Category: 2022-05 (May)

Up at 7 am for me. A bit later for Reneé. We planned to sleep in, didn’t work for me.

So, we debated plans for the day. I thought about working on the furler for the jib, and running the outboard to flush it. Then thought about the AC unit.

So, I got my temperature laser, and found it was dead. The last set of batteries in it had leaked and one of the contacts broke off. So, I called Danny (S/V All Set For Now) they live here year round and have had guests for the last couple of weeks. Their boat is just down the dock from us. I was able to borrow theirs.

Back to work on the AC.

Step 1 clean the sea water strainer! Oops, should have been done 2 weeks ago! Oh well, it’s clean now.

So, onto the AC unit, nope still not working.

Step 2 Tried checking the Freon pressures, they didn’t make sense to me, I tried watching YouTube videos, seemed pretty straight forward, still not understanding what I was seeing.

Step 3 I called my friend Gar and got technical advice. First I had to install Duo the app for video calls without FaceTime. He uses an Android phone. We looked at pressures and temperatures, which left him scratching his head as they didn’t make sense to him either. More looking around, and we noticed the heat exchanger was very dirty. So,

Step 4 clean the heat exchanger. First can I move the AC unit so I can access the heat exchanger? After a half hour of trying, nope. Can I vacuum it and get it clean? A half hour later, nope. So, I got a hose hooked up and sprayed it out. Being careful to not spray the electrical stuff.

Step 5 let it dry for a bit and then test it. At first it seemed to be working, but after about 5 minutes, nope.

Step 6 put everything away and think about options. I will get an HVAC tech out here and see what they can do.

Oh, this is a boat project, so I had the cabinets open in all three sections of the boat. This took from about 9 am until 7 pm with breaks for lunch and dinner.

Reneé did her nails, went to the store, made the meals, and stayed out of my way.

After dinner we went to the amphitheater to see the show at 9 pm. It started with disco (recorded) and then an Elvis show.

I wandered inside to get a couple of drinks. As a disco Elvis is just not my thing.

We realized we have seen this show before. It wasn’t to my taste then.

BTW, we have history with this AC unit. When we bought the boat the unit that was in this location was dead, we knew it and planned to replace it. Of course, I bought the least expensive (read CHEAPEST) one I could find. I “saved” about $1,000. Of course it was a pain to install, Bob Miller did most of the work, and after a very long day, it didn’t work. We were out of time that day. I went down the next day and figured out it had a PROPRIETARY CABLE AND CONTROLLER, so when I replaced those it worked. Of course the controller is an LED type, meaning a very bright blue light in my eyes at night.

But wait there’s more!

It was very noisy!  After much back and forth, and having to pay an HVAC tech to come check it out, (coincidentally he used to be the San Diego representative) so he told me to call the seller back and give him his name and tell him it needed a new compressor. Oh and he didn’t pay enough for the investigation or work, so we spent about $500. So maybe we saved $500. Of course, 3 years later it’s not working again.

Up at 7 am breakfast and the net. John Pounder is due at about 9-9:30. We have added the aft air conditioner to our list of things that need help, as it is not blowing cool air.

John was here with two helpers, and finished removing all the wires from the arch. He will be back next Thursday to do some more work inside the boat.

Reneé added the following:

Today marks 42 years since our first date (give or take a day or two).  We got a little mushy recalling that fun fact.

After working in the morning we headed for the beach.  We set our things down on some lounge chairs under a palapa and walked along the beach for a while.  After our walk we cooled off in the pool and enjoyed happy hour.  There is an amphitheater here at the resort that offers weekend shows.  Unfortunately the show for Friday was Michael Jackson and that didn’t appeal to us at all so instead we did our normal routine of showers and a movie before bed.

Reneé got up at 6:30 to start laundry and getting organized, I got up about 7 we got breakfast, then Cano was here to help fold our sail, they are new and very stiff. Then the net, pretty short, not many cruisers left.

About that time John Pounder (the electrician) got here to continue pulling wires out of the Arch. Reneé took the laundry, Before she left, we cleaned out the part of the bilge under the shaft at the back of the boat, after she left I worked on the bilge at the front of the boat.

By about 1:30 John figured it was too hot on deck so he is wrapping up for the day and will be back in the morning.

We also defrosted the freezer, because why not.

Another productive day!

