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30 April - Haul out Wednesday 20th, we had the boat booked in for a haul out. We got up nice and early, got the boat prepared. The guys from Tijax helped us on our way by pulling up the anchor and all went very smoothly. We were off and on our way congratulating ourselves on the fact that we didn't do anything silly and how well it had gone, when we heard a whistle from one of the anchored boats. We looked around and saw our dingy making a quick escape in the distance! We had to do a quick U-turn and retrieve it! Oh well it went fairly smoothly. Got to Abel's (the haul out place) and the boat who's place we were taking was on its way out, so all was going well. I took my first dingy trip on my own and took the hand held radio with me so I could let stuart know what was happening. We were still on for coming in. I was meant to radio Stuart and let him know what was going on, but when I tried there was no answer. Somewhere along the way we had got our channels mixed up, so we ended up shouting at each other from the shore to the boat! Must have looked very silly with a radio in my hand and shouting at the top of my voice!! "Can't talk now, I'm in the marina!!!" (has to be done in comedy phone man way, some of you will get it!). Anyway, Stuart gets the boat into position between the struts (click here to see pics) turns out our draft is too big and we don't fit on the machine! It's not too much of a problem though as they have another track which goes deeper and they could fit us in, in two days time. Instead of going back to Tijax we moored up alongside Abel's boat and stayed there for the two nights instead! It was quite nice being away from Tijax and seeing some new scenery. We got hauled out pretty smoothly on the Friday, and the guys pressure washed the bottom. Right over to Stuart now, for intimate details on boat stuff (you girls can look away now!): Haul Out Surprises, what were we going to find? I knew already that the boat was going to have some degree of osmosis, it was only a question of how bad, so obviously that was my primary concern when we were hauled. It was to my surprise that although there was osmosis, this turned out to be the least of our worries. First of all I have not had a boat hauled on a railway before as these seem to suit long keel sailboats or power boats. Marie has a deep fin keel so with the fact that we had to use the largest and deepest slip, it was like trying to balance the boat on a tight rope, especially when we came back from town to hear all the dock yard workers saying "no me gusta" (IDon't Like It.) and looking at the boat in a worried fashion. This aside, the hull had many minor blisters with only a few deeper ones, I was a little surprised as she had been in fresh water for 3 Year's My greatest concern was the cutlass bearing or P bracket as on the way to the slip there had been a lot of vibration from the transmission. This was confirmed when I looked at the bracket to see the cutlass bearing had been spinning inside its bracket and there was a spilt in the P bracket from end to end !!, This was the most stressful part.
The result was Abel was able to get special arc welding rods from Guatemala city and arc up the bracket and I could fit the bearing in at a later date under water when it arrived. So the next problem was getting a cutlass bearing, we immediately went into town, straight to the Crowbar (Local PUB) with the old bearing and asked the sailors that were there. As normal 5 people there, 5 different answers. Varying from, no chance only from the USA , to maybe in Puerto Barrios, but our best chance seemed to be our French Canadian friends.(Quebecers) They had a friend who was coming from Montreal a day later they could email him in time, then he could bring one with him. 2 days later nothing had been said so we took it that they were unable to get hold of him. We didn't want to pester, so we left it at that and ordered one online. The next day we were having a beer in Chiki's Hardware store under the bridge, chatting with a couple of guys we knew, telling them of our woes when Mike said , what size bearing is it? I think I have one in my garage! He only wanted 15 dollars for it? After purchasing this one and the one off of the internet, the French Canadians told us that their friend had missed their flight and was having to drive down here from Canada, and may well have the bearing with him ! Bees We discharged all advice and seeing that the bees where still there, we got Scott back on the case. He came over with all his bee gear. Smoked them, got himself covered in bees (only boys would want to get covered in bees!?) then put them all in a bag! Click here for bee piccies. It was mad! He said he wont have got them all and some will still linger around for a while. The next day when we went back to the boat, Stuart could still see a few in there, so we left them to it and went back to working on the boat. About 30 mins later, there was a loud buzzing noise and hundreds of bees all came out of the locker hatch, swarmed around the front of the boat of a while then all flew to the nearest tree where they all settled down in a large lump! It was very strange, and there were a lot of bees to come out considering how many Scott removed yesterday. It also made us realise that when the bees came in, it must have been a massive swarm and the guys at the boat yard must have seen it, which was why they were all staring at us, the buggers never said a word!!! Anyway we are bee free now, thank god. Tow I got the dingy over to the boat as planned and tied on. The boat was released and the guys gave it a shove to get it going. I moved the dingy forward a bit, Stuart said give it more power, so I did, but the dingy didn't go forward it just swung round in a circle and ended up at the back of the boat!! Stuart was shouting at me "what are you doing!!!" and I was shouting back "Its not me! Its the flippin dingy!!" and it wasn't me!! The boat was too heavy for the dingy to tow from the front! Well I'm now careering all over the place in the dingy, the boat is getting hazardously close to the reeds (the blokes in the marina couldn't give a toss, we were no