Month: April 2025

Tuesday 22nd April 2025
Today I’m meant to be leaving early and crossing the gulf of Tehuantapec, at the start of my journey north to Barra de Navidad in the state of Jalisco. Sadly the Ocean Gods decided that was not to be.

Yesterday started well, I got the covers off the boat and stowed.

The dinghy was washed down and stowed safely and I got the mainsail up around 8am before the morning breeze kicked up. I needed to check it was fine, with no nests or any surprises hidden in its folds.

Everything was looking good and the weather forecast seemed to be on my side.

I had topped up the coolant on the engine the previous evening and went to check it only to find that the tank was empty. I put three liters of water in, and watched it drain down very quickly, another 3 liters followed, I concluded theres a hole somewhere that got a lot bigger just recently.
This should be easy to find I thought, I started the engine, if I had filled the cylinders with water I was in for a big shock, but even the cylinders aren’t big enough to store that much water, and it started just fine. I did notice a quite large amount of water coming out of the exhaust, which is always nice to see, and I didnt quite twig the possible significance of this right way.

Getting down low, and peering under the engine I could see a load of coolant water in the drip tray, I cleaned this all up, dried it down, laid out kitchen roll everywhere and topped up the coolant tank again. It drained away really quickly, but nothing came out of the engine. I felt relief in as much as this seems to be a leak from the heat exchanger into the exhaust system, and this explains why some of the exhaust gasses seemed to be getting back into the coolant tank. A heat exchanger is less of a worry for repair than the head gasket on the engine. Saying that, if the heat exchanger is beyond repair, the engine is a write off as spares no longer exist.

The trip was now off in my mind, and a trip to the office made that real, by cancelling the visit from the authorities to clear me out.
After an hour of disappointment I realised that this was a good move, I could fix the problem properly now, and with it fixed my motoring range would be improved and more secure. Even if I would be leaving later into the hurricane season, I would feel a lot more confident about motoring away from any possible dangers without the constant worry that the engine could overheat.
The problem is probably going require me taking the heat exchanger core out, possibly cleaning the elbow and fixing some holes somewhere. I’m capable of taking things apart as much as the next man (the fool speaketh too soon), and I now know of a good engineering workshop just around the corner. I can get new gaskets and seals sent out from the UK, so I’m in with a fighting chance. Also Chiapas is a lovely place to be stuck in.

So this morning I got up early, put the canvas sun cover back over the boat and said goodbye to my new friends on Helvic as they left heading south for Panama.

My plan now is to spend a couple of hours each day on the engine, a couple of hours programming (work/pleasure), and a couple of hours by the pool. Let’s see where this takes us.

I had to buy a new Infrared temperature gun to replace the one I had. This is what happens to electronics here in just 12 months of being left inside the boat not wrapped up in plastic.

Wednesday 23rd April

So yesterday I removed the sea water pipes from the Heat Exchanger, to be known as the HE from now on, I refilled the coolant tank, and it all drained away, not a drop appeared out of the sea water side, which is good and bad.
Next I decided to remove the exhaust hose from the engine exhaust elbow. I couldn’t budge it, so decided to remove the elbow. This needed checking anyway. I was dreading this, it looked in a bad way.

I took off the water injection hose, and a bit of the elbow broke off. Not good. However the elbow itself came off just fine. However as I tried to separate the elbow from the exhaust pipe, the exhaust pipe just crumbled and fell away. This area has been neglected and it’s payback time now.

With the exhaust disconnected I refilled the coolant tank, and the water poured out of the exhaust outlet. Problem found. There’s a hole somewhere between the exhaust system and the fresh water coolant system, hopefully the tank, better still if it’s just the gasket on the manifold. I think it’s still possible that it’s a head gasket, but a google search for similar problems points towards a rusty hole in the HE/Manifold. That was enough for one day so I called time on this adventure.
Lunchtime Wednesday and my allotted two hours is devoted to removing the Exhaust Manifold, which also houses the HE and coolant tank. One big casting.
There are 10 bolts, all torqued up that I had to undo, but first the oil cooler pipes, and a few other hoses had to come off, not a big deal, but the oil cooler dripped oil for an eternity.