Up on time with a “plan” to get to church for the Bible study. But, we were late getting stuff done in the morning, then there was the confusion about welding work on the boat today or not.

So, we got the lines put away for the season. There’s a lot of lines to deal with, 3 for the Jib, but the sheet is over 100 ft long and about 3/4” in diameter. The halyard (goes to the top of the mast), and the furling line. The staysail has 3 as well, the mainsail has at least 9. Then the lines for lifting the dinghy and the outboard. All have to be taken off for the welding. This was pretty much an all day affair. Then the canvas that goes around the mast had to be put on. The welder didn’t come today, he got the panels last night to do shop work.

After, all that, I started working on the phone and doing some investigation on the internet about the smart solar controllers and our existing setup. I realized that we needed two more communication cables. I priced them in the states, about $19 each, (shipping handling and TAX in Mexico $93 for the two of them). My first source in Mexico $89 for the two of them, then I was referred to Marine Vallarta down here at 454 pesos each, delivered to the boat this afternoon was 900 pesos, about $45!

We went to the pool, stopped by the Pepper’s to get the food she didn’t want to leave on the boat. They are flying out tomorrow.

Somewhere in here we decided to give up getting an AB dinghy, we finally got in touch with our only hope for the AB dinghy, who had not been answering emails or returning phone calls. He admitted that he could not get one for us. We decided to go with a similar dinghy made by Highfield. I called Shelter Island Inflatables and bought one, now I just have to get it here. I am investigating with 3 importers we will see what it costs.

Up later than normal, about 8 am. We listened to the Net, had breakfast and read the Bible. Then took down the Jib, this is the second biggest sail on the boat normally. Mainsail, Jib, then Staysail, if we put up the Spinnaker that is biggest. Then Reneé took a trip to the store for buns for dinner tonight.

I ran the water maker as it has been about 11 days since the last time we filled the tank. We don’t want to have to run it while there is other work going on. So, when it was full, I checked out what we have used this year.
2,545 gallons of water, for drinking washing dishes and showers. All of that water has been dock water run through our water maker reverse osmosis system with the highest PPM reading of about 8 ppm. This compares to tap water in the states like this:

The upper limit of what is acceptable is about 500 ppm, most households are in the 350 ppm range or less. Anything less than 17.1 ppm is considered SOFT water. Bottled water is somewhat better most of the time: https://watertestingkits.com/ultimate-bottled-water-test/ but still is typically higher than what we are dealing with. In general, the dock water is supposed to be “potable” drinking water, before I run it through the water maker, but we like really clean water. If we make drinking water out of the ocean, we will probably be closer to 180 ppm or so.

Note mineral water by its very nature will have a higher ppm.

So, back to the statistics 2,545 gallons, we have been on the boat 162 days for Reneé and 152 for me this year (I went back and helped our son Nate move). Based on the 162 days, we have used 15.7 gallons of water. If you deduct half of when I was gone to average the use, it is a bit more 16.2 gallons per day. Or just a bit more than 8 gallons per day per person. (We did have guests for 8 days so maybe a bit less).

We went up to a Palapa (BBQ area near the pool), we were unable to get them to light the when we wanted it lit (5 pm) we could have had it lit at about 3:30, but they were too busy to come at 5 pm. Someone else had the area reserved for 6 pm, so we headed back to our boat with the Peppers (we had played Mexican Train and I lost again!). So, as we were walking back, I got a text from the welder Chava who said he was on the boat now. Remember we are in Mexico, I don’t speak Spanish and his English is not that good. He had said that he was starting work tomorrow AM. Turns out he was picking up the solar panels for work in the shop, the frame for the support. I really don’t want to be trapped on the boat again. It seems like I wind up waiting all day on the boat, and no body shows up for days, then they do at 5 pm.

Communications! I am done with my rant.

We had Italian sausage and watermelon salad with chocolate cake for desert. They are flying back to the states on Thursday, so this is probably the last time we will see them this season.

We got the jib down this morning, and need to fold it properly, it takes a bit of room, the sail is 57 feet tall, and 17 feet across the bottom of the triangle, and it is rather stiff material so hard to told/roll. We got the staysail down this evening. It fit in its sail bag without having to refold it. The Jib is going to take more work. On our list of things to do is to remove all the line on deck to minimize the damage from the UV radiation. To do this we run string in its place so we can get the lines back where they belong next season. Only problem is where did we stash the string from last year?