That sinking feeling

Panama City, Panama

The big day finally arrived.  Our scheduled haul-out time, 1:30PM on Friday, April 25th, was here.  We could have handled it better, but we survived and the boat is now safely out of the water.

The day before, on Thursday, we took delivery of a new set of batteries for our house bank, a set of Trojan T125's.  After much procrastinating, I had to admit defeat with the batteries that we had purchased only last January in El Salvador - they were just not holding enough of a charge to allow us to go more than a day without running our Honda generator, even when we had decent solar power during the day (which is not all that common any more as the days are quite often overcast).  We found a company that was able to supply the batteries, give us a trade-in for the old batteries and deliver the new and haul off the old batteries via a panga, all for a fairly reasonable fee, which made the decision a lot easier - the prospect of hiring a taxi to take us around to the battery shops, negotiating a price for same, then somehow getting them to the boat in our small dinghy was not something we were looking forward to.

On Friday morning, we were in full panic mode, getting the motor off the dinghy and hauling the dinghy itself onto the deck, then doing a preliminary cleaning on the bottom of said dinghy - what a mess it was, after sitting in the water for almost a month.  This did cause some concern for what the big boat would look like, and just how fouled up our propeller would be when we tried to move around to the haul-out facility.

Travelift suitable for much larger boats than us

We had the anchor up (the windlass battery was now up to full charge again and working fine) by 12:30, and started motoring around Flamenco island to the marina on the other side.  The best speed we could get out of the boat was just over 2 knots, often much less with the mild currents swirling around this point of land at the end of the causeway.  It took us almost exactly 1/2 hour to navigate the short distance (less than a mile).  We had arranged with the marina to land at the fuel dock at 1PM, in hopes that we could scope out the travel lift, as well as take on some fuel and water.  However, due to some serious communication problems with our Spanglish, we ended up bobbing around outside of the breakwater until they were ready for us to head straight to the travel lift ramp.  The only communications we understood on the way through the marina were the words "Mas Rapido" (Go Faster!).  We tried to explain that we were going as fast as we could!

Once we reached the travel lift itself, we motored in and gave the gathered crowd a lot of entertainment as we tried to throw our too-short dock lines to the workers on the quays.  There is nothing like a throng of camera-toting tourists, watching your every move, to really make things run smoothly.  Eventually, all was OK and they took us off the boat in a panga before they hoisted Sine Timore out of the sea.

After that, it was all pretty tame.

One look at the bottom of the boat made it easy to understand why we had couldn't maintain any speed.  Most of this growth is the result of just one month at anchor in La Playita anchorage - man does stuff ever grow fast here!  The workers started knocking some of the crap off before putting the stands under the boat - it actually seems to come off pretty easily for the most part, but it will take a lot of labour to make it look really good again.

We had contracted a marine surveyor to look over the boat, and he was there as soon as we were out of the water, going around knocking on the hull and taking pictures, etc.  Hopefully his report will allow us to renew our insurance policy next year.  By the time we were able to get onto the boat, and he was able to have his look around inside, it was quiting time for the day.

Saturday, Kenny the mechanic and I spent almost the entire day trying to get the prop shaft disconnected from the transmission.  That was one stubborn shaft coupling that had to be removed before we could replace the stuffing box.  The shock of the day came when we finally got the old PSS shaft seal off and discovered what it was hose-clamped on to.  When Kenny pulled the shat seal off, I heard him exclaim "That's a sinker!" - not words I really needed to hear.  Indeed, the aluminum shaft that was inside the hose-clamped rubber tube had been rubbing on the propeller shaft and had been partially carved through - if this had continued much longer, it would have started letting seawater in, potentially flooding (and sinking) the boat.  This is just one more example to me as to why the PSS shaft seal was not a good solution for this boat - something that I take full blame for as it was all my idea back when we put it in 7 years ago.

Disaster in the making...

Today, Sunday, the yard is closed and we are all taking a day off.  We have a lovely air-conditioned room at a hotel not far from the marina and we are thoroughly enjoying the huge bed and endless supply of water for showers, etc.  Today, we took the bus to the mall to get a few bits of hardware for the boat and mostly just to act like tourists for a day.

Just part of the great bus system here in Panama

Tomorrow, the battle of the stuffing box continues...

What stressed out looks like!