Chores, Chores, and more Chores !

Next day it was down to some serious work.  This is the repair job that Don has to deal with this year.  

A large crack appeared in the leading edge of the keel

One of the patches that didn't work

 

For many years now, he has done a little patch here and a little patch there to try to stop the water seeping into the bilge.  When we put the boat away last spring, he removed all the fibreglass off the keel  so it could dry out completely and is now going to replace it all, after filling in all the cracks that he can now see very easily . 

After two new coats of a much heavier fibreglass cloth, and lots more epoxy, it’s time for a new coat of bottom paint.  We still had one gallon of bottom on board, left over from the last paint job, but we will need another to do two coats.  In other years, bottom paint was readily available at any Comex Paint store, of which there are many in the area.   Just to keep things interesting, this year, no one has bottom paint available.  Apparently the company is doing a major overhaul to the style of label on the paint cans, and no paint is available for at least another week.
 

And what would the season be without a battery problem.  Sure enough, the bank with the Mexican LTH batteries is not taking a proper charge.  Once again, hauled it to the Centro de Servicios LTH for them to put it on their charger .  After a few days, they claim it is starting to take a charge, so they are not willing to replace it.  Hopefully it will keep charging, at least until we get to Mazatlan where there is another Service Center. 

The next few days were spent doing various chores, putting on sails, dropped anchor chain to install markers, replaced the heat exchanger, cleaned the stainless rails and the propeller, changed out the alternator, and installed a new battery switch and patched a bicycle tire.  Then it was on to washing down the sides of the boat with a soapy solution, up and down the ladder over 50 times in the day.  Don drilled a hole in the hull for a new thru hull for the water maker and worked on changing the anti-siphon hose in the aft head.  And who says retirement is relaxing ???

Finally received an e-mail from the paint store to say paint will be in on Monday.  Don got out the sander to do a final sanding before painting and nothing went right.  First the sander broke down and had to borrow one from John and next he managed to get some dirt in his eye, the good one of course, so time to call it quits for today.  

 

Since it looks like paint will be here soon and we might be able to leave next week, better get a few more things looked after, tightened up the keel bolts, inflated the dingy, filled up with water, paid our dues at the office and booked a splash down date.

Tried to start up the engine, but no go.  Don thought the problem might be related to the new battery switch he installed, so he re-checked all of his wiring and all seemed correct.  Took out the starter motor too ! It’s OK.  After spending the better part of the day trying to figure out the problem, he finally noticed that the ground on the engine was disconnected.  He must have done that when we left in the spring and had forgotton all about it.  Now, she turns over instantly, providing we use the house bank of batteries…it seems the LTH starter battery doesn’t have enough power to crank her over. 

The paint that was supposed to arrive on Monday finally arrived on Wednesday.  Alma from the Comex store drove it right to the work yard for us, and Don had it all on within a few hours.  Now, a day to dry and we should be on our way !

Except…we noticed a little drip in the valve on one of the new water tanks, so we’ll empty the tank into the other side and goop up the seal.  We turned on the water pump and got about 4 litres out when we heard a swoosh of water.  We hoped someone had just dumped out some water outside, but of course not.  One of the stainless steel hose clamps under the floor had broken.  So much for a nice dry bilge this year, we now have gallons of water to pump and mop out!  We quickly proceeded to change out all the hose clamps under the floor as they are all showing signs of rust.

Finally, after three weeks in the yard, we were being loaded on the trailer to go back to the water.  Started up the engine, before the trailer left, she started right away, but it did squak terribly loud, I thought  we had some very big birds outside, but it quit squeeling right away, so we headed over to the fuel dock to fill up, even though the GPS that was working just fine yesterday, didn’t seem to want to work today.   We know our way to Guaymas, we will fiddle with it there.