Boat maintenace in exotic places

Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico

In one of our favorite movies, Shawshank Redemption, Andy and Red go off at the end to live a simple life in Zihuatanejo.  This would have been sometime in the 1960's and it appears that things have changes a bit since then.

Up until the 1970's, Zihuatanejo remained a fairly quiet fishing village, but then the federal government agency, FONATUR, developed the resort town of Ixtapa, right next door.  While Ixtapa is now an upscale kind of place, with a modern marina and all-inclusive resorts and time-shares, Zihuatanejo has also grown into a vibrant tourist town, catering to Mexican as well as international travellers.  It's current population is over 70,000 but it still retains some small town charm.  The bay here is the furthest point south that most cruising boats that ply the Pacific coast of Mexico would usually go.  Many cruisers spend a large part of their summer cruising season right here.

There are two main anchoring choices.  Where we are, in the north end of the bay, there is easy access to the town but the water is somewhat polluted.  The other anchorage, along the long beach at Playa la Ropa, there is much cleaner water but it is further from town and reportedly has more swell - most boats use an additional stern anchor to keep them facing into the surf.  We like the convenience of where we are.  One of the best features of the town access here is a bit of beach that has been reserved for dinghy landings.  There is very little surf so landing the dinghy is not difficult, but there is also a team of young men who meet you as you come in and haul our boat up the beach, help you launch it again when you return, and look after it when you are away, all for only 10 pesos.  It is great to be able to just go into town any time and not have to worry about leaving your dinghy unattended.

We have gone into town every day, usually for breakfast and later for supper at one of the numerous restaurants.  One day we took a local bus over to Ixtapa to check out how the other half lives.  The marina looks nice and I understand the prices are not as bad as we had been led to believe, but there is little of interest in Ixtapa other than the very nice beach.  There was hardly anyone out and about at the marina or elsewhere when we were there.  We had a couple of lemonades at one of the restaurants at the marina at noon, and we were the only customers in the entire place.  In fact, as you can see from the attached picture, the marina itself is not all that busy either.

Awaiting breakfast at the Zihue Pancake House

Pozole, a regional dish and
traditional to the state of
Guerrero

The weather here has been very predictable.  Every day the high is around 30C.  At night it drops to about 25.  There is little or no wind to speak of.  The first few days it was overcast, which was actually more comfortable without the sun beating down on us.  However, our solar panels were just not getting the job done keeping our batteries up and I was forced to use our new Honda generator for a few hours to top them up (actually I have been eager for an excuse to try it out).  For the last couple of days, it has cleared off and we are generating quiet power again.

I have been using some of our idle time here to get in some boat maintenance.  One of the most annoying issues was with our "wash-down" system.  This is a clever system I installed back in Nanaimo shortly before we left to cruise south.  It is a simple system - just a tee off of a raw-water intake (shares the one used for the water-maker), a wash-down pump mounted in a back compartment, and a standard garden hose fitting on the exterior of the boat (I used an existing, never-used, fitting that was previously designed for hooking the boat up to a fresh-water supply in a marina).  It's primary purpose is to allow us to wash off the anchor chain as we are bringing it on board, to try and keep the mud and such out of our anchor locker.  We used it once since we left Nanaimo, in Montague Harbour on the 2nd day of our journey - it worked fine then (2 years ago).

Since we left Canada, we have either stayed in marinas or have been anchored in nice, clean sand, so we have not needed it.  But when we were anchored in the lagoon at Barra de Navidad, the bottom was a nasty, smelly muck, and we had to re-anchor when we arrived, bringing a large quantity of that unseemly filth onto the boat.  Before we had to take that anchor up again, I suddenly remembered our wash-down system.  I found the hose and nozzle, buried at the bottom of the cockpit locker, and got it all connected up. I turned on the little used circuit breaker and eagerly awaited the rush of high-pressure water at the nozzle.  I could hear it, but nothing was coming out.  Then I heard the screams from down below as Susanne was yelling "We're taking on water!".  I quickly leaped down the companionway and turned off the switch.  A minor flood was evident in the back cabin.

The problem was a simple hose-barb connection inside an awkward little compartment in the back cabin.  The hose-clamp had broken and the hose had just popped off and started spraying salt water into the little compartment, which in turn leaked down the walls and onto the floor in the back cabin.  The excess just kept right on flowing down through the floor-boards and into the bilge where the bilge pump did its job.  However, it left a bit of a mess in its wake, especially since the water in the lagoon was pretty vile stuff too.

Looking at the tight space that I had to work in, I left the job until we were at anchor in Manzanillo - of course now there was even more crap on the deck from bringing up the anchor in Barra again.  At that time, I could not see any easy way to get another hose clamp onto the hose and decided to just glue it on permanently.  I mixed up some two-part epoxy and thoroughly coated the inside of the hose and outside of the hose-barb.  I stuck it on an let it set for 2 full days before trying it again.  This time it held for almost 15 seconds before the hose shot off and water started spraying everywhere again - this time Susanne was ready at the switch to kill it before it caused too much damage.

Now, with lots of time on my hands here in Z-town, I found a way to get a new, beefier hose clamp onto the hose and used some 3M 5200 marine adhesive that I managed to find at the small chandler in Manzanillo.  This combination finally did the trick and I was able to give the boat a good salt-water wash down.  Next, we hired a couple of young men who were able to scrub the boat from end to end with a couple of buckets of our precious fresh water, then they did a wax job on all the gel-coat and stainless steel - the boat looks much better now.  We also had them clean the bottom of the boat and the prop - the barnacles were just getting out of hand.

Today, we took delivery of 80 liters of diesel fuel, brought to the boat in jerry cans  We probably have lots to see us through to the end of Mexico now, even if we have to motor the entire way.  A couple of boats that came into the anchorage in the last couple of days from the south, reported that they had little or no wind, all the way from Panama.

As for our plans, as usual we are making much less progress than we had thought.  Right now, both Sue and I have caught some kind of cold.  Sue has it worse than I do.  Originally I though we would be out of here this weekend, but after the last overnight passage we made when I had a bit of a cold, I am in no hurry to repeat that experience.  Since it is Friday now, and since we didn't check out with the Port Captain today, we cannot check out until Monday, I guess we will be hanging out till then and see how we feel on Monday.  It the great scheme of things, there are a lot worse places to be.

This is what happens if you leave your boat unattended for any length of time.