Getting there and getting ill.

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