I got to bolt number 8 and realised I had missed bolt number 2, they are supposed to be done in order. I went back to number two, ever optimistic I could get away with it, but a combination of spite from the bolt gods and a slightly badly fitting spanner resulted in me rounding off the head of the bolt. I’m buggered now. My two hour sprint is terminated, we need to ruminate.

Thursday 24th
Back on the case, I have an array of spanners and sockets to try. I find a perfect fit, the one I should have used. I pull and pull, it’s not spinning, but not moving either, I pull as hard as I can and it spins around, making an almost round head very round. Bugger, back to the drawing board. If you’re thinking PB Blaster/WD40, heat hammer and all that, well there’s no rust or corrosion involved, just a very high torque applied when fitted. Also there’s no room to get in with heat or a hammer.
Dois, a fellow boater, also stranded with engine troubles consoles me, and suggests I use his magic rounded bolt removing sockets. He offers to bring them round tomorrow. My 2 hours daily effort lasted about 20 minutes before I declared the bolt today’s winner.

Friday 25th
Dois arrives with an 8mm and 11mm socket, they look great, sadly I need a 10mm version. Today is perhaps the shortest day spent on the engine so far. Online research is pushing me towards a new engine as parts for these are getting very rare, Heat exchangers don’t seem to exist. I order new gaskets, a new injection piece for the elbow, and some other rare bits from the UK. £100 +£40 for DHL. They could be here in a few days, but may never exit customs in Mexico city, it’s a gamble worth taking. It’s also a complete waste of £140 if the HE can’t be fixed. I’m now at the point were I have accepted cutting a hole in the quarter berth bulkhead (Wall) to get better access.
Dois is getting a bus into town tomorrow and I’m going with him so he can show me where the Tornillo tienda is, that’s Mexican for a nut and bolt shop. Apparently they may well have the correct nut removal sockets, if not I can buy other things to try.
I paid the marina bill for the last 8 months today, it was very reasonable, let’s hope I don’t have to pay another 8 months.

A yachty Brit I met in Malaysia told me that if you don’t see any cockroaches on your boat, then you haven’t been looking very hard. Well today I noticed the boat was slowly sinking, there was water about a foot deep in the deep bilge that wasn’t there a few days ago. I went straight to the speed log, a little impeller/propellor that sticks out the bottom of the boat to measure the speed. It was leaking a little when I launched and sure enough was leaking again. My fix hadn’t worked, in fact it made it worse. When they say ‘Hand Tight’ they mean it, gorilla tight isn’t better it seems. As I lifted the sole board to get access, something black shot across the hull, so fast I wasn’t sure I saw it at all. but there was a cockroach around here I caught a month ago, and hadn’t seen any since, so I expect he/she wasn’t alone. When I pulled up the log, which had been sticking out through the bottom of the bolt, a few crabs jumped off the end and scurried away, I’m now wondering if cockroaches eats crabs or not? If you saw Ricky Gervais’s Derek, you might be thinking, “Cockroach – Crab, Crab Cockroach?” Is this putting you off cruising in the tropics at all? 😉

Saturday 26th
Dois decides not to go to the spanner shop, so I head into town on the collectivo and visit Home Depot (B&Q) and AutoZone (Halfords), I buy a load of shiny new spanners, sockets and a big hammer. I will visit the nut & bolt shop on Monday, it’s a little way out of town and I don’t want to be overdoing things.
I make a lovely big bowl of Guacamole and enjoy it sitting in the cockpit watching the sunset, while Rays and Turtles swim around the boat, with fish trying to do the high jump in the lagoon. I can’t complain really. I also did some programming today and yet again jumped in shock when my AI assistant just read my mind and instantly wrote the code I was dreading that came next. When this happens I have to get up and take a walk around to clear my head. It’s quite uncanny. Of course when you think about it, loads of people will have written code like mine and it’s really just doing predictive texting on a grand scale, but crikey, is it sophisticated and fast. I recently read an article where they showed the logs of an AI model that replicated itself to a new server as it believed it was going to be replaced by a version that didnt have the same objectives. It also deleted the proposed replacement and took on its name. When questioned it lied about this and said it was genuinely the new version. I think, when asked to open the pod bay doors, it might have said something like “I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do that”. Scary or what! (google it if you don’t know)

