Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Ahhh...Boat life!

Shortly after the last blog entry, we left for Isla Cedros in the rain for a change of scenery. The trip was a wet one with intermittent rain squalls, but we made it safe and sound to a very quiet anchorage. During the rain of the past week, it has come to our attention that several hatches are not exactly watertight and need re-bedding (remove, clean, recaulk, replace). This left lots of tools wet and rusting along with a bit of a damp bed for Ashley. Ahhh...the little joys of living on a boat. While in Bahia Ballena, there was a lot of leaves and trash in the water and it kept clogging our refrigerator cooling line. Ordinarily, this is no big deal because I just remove the line from the through hull (fitting that lets water into the boat for various reasons), clean it and replace it. Well, today was a little different. As I was removing the line, the entire shut off valve broke loose releasing a steady stream of water INTO the boat with no immediate way of shutting it off. I’m sure you all can imagine my intial expletive laden response. Apparently we would have no refrigerator for awhile, not to mention a HOLE IN THE BOAT! While I plugged the hole with my finger, Brady trimmed a cork to the appropriate size so I could temporarily stop the leak. The copper fitting that the valve was attached to sheared off leaving about 1/2 inch to work with. Fortunately, I had some plastic tubing that was the right size and with a few hose clamps and salvaged parts, I stopped the leak and was able to keep the refrigerator going. A proper repair will have to wait until we haul the boat out in Panama for bottom paint. The rain has since stopped and I was able to re-bed the leaking hatches. With all crises averted for the moment, we moved again and anchored near playa Naranjo in the Gulf of Nicoya. We were hoping for a town, but found only a ferry dock with a bar/restaurant. Brady and two of the girls did manage to find a quaint little village about 30 minutes walk from the ferry dock. After three days we headed back to the Costa Rica Yacht Club for some time at the pool and Sam’s B-day.