Almost out of La Paz

Monday 27th July.
After Spanish class I headed of to Soriano and Office Depot for some bits. I manage to use some Spanish to good effect, on the way back I found a route along the beach, past some of the spots I spied from the kayak the night before.

On the way back I managed to get a puncture. So I brought the bike down to the dock and put a patch on the inner tube.

I met a sailor in Malaysia who said I shouldn’t be doing that and I should just change the whole inner tube. I remember the shock at such a thought. What extravagance. Repairing punctures was something I learnt to do at a very early age, possibly aged 7 or younger. Bicycles where a big part of my childhood, I remember being scalded by my mum for bending the best forks I used to prise the tyre off the wheel. We actually had a few older forks and spoons which were in the cutlery draw, but were designated as OK to use on the bikes.

I wish the baba was in the picture below, then I would have: The boat to cross the ocean, the dinghy to take the bike ashore and the bike to get to the shops.

Tuesday:
A grueling Spanish lesson, but I can easily count to a trillion now if pushed. The puncture repair held and after shopping and homework, I spent a few hours trying to find a decent flight for Kathy to come out on. Definitely a case of two many options, and the multitude of search engine offerings only makes things worse.

Wednesday:
Today was fuel bug day. Here’s the thing with the diesel bug. Fungi or bacteria can live in diesel fuel, where the fuel meets the air, i.e. on the surface, air water and fuel provide everything needed for the microbes to flourish. It’s worse in hotter climates. On Lady Stardust they grew to such an extent that the bottom few inches of the tank contained a thick sludge made up bacteria and I had to dispose of 100 litres of fuel and spend a day in Cadiz wiping clean the inside of the fuel tanks. Modern diesel can be worse because it may contain high levels of organic bio fuel components, made from vegetables and organic things.
The fuel tanks are only half full and have been that way since February, so I won’t be at all surprised if I may have a problem waiting. I usually put a biocide in the tank on every refill, but I forgot this year. The problem often is only detected when the boat is bouncing around and the microbes are getting mixed into the fuel going to the engine and they clog up the filters causing the engine to stop due to a lack of fuel. This will probably be in the middle of the night when I’m trying to reset a dragging anchor in a big blow!
So first off I got the plans for the fuel tanks out, they were manufactured 15 years ago and I couldn’t find an inspection hatch. I was hoping it might be under the part of the cabin sole (floorboards) that is screwed down. I was very dismayed to see on the plans and order form for the tanks it states ‘No Inspection ports required‘. Why would you do that! If I need to clean the tanks out it’s going to be a nightmare!
Next step is to put a plan B together. There are two filters in the fuel line to stop contaminants reaching the fuel pump and injectors, checking my stores, I have one spare of each. So tomorrow I will head of to buy a stack of spares. I have never clogged a filter before, and in fact I think the engine main fuel filter might be a couple of years old now. But I have heard with the bug, the filters clog up almost as quickly as you change them. So I’m going to build a reserve tank I can plumb in, in an emergency. This will be something like a sturdy 20 ltr Jug I can fit an outlet with a tap on at the bottom. Then I plan to whip off the hose from the existing primary filter and run it to this new tank I can secure above the engine and fill from the jerry cans on the deck, which look clean to me.
By the time we get to Puerto Escondido, I should have used most of the fuel in the tank, and a refill with fresh fuel and some biocide should solve the problem.
I had the engine covers off to check the filter part numbers, so ran her up for a bit. She started the instant the starter motor engaged, which is always a great feeling. Although when I put the glow plug preheaters on, the power to the engine control panel dropped to a couple of volts. There’s a bad connection there, It won’t be long before that stops the controls working. At least I can work around that if needed quite easily. Looking under the engine, there was a little bit of oil in the tray again, also it’s down a smidgen on the dipstick, so that pretty much proves the leak is just dripping out somewhere, I was sure it was the suction drain hose connection at the sump, but now I think it might be the sump gasket. Either way it’s no big deal.
The engine ran well and the bow thruster worked after a couple of goes. I had a good bit of reverse thrust so it’s not as fouled as I thought, but I have a diver coming to scrub the hull on Friday. Since we fixed the injector in Japan, and the water pump in Canada, the engine has performed well.

