We managed to escape the seductive allures of the marina, cast off our dock lines, and make the 5 mile passage to an anchorage around the corner from town. The idea was to fill the diesel tanks, make a big provisioning run, then head north as soon as we got a good weather window.
Unfortunately our boat had a different idea; when we started the motor to leave the slip the water flow for the engine cooling seemed to be less than we remembered it. During the motor over to the anchorage we confirmed that while some water was flowing, it was less than normal. Since our next few legs will probably be pretty rough, we need to get this fixed before we can go on. Once more, cruising is defined as trying to fix your boat in exotic ports with no tools or parts.
Tom went through the entire cooling system without finding any problems, but the amount of water flow seems to be increased (fingers crossed). We wont really know until we get out and push the engine.
Other than moving, working on the engine, and ferrying 110 gallons of diesel over to the boat, we haven’t been doing much. It’s great though to be able to jump over the side of the boat for a swim.
We got to the anchorage just as Carnival was starting. It’s been busy in town with booths set up, kids running around with squirt guns, booming music, etc.
We first saw “the devil” running around:
He was running around acting crazy, collecting money for charity. I donated a handful of change and got my ear bit! All in fun:
They were also spraying water on the crowd:
Notice that the tanker they are using is the one normally used to haul gasoline around. They probably just emptied it of gas then filled with water, you see lots of things like that you would never see back home. We didn’t see the attraction of getting drenched with water of questionable quality, but it was very popular with the kids and teens, hundreds were dancing under the spray to loud music.
2/29 Update:
Tom once more tackled the cooling water issue and found a clogged tube:
It’s a wonder we were getting any water at all through that little hole. He cleaned out the tube, put everything back together and voila, gushing water out the exhaust! 
Speaking of passages, we’re ready to go but mother nature sure isn’t ready. For the last two weeks the wind and seas to the north of us have been very bad. Even one of the weather forecasters called the seas “ridiculously huge”; 20 feet with a 10 second interval! It looks like it’s not going to settle down anytime soon, but when it does, we’ll head north.
Cheers,
Carolynn & Tom
Always something ! glad to see you are still having fun in between those boat projects. We have the wind generator we are struggling with and our ice maker may have died...ice maker not so important, but we really need that wind generator for crossing the pacific. We'll keep in touch via your blogs and email. We are in peru now, land trip, head to Galapagos soon.
ReplyDeleteVirginia and Dennis