Good news/bad news (maintenance update)

So there are several pieces of good news:

My wounded finger is doing fine. I didn’t realize people would take Sherry’s guest post so seriously, but people have and several expressed concern about my injury. The cut from the knife was pretty deep and plenty bloody and took some rags, some gauze, some bandaging, and the better part of a day (ok, several days) to stop bleeding. But really, it was just a cut. The lesson learned is one I always teach to any kid who ever picks up a knife: make sure that when the knife slips it has a safe exit route and won’t slip into any important body parts. I neglected to follow my own advice and was using the knife to do a non-knife task. Don’t need to go into it here, but basically I was in a hurry and was being careless with tools. Now I’m fine and am actually looking forward to an excellent scar on the top of my second-favorite pointer finger as a reminder and tough-guy thing.

Now that the sun is getting higher in the sky, we are making all the power we need just from the two functioning solar panels. (This good news comes packaged with some bad news. Keep reading.)

Cut open, cleaned out, waiting for epoxy and core.

Cutting the deck. You can see my wicked sharp knife clipped to my pocket. Gotta be ready to inflict grievous bodily harm on myself at a moment’s notice.

We fixed the little soft spot in the fore-deck. When I installed that blingy anchor chain stopper months ago we realized the deck was soft up there too. So yesterday we cut it open, scooped out the rotten balsa core, re-cored it with that fancy foam stuff, and epoxied the whole deal up this afternoon. Problem solved. Ellen the Fore-Deck-Monkey is pleased as punch.

Changed the engine oil and didn’t spill a drop. (Remember the fiasco last time? Learned my lesson.)

Partner Jim is back in Maine, received the replacement solar panel this afternoon, and sent it on its way to meet us in Georgetown next week. It’s a bigger panel (175 watts instead of 120 watts). We hope it fits on the dodger. (We measured, but still you never know.) And when it is up and running, we will definitely have enough power to run the electric train set, the hair dryer, the lava lamp, and the neon Budweiser sign.

Here’s the bad news:

The reason we are making all the power we need is because we are no longer running the water maker. Why? The water maker is dead. Careful readers will remember the water maker started producing water with higher and higher dissolved solids (salt) about a month ago. Things got much worse two days ago so I called the guys at Brewer South Freeport Marine who installed the thing to see what could be done to get some manufacturer warranty service down here. (Short answer, Spectra, the manufacturer, is not really showing the kind of customer service I would like to see. I have no doubt they will ultimately stand behind their warranty. But at this point they are not particularly responsive, focused, or involved in what is a pretty big deal to us.)

This morning the water maker completely failed in its efforts to produce safe drinking water. The parts per million (ppm) were crazy-high and it looks like I will be taking the thing apart to replace o-rings (at a minimum) and membrane (worst-case scenario) when we get to Georgetown next week and pick up parts.

That’s the update. We enjoyed a couple of peaceful nights in a bay south of Black Point and today moved up to Black Point to get water. Tomorrow we head south to check out a cave, some snorkeling spots we’ve been looking forward to, and ultimately the kid boats back in Georgetown.

In the meantime I have been reduced to toting jugs of water from shore to the boat. It is demeaning and exhausting. I am not sure I will be able to recover my dignity or my strength, so this may be my last post.