Thursday:
Off early to find some filters and after cycling around 6 different ‘Motor Factors’ I accumulated an extra 4 coarse and 4 fine filters, a pretend tank and some diesel hose. All for about £40 which I’m very pleased with.

I just need to find a way to attach the hose to the tank (tanque en Español). I think the shopkeepers were amused that I made them repeat the cost in Spanish to make sure I understood. I wasn’t going to waste the many hours of counting lessons I had endured this week..

Friday:
I woke up in the middle of the night (well 6AM) after a bad dream and noticed a message from Kathy, it was a message from the travel agent saying there was a payment problem on the flight I had just booked her from Manchester to Mexico. It also said the booking would be cancelled if I didn’t resolve it before 8PM, but was that yesterday/tomorrow, and in what time zone? I couldn’t get back to sleep after that, and I ended up phoning the call centre and doing the usual thing of hanging around for ages as the queue was extra long due to covid etc etc. I had already booked connecting flights and a hotel in Mexico so it was going to be costly if we had to change flights. Eventually it was resolved and Kathy is now booked to fly out to Mexico city on my birthday in September. And I get to fly to Mexico City on my birthday to meet her and help her navigate her way back to La Paz.
I had a nice long chat with Neil, the Marina manager next. I explained I may be here until they find a vaccine, and was he ok for me to just roll on month by month, which he was. I also asked if he would keep my berth for me for August while I went exploring, at no cost to me, so I could slip back into it when I returned. He was happy to do that as well. Perfect, so that’s saved a few bob. Neil told me normally there would be a waiting list for my slip going into the end of summer/autumn but this year he had a few 45ft berths spare. He’s happy enough as the marina has about 70% permanent residents here, so his income isn’t destroyed like most of the hotels , restaurants, dive centre and tourist based operations. I called into the front office and cleared out with the ladies and got my port clearance, something needed now with Covid as I am only allowed to leave if I name the destination harbour.
After Spanish, I started taking the canopies down and cleaned the fore and side decks before moving the dinghy off the dock and dropping it into its old favorite spot on the foredeck.
Finally grabbed a beer from the fridge, slammed the front loading door shut as I always do and it bounced back at me, with the sound of metal landing on the cabin sole. I guessed I had broken the lock and started scrambling around the floor to see what I could find, which turned out to be the door latch , or half of it. The other half was bolter into the fridge frame. I was really tired and this was the last thing I needed, If I can’t close the fridge door, then all of our provisions for the forthcoming trip wouldn’t last long. I took the lock apart and examined it closely.

It’s a bronze bracket, that has snapped, I couldn’t see a quick fix, so instead went for the ‘smother it in epoxy’ approach and hope for the best. So I cleaned the surfaces up, mixed up some ’15 minute epoxy’ Mike from SV Ikigai had given me and left it overnight to set.

