found what brand it is (not labeled above the sink, and about 3 hours work to get at from the bottom) then looked it up on YouTube to find out how to disassemble and clean it. That is done too!
As a note, the reason that some of these things have not been done is that they are way harder to do than the same thing in a house. For example the cycling head pump is a similar problem to the toilet running in the bathroom that you jiggle the handle to and it stops (for awhile). In this case it is a vacuum pump. The hoses and fittings got dislodged when I had to move the vacuum tank a little bit to install the new batteries. To access the vacuum pump the following had to be done:
- The table has to be put up
- The cushions on the port settee all have to be moved out of the way, in this case to the forward stateroom.
- The bottom of the settee makes into a full sized bed, and this must be pulled out.
- The cover over the compartment that the pump is in has to be removed (just pick it up)
- All the stuff in this compartment has to be moved.
- The vacuum pump is under a cover in this compartment (made by a previous owner, I believe). This cover is a marvel. It has two small supports one forward and the other aft in the compartment. The top piece has two screws that go through the top into the aft support. It also has three screws that go down into the vertical wall of this box. Because of the shape and location of the access to this compartment, there are no screws that go into the forward support, Also because of the size of the cover and the size, shape and location of the access and the compartment, one of the two supports must be removed to get the two pieces of the box out of the compartment, which must be done to access the pump. Oh, and a retainer for the batteries sticks into the compartment and “just” fits above the lid to this box. Note that to remove the support for the lid to this box and then to reinstall it, two screws must be removed/installed while holding the cover of the box out of the way.
- So, now it is out of the way and I have access! Roughly a half hour to get that far in.
There are about a half dozen hose clamps and 8 screws into the top of the pump that hold a rubber diaphragm in place. I tightened all of them, but really don’t want to go too tight, as, oh yeah, we can’t get parts here!
Then put it all back the way it was when I started. (A 5 minute job with an hour of access!). By the way, I have been down to this pump 3 or 4 times, and there are supposed to be 11 screws to hold it all together, 3 for each support (1 missing from each) two through the top into the aft support (both are there) and 3 through the top into the side panel (1 missing here as well), so there are 3 out of 11 screws missing, and I don’t have any of the right size.
Finding stainless fasteners here in Mexico in these small ports is very difficult and while it can be done, most of the time, sometimes you just can’t find them. As an example I point out that I spent 3 days looking for the right size bolts to fix the hatches and finally got the right size, but the head of the bolt was too big, so I had to go back to the states and get Allen head bolts. Those hatches took the better part of a year to get fixed, with multiple trips for parts some I thought I needed and some I actually did need. It included not one or two, but three trips back to the states to get parts. The problem with not using stainless, is that we are sitting in sea water, which means that there is salt in the air. Most of the time, I don’t just want stainless steel fasteners, but type 316 stainless steel. This is much more expensive and hard to come by in the states, much less Mexico.
Regarding the three hour estimate for access to the bottom of the sink, I believe I wrote about that way earlier in the blog, I am not sure exactly when it was, but it was a matter of a couple of weeks finding out how to drop the box above the engine and access the bottom of the sink. In the process I broke one of the engine room lights, so a plumbing job that would take about an hour (maybe 3) took about 3 weeks and turned from a plumbing issue to electrical and re-insulating the engine room. Working on things on a boat is just hard.
Well, dishes are done, that required either using the hot water heater or heating water on the stove to do the dishes, we elected to heat the water on the stove. No automatic dishwasher here. The clothes came back folded (not the way we do it, but sort of good enough) but they had to be put away, we had 5 loads of laundry that got done today, and it all fits in the various cupboards and lockers, but it has to go a certain way to get it in. It is now after 8:30 pm, and we are going to go up and take a shower here in the marina. Good news they put a door on the shower the week while we were gone! It is all good and I will try to get this all published tomorrow!
One last thing, had to check the weather! It still shows that tomorrow is very windy (too windy for our taste) and that it will be good for Wednesday through Friday, so we are going to leave Wednesday about noon for a 240 or so mile trip at 5 to 7 knots. 48 to 36 hours. If we sail more it will be slower, which is what we plan to do. Oh, and yes I need to get diesel before we leave. OOPS! Omar the guy here at the marina doesn’t work tomorrow, oh well, we will figure something out. We have enough fuel, but I really wanted to top off before we headed south.
