Parts

For the last few days we’ve been building a list of parts we need for a few projects on the boat so that we could go out on a single mission and acquire as many as possible in a single effort. In the morning I was able to figure out how to make my TV Link feed to my chart plotter so the parts necessary to make that permanent were added to the list.

We went ashore and first visited the Abernathy marine store right by the dinghy dock and picked up some replacement dive boots as mine are falling apart and a bit tight. We then grabbed an English speaking taxi driver to go shopping. The usual deal around here is $10/hour running around town. It’s a pretty good deal as you get a translator as well as someone who knows their way around town. After four and a half hours we managed to get everything on our list bar some copper foil plus a whole bunch of things we saw and realized we needed.

A nice surprise along the way was bumping into Steve & Trish from Curious in one of the stores. They’re currently berthed in Shelter Bay in Colon and are due to transit next Sunday. It’s possible we’ll bump into them in Las Perlas. We also received a nice call from Gerald and Dianne from Whiskers who had recently bumped into friends of ours on Bristol Rose and Jackster in the San Blas. Jacksters will be transiting in February so we’ll have to wait until the mid-Pacific to meet up with them again. Bristol Roses are whizzing through on the World ARC so we have a chance to see them in Las Perlas too. If we miss them there they’ll be way ahead of us as they’re on a pace to reach Australia by August.

Back on the boat I tested the 4 gallons of distilled water we’d bought. It was no better than our water maker water so that was a waste of money. As we wanted to do a battery inspection we used the bypass I had installed a few months back to run our on board water through a second time to make nearly pure water. After one cock up and a lot of mess we managed to make just under a gallon of battery water at the expense of a whole tank of on board water. Worse still I didn’t realize we’d used the other tank with recent washing so we were down to almost nothing. We managed to get the water maker going but with difficulty as the water outside was thick with crud and it kept clogging our primary filter which we put in new just a couple of weeks ago. Yach. We did check all the batteries and all was well. All the voltages were good and none needed any water so that was that.

During our taxi outing we had spotted and Indian restaurant and had picked up a card. We decided to eat there in the evening. The food was more like the Indian food in the US – nice but too salty. And a bit too expensive. Nevertheless, we’d have regretted not going.

What else. We have heard that our sail is fixed. We’ll meet Enrique today to hand over the cash and he’ll pick it up. He’ll do our paperwork to clear us out tomorrow morning and hopefully he’ll be back to the boat in time for us to leave to Las Perlas. Otherwise we’ll be off early Thursday morning. All we have to do before then is fill the freezer with food (today) and load up with diesel, including all our jerry cans as this will probably be the cheapest diesel this side of New Zealand.