SV Sine Timore: All work and no play

Paradise Fishing Lodge, El Salvador

In contrast to the incredibly busy month of December, the new year has ushered in a much more sedate pace of life. Part of the reason for this is that there are fewer cruisers around just now, especially here at the western end of the estuary where Paradise is located. The marina, which seemed quite full when we first arrived, is now all but deserted. We are the only people actually staying on a boat. We would also have left by now, if only going as far as taking a mooring closer to Bahia, except for a series of setbacks on the boat maintenance front.

The most serious of the boat issues has been the cockpit drains. Early in the month of January, while doing some reorganizing of the cockpit locker, I came across a badly worn hose. After removing everything from the locker and hiring a local guy to go in there and remove the old hoses (it is a very tight fit for me), it turned out that it was not only the hoses that were bad, but also the fittings on both ends were totally rusted out - the result of using steel fittings in a salt-water environment.

The thru-hulls themselves appear to be OK, made of bronze, but the attached bronze valves are completely unusable due to being effectively welded to the rusted remnants of the steel hose adapters. My guy was able to screw one of the valves off, but the other one was impossible due to its close proximity to the exhaust hose. Before I let him cut it off, I decided to make sure I had a replacement plan in place. I needed new hoses along with some sort of hose fittings for both ends.

Thru-hull with valve removed

Valve that came off easily

Valve that does not come off easily

Drain holes at the back of the cockpit

Nasty glued-in rusted-out drain pipe

Begging rides into San Salvador whenever they are offered and scouring the aisles at various hardware stores confirmed that there was no hope of locating 2" bronze fittings. So as a backup plan, I snagged some PVC fittings instead, and downsized the size of the hose slightly. Weeks later, with all of the materials at hand, I had the mechanic cut the old valve off. I then managed to squeeze myself into the locker and proceeded to install all the new pieces, with the help of copious amounts of epoxy, silicone and heavy-duty hose clamps. All in all it doesn't look half bad now!

PVC drain replacement - epoxied-in

New PVC fittings and drain hoses

Our poor weathered bowsprit is looking much better now as well. We found a carpenter who was able to repair a lot of the cracks in the wood, thoroughly sand it to smooth perfection, then cover it all with a couple of coats of epoxy. Hopefully this will extend its useful life a few years.

Before

After

Looking good!

We have a working VHF radio again. Against all odds, I was able to buy an in-stock sailboat VHF antenna at a marine supply store in San Salvador (the same store we were trying to find last month when I managed to half destroy our rental car while going the wrong way down a one-way street - the details of that adventure are just too complicated to go into here).

Two trips up the mast and I had the new antenna installed, working perfectly as far as I can tell.

Of course, the most anticipated project was the new sail cover and lazy jacks. Doyle sailmakers came through on time and it was shipped from Barbados on January 20th via FedEx, arriving at the El Salvador airport one week later. One trip into San Salvador and two trips to the airport, along with lots of pleading, begging, threatening, an incredible amount of paperwork and significant amounts of cash later, the sail cover was released from customs into my welcoming hands. According to everyone we talked to, including the agent we had to hire, getting something through customs in just over one day is some sort of "miracle".

Over the last week I have gradually installed the new cover. This necessitated a couple more trips up the mast to install some new pad-eyes and blocks, then removing the sad remnants of the old cover from the boom and finally persuading the new cover onto the boom with the new lazy jacks and all, and we are almost done. It looks pretty good but will need some final adjustments with the sail raised. We also have to modify the front cover piece a bit because when I measured the circumference of the mast, I did not take the protruding winches and mast-steps into account. Oh well - it is almost perfect...

We are finding that work, especially outside on the deck under the unrelenting sunshine, is a very slow process, requiring frequent breaks to cool off and rehydrate. As a result, it never seems as if we accomplish very much, given how long we have been here.

The weather here in fact has been a bit cooler in January than in December. Daily highs are still in the mid 30s during the day, with lots of humidity, but a lot of the nights have dropped into the low 20s, which actually feels cool to us now.

We have managed to do a little socializing with the few other cruisers around, Sunday gatherings at Casa L&L and a few lunches or dinners out, finding a couple of restaurants we had not known about before, but generally Susanne is complaining that she is not having enough fun.

To try and alleviate this "no fun" situation, we made plans to get out of the marina and head to one of our friend Bill's moorings this morning on the early high tide. Unfortunately, while idling, waiting for slack water to arrive, the engine overheating alarm went off. The temperature gauge confirmed that all was not well and with tears in our eyes, we shut the engine off.

The good news is that the alarm works, something I have been sceptical about ever since our false alarms a few years ago which forced me to replace the temperature sensors and gauge several times. The bad news is that the engine is actually overheating, for reasons which are not yet known. Needless to say, we are once again firmly attached to the dock here at Paradise, until further notice.