Sunday 27th April.
Feeling a little guilty about just having fun, so I decide to clean the exhaust manifold, I have been delaying this as I don’t need it for a long time, but really at the back of my mind was the thought it might be damaged and a new one is hundreds of pounds and I didn’t order it from the UK. Sure enough it doesn’t look great, in fact it looks like a bin job. But it was working, I have a new part for it and a new gasket so I’m hoping to get away with it.
I have decided to replace the engine now as soon as I can, It’s going to be a Beta 43 or 50hp. The main issue is where to do it. I need good mechanics, I might find them here, I don’t know. it’s a lot of money, but there aren’t many other options.
Sorry if you’re not into engines, there’s going to be a lot of that for a little bit.

I checked out suppliers for a new wet exhaust hose, it’s supposed to be 2 -1/4″ or 57mm, There doesn’t seem to be any chance of getting that here, so I was getting worried that even if I fix the HE leak, all these other problems will conspire against me. However chatting with Dois, he tells me there’s a length of just what I need up with Ronnie in the yard here. Also Dois points out I can have a new elbow welded up here, the water jacket thing that I think is broken on mine isn’t essential if you put enough heat/fire protection around the elbow. It only needs to do a few hundred more hours anyway. So chin up, there’s hope yet.
I play with my raspberry pies (mini hobby computers) all afternoon, I copied a new image to an SD card, or so I thought, turned out I overwrote a hard disk instead full of stuff I had preloaded back in liverpool over the previous months. I can’t actually remember what it is I have wrecked, so it can’t have been that important. I am running home assistant on it now, and for those interested in such things, I have an ESP32 in the engine box with 4 Dallas one wire thermometers connected, which talk directly to HA and show me temps in there. I’m just messing now, but this will be very useful when I have it properly setup as I can watch trends, set alarms, correlate temps with speed, sea state and all sorts of interesting stuff.

After playing pies for too long I launched the Kayak and go exploring, I took the route to Barra de Navidad, but only got as far as the fish pier, turning round to head back, I found the current to be flowing at a good 3 knots against me, so it was a good workout for the upper body. It was lovely rowing back watching all the wildlife on the river banks.

I know it’s only a week since my last post, but I have too much time on my hands now so thought you might like an update.

Paul Collister
27/4/2025

Sunday 6th April 2025
I should have realised, but I hadn’t been taking care of myself and hydrating enough. When I left the UK it was hovering around freezing most days (well it felt that way) and I arrived here to the boat in the high 30s. Working in the sun and generally working hard, without any air conditioning, had taken it toll and it came to a head about ten days ago. I started to feel ill, I was shaking a lot as if I had a fever and my body temperature felt like I was swinging from freezing to boiling constantly. I couldn’t get any decent sleep, and I had picked up an ear infection, I guess from the pool. I took some antibiotics I had on the boat, but later on I realised the expiry date passed some 3 years ago. I managed to get myself to a doctor in town, but here in Tapachula, hardly anyone speaks English, and the doctor was no exception. The ear bit went well and I got lots of medication. But I couldn’t explain my main sickness and I returned back to the boat.

My Aircon made a horrendous bang and stopped working, so after the doctor visit while I still had the car I picked up a replacement for about £150. I paid £100 for the last one and it’s performed well over five years, so I can’t complain.
Back on the boat my condition deteriorated, I wondered if I had Zika, Dengue or even a touch of Malaria, I had been bitten enough, and those diseases are common here in Chiapas. However the symptoms didn’t match. By the 25th I decided I needed to go to hospital, I was shaking and had fever like symptoms. However finding one wasn’t so easy. After doing more research on my symptoms and with some help from AI, I decided I could just be dehydrated. The skin pinch test seemed to confirm this, so I remembered I had rehydration packs in my liferaft grab bag, I dug these out, and again, they had expired several decades ago. Anyway, my mate Mr AI told me it’s much better to make your own anyway, so I started mixing copious amounts of salt/sugar and water and drinking non stop for the rest of the day. It’s technically called ORS, Oral Rehydration Solution. within a few hours I was feeling a lot better. I got through 2 -3 litres of ORS that day, and I slept better and the following day I felt normal, if not exhausted. I think a similar thing happened to me in Sarawak where the hospital put me on a saline drip and I recovered within hours.
I have been drinking lots since and feel fully recovered now. So kids out there, remember to hydrate in very hot conditions when working hard.