Saturday:
I’m up early and the epoxied bracket seems quite strong, so I get to work fitting into the lock, It goes in well, and feels solid, but a few hours later it’s broken again. The fridge seems to be staying cold, so we will go with it for now and see where we get to. A quick breakfast and a call to Kathy, then Arturo is here at 9AM. We finish clearing out the quarter berth, and get him comfy in there. Then we head off to Chedraui to provision. It all goes well. A Taxi brings our shopping back to the boat, we load up, bring in the aircon from the coachroof, remove the last canopy, throw off the lines and reverse out. Arturo pushed me off, we had an ‘onshore’ or ‘on-Dock’ breeze and Arturo didn’t get a chance to push us far enough off, as I was keen to get him on the boat and so as we were just clearing the berth the wind blew us back for a small kiss of the pontoon bumpers. No big deal, other than the fact I didn’t look as cool as I would have liked. I considered explaining to Arturo that that was how you’re meant to leave, but thought better of it. We had a little run up and down the channel, We could make 6 knotts which isn’t too bad, but I think with new antifoul we could improve on that. We anchored in the bay, not far from the marina, sorted the boat out, fenders and mooring lines in etc, than jumped into a very fast flowing current to cool down. Later we will take the dinghy to the magote so Arturo can explore the little mangrove creeks.
The mangroves were fun, but the outboard started to play up. I think I have dragged some dirt into the carb. Fortunately as we left the mangroves the tide was turning and the wind was strong from the south, so we were able to chug back very slowly to the boat making the most of tide & wind.
Arturo remembers that he needs a few more bits from the supermarket, so we decide to stay at anchor for another day and go ashore in the morning, I can buy some fresh petrol (gasoline) in case that helps. I drained the can on the last top up and I think that may have been part of the problem, plus I bought this petrol a year ago and it does go stale.

Sunday:
The temperature is so much nicer out here in the bay, and a lovely breeze has flown through most of the time. I sleep well, except for a recurring nightmare about not being able to conjugate the verb Decir correctly in pretérito, something I haven’t actually learnt yet, but the tutor in my dreams isn’t accepting that as an excuse. I can’t imagine how that has happened 😉
It’s cloudy, the batteries held up through the night, but at a lower voltage than I would like, so I don’t have enough power to make toast the Edison way, instead I burn some bread on the stove, but with some strong coffee it tastes great. After breakfast I pull the outboard into the cockpit, strip it down and replace the fuel filter and switch with the new one I bought. The new one is the wrong size and won’t quite fit. So I transplant the good bits I need from it onto the old switch and after clearing the carb, put the whole thing back together and cross my fingers. We launch the dinghy, strap on the motor, and It works great, then dies. Works great then dies, works great for quite a while then dies. After 15 minutes of running it’s good, but dies if I let it idle. I bet any amount of money, a real outboard engineer would know whats wrong in an instant. I need to learn how a carburettor works.
We head into town and get the petrol and a bit of shopping then back to the boat and a bigger tidy up. Swimming, more jobs and then I remember that I have some metal bars in the lazarette, Arturo cleans some glue off the cockpit coaming while I find a 1″ wide bar of aluminium stock metal. It’s nothing like as thick or as strong as the bronze, but I cut a piece off, drill some holes and bend it into shape. It feels really strong and due to total luck, the forces on it won’t bend it out of shape.

It took about an hour to shape and fit but it works well. It was hot work, so another swim in the bay was called for.

Arturo has been relentless in pushing my Spanish vocabulary and grammar, At the shop, the petrol station and even on the beach at the fishermans hut, I was forced to make best friends with the people there. I’m not sure how he explained things to the checkout girl, but she looked at me and started a fit of laughter. I try to stay dignified throughout.

I as sit here typing up the blog, Arturo is below cooking his favorite Fish soup dinner for us. He is making about ten litres, so we should be good for fish soup for the foreseeable future.
Later I am going to help him with his english translation, he’s reading some fairly mighty tomes in English and isn’t always sure of the meaning of phrases.
Today I corrected him on his pronunciation of ‘Gave’ with a hard G, I always use more of a J sound. Talking to Kathy she was emphatic Arturo was right and it’s a hard ‘G’ , I’m still a little in shock about this and wonder if it might be a north /south thing, Barth/Baff etc. I’m learning a lot about the English language as a by-product of the exercise.

Tomorrow is Monday, the fuel dock will be open so as soon as we finish breakfast, it’s up anchor, fuel up and head north. We hope to anchor in Falso Bay, weather and the law permitting, and this will be our last stop with a cell phone connection for a few weeks. I’m hoping there will be a vaccine when we arrive and we will know if the aliens really did send coronavirus to us, or was that just some nutty theory only an idiot would fall for!

Paul Collister.