we enjoyed a few beers and eventually kirks girlfriend and her friend/mate came over from Joanna to join us. kirk and a few other boats had been planning a bbq on the beach in honor of our arrival (actually we just happened to pick the right day). we headed in everyone got a driftwood fire going and we cooked potatoes and onions and freshly speared fish directly on the fire. we augmented the bbq with a pot of mac and cheese con bacon (el tocino) which was a big hit as there is apparently no way to get bacon in the san blas. i stayed out a few hours past don to the bitter end and managed to grab some leftover fish for fish cakes.
the next morning we got up bright and early to work on the generator. it had been overheating and shutting down intermittently ever since we had the problem with the sea strainer. we went ahead and changes the raw water pump which had a small water leak on the shat seal even though the impeller was still good. after this fix and an oil change we where still getting an over heat after 5 minutes or so. on closer inspection we noted the coolant was low. we added coolant but noted there was a complex procedure to bleed the system. we completed this with still no joy. we continued debugging checking the thermostat and the fresh water pump, both ok.
by this point we where not happy we broke for a beer/lunch. as i thought about things over lunch i decided the genset really did not seem that hot, it was hot but not as hot as i remembered it when working on it after running a long time. i went back and found a thermocouple that came with my volt meter and started measuring temperatures. we got 50 deg C on the head temp sensor and the exhaust manifold coolant reservoir (i also discovered loose bolts on this responsible for the fresh water leak. after testing all the temps and finding everything ok i began testing sensors. there where 4 sensors in series that could trip the "hot" light and shut the engine down. i bypassed them all with a clip lead on by one and surprise surprise we continued to get the overheat situation. this basically pointed to a wiring harness loose connection somewhere.
it is impossible to follow the wiring on the thing so my next task was to figure out how to bypass the sensor network. fortunately the genset already has a push button that keeps the engine running in an over temp situation so it was as simple as replacing the switch with a rocker one i had in my spares.
we fired it up and after a few minutes the light came on but now the genset kept running. as we got the batteries charging to we could continue to increase our ice reserve we noticed that about 15 min in the light went out and stayed out. we will see how things go but for now we where able to declare victory and get everything back together for happy hour. it was a pretty mellow happy hour due to the party yesterday but kirk made an appearance. i must say it was great having both don and kirk helping on the debug, it was a full time job just to try to interpret the german translated english!
i had invited everyone over for fish cakes and poached eggs in the morning so don and i got off to an early start as i had never don either. the fish cakes came out great just a bit of egg bread crumbs and seasoning and of course the fish. i let them cool for an hour in the freezer to firm up and then just gave them a minute or so on each side in hot oil before baking.
the poached eggs where also a bit of a challenge but don got on the internet for some tips. i knew i needed to add vinegar and swirl but he discovered you can also par poach the eggs on at a time and them put them all in together for the final few minutes. this turned out to be key as the girls where not exactly punctual. i also had bacon and fried potatoes and onions along with hollandaise sauce. oh yes and champagne with fresh orange juice from our last oranges very decedent! alas i forgot to take pics :(
after the bfast we adjourned to the beach for some bochi. we went with "local" rules to start with which involved 2 balls and a specific course and some other weird rules. tomorrow we will teach them the palapa rules roving game concept!
so the activity for the next day was smoked fish for dinner. kirk and i worked on the teepy, basically palm fronds tied up with twine. we both sacrificed a sheet to cover the teepe and we where read to go get fish. i volunteered to guard the camp and the beer while everyone got their spears and headed off to catch dinner. as it turned out there is a down side to foraging for food. at sunset all we had where two medium fish and two very small lobsters. we smoked the lobster tails and the fish whole and both where great but with 5 of us we would have starved if not for the calories in the beer!
we did have a great sunset as well and a few more drinks back on palapa before heading in.
by this point we where running out of time before dons Spanish classes where slated to begin so we said good by to everyone and headed the 15nm over to povinira to check in. the checkin was painless but expensive 200$ per the boat and $100 per person but they do give you a year visa. after check in we worked our way over to elefante where don wanted to check out the "bar".
as you can see the bar is not much. smaller than palapa and on a narrow spit of sand. the beer was cold and cheep but we where too lat to put our dinner order in for today so we had another don raman tie peanut sauce dinner.
the next day we got up early and got back into project mode. we added diagonal supports to the bimini to keep it and the dingy from moving back and forth. there was no wind and we had to aport the whole project as we where bing anialated by no-see-ums. we actually moved the boat to another less protected anchorage with more wind. of course the navionics charts here dont work and larry still has my americas chart chip so the only thing on the nav pod is dottle lat long lines.
we got moved into a new little area in between several reefs again in 50 ft of water and got back to work. we got the project completed with only a minor hiccups nothing fell overboard always good when in 50 ft. as we finished up we where joined the our little anchorage by this massive sail/motor/ferry looking thing. it was full of 20 or so backpackers coming over from cartagena columbia. fortunately we got our food order in early and the bar was much more lively. they each paid like $500 for the 3 or 4 day trip over.
kirk had organized a ride over from elefante to the mainland for don so the next morning at 8am we went over to put him on his "ferry" it was just him on this ponga with a couple of 100 hp engines on it. he reported he made it and got a cab into panama city w/o trouble. i have one day off and then pick seth up first thing in the morning at porvinir airport.
Cheers
Roger
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