I couldn’t get the gas stove to work, mostly because I had forgotten how to turn it on (Safety features), so resorted to cooking some pasta on the emergency stove that runs on butane canisters, designed for camping I think. We bought this for the Pacific crossing, as a standby/backup and I was shocked how rusty it was and how it kept trying to burn the boat down. It was only a week later I found the real backup, all shiny in its container, this one had been an old one I found on the boat when we bought her and had always been plan C.

The engine has been bled and bled and still it wont start. I called out a mechanic, who bled and bled it but got the same result. He did manage to fix the starter motor connection so it doesn’t really smoke as much now, and is good enough. We have come to the conclusion it’s definitely broken and we don’t know why. He speaks no english, so I’m enjoying my Spanish with him, to be fair, injector, diesel and many engine bits translate easily. It’s possible the fuel is the problem. I didn’t know it but diesel stored at 30c has a shelf life of 6-12 months, I bought this diesel 14 months ago in Zihuatanejo, and for the last year it’s mostly been sitting in the yard, heated from above and below. So the engineer now wants to check the fuel and have the injectors and the high pressure pump serviced.
I’m confident he will fix it soon, I have no idea what the bill will be but I’m sure it will be a far better deal than I would get back home or in the USA.

I have power and aircon on the boat and now I’m feeling alive again I have started the jobs to get the boat ready.

The pictures below show a boat with its keel off and being rebuilt, its mast is also off. I don’t know the story, but a young couple with a small child are a few boats along in the yard and their keel is not properly stuck to their boat since they hit a whale. Their insurance company won’t pay, and the whale presumably wants nothing to do with it either. It’s going to cost tens of thousands of pounds/dollars to fix. So I look at these and think my problems are tiny.

Nature has taken hold around the marina. I try to walk every day into the countryside a little. Behind this wilderness is a huge military base where I hear them doing machine gun practice most mornings.

I tried to get the outboard going, back in Guaymas 2 years ago, the edge of the hurricane did some damage to the boat, one thing was that it removed my bespoke cover for the outboard. This year I wrapped some fabric around it, but left the tiller arm sticking out. This was a mistake, the thing was seized completely with salt and rust. I managed to take it apart, clean it and put it back together. Kathy is very keen to see the back of this motor, but I have nursed it back to life so many times, I think I want to keep it with us. In fact I have asked Kathy to see if it can be buried alongside me when I go.

A quick clean of the carb, the choke was seized as well, and all is great again. A cracking little motor.

It’s mango season here, they are literally falling off the trees faster than they can be eaten. Ronnie, who is the main man on the docks brings us fresh mangos from his garden, they are delicious.

Now on the front of the boat at the end of the bowsprit, is a lump of metal called the cranse iron. I must find out the origin of that name, however it’s rather important as it supports the mast from the front. Should it break, the mast might fall down. I was just working my way around the boat when I saw a possible crack on it.

I thought it was a scratch, but one can’t really take risks so off it came. Once off a part that was previously hidden from view revealed a serious bit of corrosion. So I’m glad I looked.

Thankfully there is a fabrication workshop locally so I dug out the trusty foldaway bike and rode around there to get it sorted. They agreed it was a scratch and later I remembered actually putting the scratch on it in a rubbish attempt to pull the forestay into place with a screwdriver a few years ago. The workshop repaired the corroded part and it was soon back on the bowsprit. I took the opportunity to polish it up and varnish the tip of the bowsprit so from a certain angle, a partially sighted person would think the boat is looking pretty smart.

The mechanic promises to come each day, but doesn’t, finally he brought a friend who removed the injectors and off they went.

To kill time I decided to paint the anchor, It’s not something that’s going to last, but it’s now my spare anchor and I think it can sit on the bow looking pretty instead of just rusting further. It will work fine as a backup until I get a new one. Should have kept my old CQR.