longer paying them!) Stuart jumped down into the dingy and managed to get us a little further away from the reeds. I then got back on Marie and Stuart began to tow. Luckily for me, it did the same thing again and next thing I knew stuart was in the dingy behind the boat, rather than in front of it towing as he should have been. We needed another strategy! Stu decided the best thing to do would be to tie the dingy to the side of the boat to give us more control, and with doing this and me steering Marie, we managed to get back safe and sound. The guys from Tijax came and helped us back into the mooring so it all looked pretty smooth. Good job they hadn't all seen us 30 minutes before hand! And that is the end of our haul out adventures! (Hopefully) 19 April - Dingy fun Since the last update it really doesn't feel like we have done a lot, but I suppose we must have done! A lovely couple Lody and Don lent us their dingy on the 9th April, so we have been mobile ever since. This has made things a lot easier and we have been zooming about all over the place. Click here to see pics of what we have been up to. We went on a mission with our new powers of getting around, taking a look around the river, visiting different marinas and generally getting to know what's what. We took a trip over to El Castello de San Felipe. This was built in 1952 to keep the pirates from looting the villages and commercial caravans around Lake Izabal. The pirates managed to capture and burn the fortress in 1686. The pirates then disappeared from the Caribbean in the next century and the fortress was used as a prison. The castle was eventually abandoned and the present fort was reconstructed in 1956, where it now serves as a tourist attraction. There we go, a bit of history for you there, so we are a little bit like the pirates of the Caribbean, but without all the looting and stuff! We have a boat and drink rum, that's pirate enough for us! I suppose the biggest job that has been done since the last update, is changing the hot water tank. This I think has been Stuarts most painful job so far. It all started when the bilge pump kept running making us wonder where all the water was coming from. Stuart soon realise that the pressure had blown the bottom out of the hot water tank. He then set to taking the old tank out, he soon found out where the leak was when he lifted the tank, the top part came up but the bottom part stayed firmly attached to the boat, well when I say firmly, however firm a big pile of rust can be! Obviously we could no longer use this tank, but as luck would have it, when we pottered over to the swap meet on Saturday morning someone was selling the hotwater tank we needed. Right, new hot water tank fantastic, this was fitted without too much trouble. Just as we though we were pretty much there, one of the fittings on the water pump started leaking from a small crack, on further investigation Stuart managed to snap the whole thing off. Now he has to fix the water pump, we managed to buy a new one, which was good news, but pretty much every time Stuart fixed one bit another bit broke, or leaked. The problem is as solved as it can be now, with only minor leakage, so we now have pumped hot water! We are currently getting a frame made up by Carlos the welder, for our new wind generator to go on. We have had the main sail repaired by another local man. It is in particularly bad condition though and we will need to get hold of another from somewhere. As you can see from the pictures we have been having a fair bit of rain here, which you will be pleased to hear. On the first day it rained 5 inches in 24 hours! It was quite nice for it to be cooler, and appears to have cleared the air quite a lot. The weather has been much more bearable in the last couple of days. The boat is not 100% waterproof though and Stuart got dripped on by leaky windows in the night, which he wasn't too pleased about. Luckily I did not get wet at all! We are now in the process of trying to sort out our boat papers. They are 2 years out of date, so we will have to pay a fine, so are trying to find out how much that will be, fingers crossed it won't be too extortionate. We had a new arrival in the marina, a very large boat! This has caused a lot of excitement round here, everyone speculating as to who owns it. The crew brought it in, they seem very nice, the owner then turned up today. They filled the boat up with diesel today 5000 US gallons, it must have cost them £5000! Wow, That's 66 times more expensive than my little car HUF was! Its not surprising it needs this much fuel with twin 16 cylinder turbo charged diesels (for all of you boat people, will mean nothing to anybody else!) We should be getting the boat hauled out tomorrow. We have it booked in, but apparently things change all the time round here so nothing is guaranteed. All being well the boat will come out and we will be able to get some work done on the bottom, to finally get her all ship shape. -------------------------------------------------- 08 April - Progress so far We finally managed to get a gear shift cable the correct length, which Stuart has now fitted. Which means we will be able to go forward, rather than just backwards now. We got a guy from a local company on the river to build us a bimini cover, to keep us nice and shady on the boat, click here to see pictures. This only set us back £160 which we thought was quite good value. We have also got another local guy (Arnoldo) on the case of building us some new boards for the base of the dingy. This was quite fun trying to explain what we wanted as we just happened to see him working on some furniture in his yard so thought we would approach him regarding the work we needed doing. He spoke very little English and we spoke very little Spanish. The phrase book hasn't been much use as it doesn't tell you how to say things like