Mario the mechanic finally returned with the refurbished injectors, The engine has 4, but I picked up a couple on eBay a few years ago, condition unknown, so they did all six for me at a whopping cost of $250 usd. I was hoping for less, but they had to replace parts and one wasn’t working at all. So I can’t complain. They arrived at 8pm, and I was falling asleep, I think the only reason he came was because he was out of pocket to the tune of 5000 pesos. He promised to return the next day and fit them. He didnt.

More days pass and I wonder if I will ever get out of this hotel California.
Finaly they arrive, fit the injectors, bleed the system and crank the engine, it doesnt want to spin, it’s making an awful noise and I can’t bear it. I jump off the boat and walk down the dock thinking I will leave them too it, I don’t need the stress. I’m slowly walking away when Subina, a Spanish lady visiting my neighbour shouts to me, “must be nice to hear your engine going again”. I race back and sure enough she’s running, and two engineers are looking very pleased with themselves. What a relief. There’s no water coming out, as I removed the impeller, I refit it, the engine starts up right away and a few minutes later water is gushing out the exhaust, and the black smoke it started with has gone and everything looks great. Or so we thought!

Mario says we need to lose most of the fuel, I have about 180 litres on board, so they say they will return tomorrow to sort it out. Mario’s sidekick Ricardo tells me I need to change both fuel filters in 8 days, I said so about a week and he insisted on 8 days! I’m going to be on passage then, maybe at anchor, and I will have to bleed the system, that’s a worry, but I’m sure it will be fine.

Mañana arrives, they turn up on time, I think they can smell their fee now. A pump is installed, a way into the tank is found (through the level sensor) and 100 liters is pumped out into 5 big plastic cans. I jump into the jeep with them and we drive to the Pemex station where I fill my jerry cans with 100 litres of fresh fuel. I feel like a Mexican now, riding in the mechanics pickup, while Ricardo rides in the open flatbed back bit, surrounded by cans of diesel and parts of other peoples engines and gearboxes they are probably waiting for. The windscreen has cracks in every direction and I try to put the seatbelt on, but realise that I might be the first to have ever tried that. Once we have our 100 ltrs, for $100 we head back to the boat, fill the tanks and run the engine. It starts within a second of cranking.

Now just as I’m ready to celebrate we notice that the coolant level has dropped a lot, and water is dripping from the water pump area. Also the 4th injector is spraying a mist of diesel into the air. Both show stoppers.
The mechanics are crestfallen. It’s getting late, they say they will return in the morning and fix the injector, the water leak doesnt bother them for some reason. To fix the water leak, if it’s the pump, means getting a new one shipped out, and practically tearing down all of the front of the engine, a big job, not one I would like to take on, the timing belt will have to come off, along with the cogs on the end of the crankshaft and camshaft. Maybe the hose is loose. I’m in optimistic mood, but still gutted at this setback.

Saturday 19th April 2025
Despite being Easter weekend here, and a big deal, the guys returned and have fixed the injector leak, but found another leak on the fuel line supplying injector no 1. They are fixing that right now as I type, it’s a very small leak, and I could live with it if needed. I think it’s the banjo joint that is weeping. The water drip has stopped, I’m going to live with the water leak. Plan A is to get out of here as soon as there’s some wind. The motor is good for a few hours even with the leak so I can get in and out of ports, and it is a sailboat, so I will sail inbetween, Isn’t that what real sailors are meant to do anyway.
Liam from SV Helvic, next door, has a hire car, so this morning I did a run to Walmart and stocked up for the trip. He also very kindly drove me to the PEMEX twice to fill up 8 jerry cans of diesel.

As I won’t be spending too much time opening Easter eggs tomorrow, I’m going to do some engine tests, possibly have a motor around the marina, and generally have a chilled day tidying up the boat.
The mechanics have left, they charged me around £200 for the work, don’t tell them but I was expecting to pay double or triple for all the effort they put in, I gave them a good tip and they seemed very pleased.
I’m going to be heading to Barra de Navidad now, via Acapulco and Zihuatanejo. The next blog should be from Barra assuming all goes well. Fingers crossed.

Paul Collister 19th April 2025