Anyway with much arm flaying, speaking louder and repetition on all sides, we think we all now understand each other. We took the broken boards over to him the next day and he said he will have them done by Saturday. So fingers crossed it will all go well and we don't end up with a new dinning suite instead! We have had another stroke of luck on the dingy front. In the pub today we were chatting to another couple from our marina and they just so happen to have a spare dingy with engine. They have barely ever used it and have offered it to us to use whilst we are awaiting ours to be completed. This will be a major bonus as when ever we want to go anywhere we have to wait for the launch to ferry us there and back, and we can be waiting up to 40 minutes a time. The launch also only takes you into town and back so we haven't been able to venture to any other marinas. This way we can just go where we like when we like. The main sale is pretty well damaged but we found out of another local man who will sew anything for anyone. We have taken the sail in to him to be fixed. Along with a few cockroaches! The manager of the local bar gave us a lift to the sail man, so we left the sale in his bar over night. When the guy pulled the sale out of its cover the next day the most enormous cockroach leapt out at him, giving us all a bit of a turn! The sail should be ready next week. We managed to get the cooker up and running after Stuart found bottles of Surgical Alcohol in the supermarket. The cooker runs on Denatured Alcohol, which everyone has said is impossible to get around here. We were thinking that we would have to fit a new cooker, which would have been an unnecessary expense. Anyway we brought the supermarket out of Surgical Alcohol and after Stu gave the cooker a bit of a going over, we got it to work! We have since found somewhere that sells Mineral Alcohol which also does the trick and looks less weird than buying stupid amounts of Surgical Alcohol! The cooker is now up and running. We managed to get hold of a AirX Marine Wind charger, which will keep the batteries topped up and will keep us in day to day electricity when we are out at sea. We have also got a local guy on the case of making up the frame for this to sit on the boat and this should be completed some time next week also. So we are slowly getting there on the boat front. On the day to day side of things most days start and end in much the same way. We tend to get up fairly early, wander into town, find various people to help us get bits with the boat sorted, maybe have lunch, then back to the boat. Stuart will then do some work on the boat and I will do something exciting like washing clothes, or plates!! My job description is now washer woman! Then we may pop back into town for a few beers, back for some thing to eat and some rum, then bed! Its pretty much the same each day. It is a bit of a problem to stay away from the pubs as the guys who own the bars are the ones that help you get all the stuff done for the boat, so we have to go there! The mozzies are on a mission to eat me to death at the moment. I did pretty well for the first 2 weeks and wasn't bitten at all, where as Stuart was. They appear to have got sick of him now and have moved on to me. I do hope they find some one else to move onto soon as I am getting a little sick of them and am especially annoyed with the one that bit me slap bang in the center of my forehead the other night. I now look like I have two heads! Stuart is very impressed as we have just had two bats hanging upside down from our new bimini cover! It must be good quality if the locals want to live in it! Right I am off to cover myself in mozzie repellant in the hope of not getting bitten tonight, I hope it is not too late! -------------------------------------------------- 02 April - Sailing diary??? For all of you who are thinking that this sailing diary has not much to do with sailing and were looking forward to hearing lots of things about engines and stuff, here is a section from Stuart for you: When we first came to the boat we were a bit worried as to what we would find, so of course the first thing I did when I got here was try and work out what I needed to do and try and calm my nerves. The engine turned over by hand so was not seized which was good. The batteries were completely dead so all needed to be recycled and replacing. We did pretty well with getting the first battery, when after not seeing any Americans at all for the first few days we stumbled upon there hide out! Bruno's bar. They guy who runs it Steve helpfully took us to the local battery place and drove us back to town with our new battery. The head (Toilet) had been leaking water into the boat, but after I took it apart descaled it and replaced some seals it seems to work ok. The wood floor was rotten in places, which was a little worrying as I did not know what was underneath, but after some investigation eg pulling the whole floor up, it turned out the wood was laid on top of the internal moulding, which was a non slip GRP floor. That helped us out a lot the quote we had to replace the floor was $3500.00. Click here to see pictures of the floor being removed. The bilge pump worked which I was surprised about, the tender was still with the boat though the floor boards had some damage, in fact they had been completely smashed to pieces. The transmission works but the gear shift cable was completely ruined and has been somewhat difficult to replace, So Sarah may have to stick her hand in the engine to change gear. The most frustrating thing is that a shop down the road from us sells the exact cable that we need, but they will not sell it to us as they don't know how much it costs! We have been back every day since but still have no joy! The filters for the engine, we managed to get from an auto shop, where they just search through everything until they find something that will fit. The battery charger has now been fitted and works well, we have three new batteries, one starter and two golf buggy batteries (deep traction) as recommended by the local hairy sailors. Shore power works fine and we are having a new bimini cover made and fitted for £160, that's if the guy ever shows up again! The main sail is going to be sent off to repair, we have no price on that yet though. The anchor has been nicked so we need to get some more. Soooo, that is why there is no sailing news as yet, We are much like the rest of the sailors on this lake, who seem to spend more time in the pub! -------------------------------------------------- |