Category: Fix It, Jesus

AC Installation Sensation Revelation

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Dear Grousers,

If you feel the need to tell me I do not need AC, please stop reading now and shift to another topic. I knew all along I did not need AC. I knew all along there were many things I did not need. Like ice. Like cold beer. Like autopilot. Like radar. Like AIS. Like vegetables or fresh baked bread. Chilled white wine. Internet. Clean clothes. Tooth paste and TP. Yes, in this cruising lifestyle, there are many things one can do without and still live. I mean exist. Still sail securely. I mean with moderate levels of constant anxiety. Still have confidence. I mean prayer…

So, for those contemplating a similar endeavor, the gist is that the Dometic 16K units can be fit to replace old two-part units in V50. 

Additionally, I thought the following account  might prove useful. To complete my installation, I had to stumble in the dark through internet searches and trial and error. Here goes.

Our V50 had two defunct 16K BTU AC systems on board when we purchased it. We already had the vents and ducts in place. The original units must have been quality systems when installed in 2002. Compressor units were in the stern and blower units were located under fore section of quarter berth and under lower compartment beneath linen closet to right as one enters V-berth cabin. I removed and disposed of these units, a task in and of itself. I then removed runs of copper tubing and was able to free up space in wire channels. The tubing I did get some cash for at a nearby metal recycling outfit. I installed bases in both of the blower spaces based on the dimensions of the Dometic  16K BTU units that I planned to install. I then did nothing more on it for four years or so as I had so much to cover (autopilot, refrigeration, solar, inverter, life raft, epirb, hatches, roller furlers, metal work, engine work…) and AC was the last on my list.

As we came closer to departure date, I tried repeatedly to pick up a couple of units to begin the process but the numbers just did not make sense. I finally, when in Miami, gave up on the Dometics and decided to pick up a couple of Webastos. We would avoid the CA sales tax and the shipping, as I recall, was included. Signed the deal and then they tell me that it will be six months before they can deliver—but they had made in China units available right away. I wavered and then decided to forget it. Refund processed. Fast forward a year and we are in Catalina anticipating a stop in San Diego before heading to Mexico. Advice from a friend cruising in Mexico ran through my mind—whatever crucial items you need, better to get them before you cross the border. Delivery and taxes would be challenges and costs to consider. So, checked with West Marine and they actually had two of the units in their San Diego store. I had the cash saved, so I picked those up and staggered the installation: a bit in San Diego, another chunk in Asuncion, a bit more in San Jose del Cabo and then I finished up here in La Cruz, home of the dancing horses.

Notes on the installation

The fit

I was able to fit both units, one under the fore section of the quarter berth and one in lower section of fore cabin linen closet. Space was extremely tight so had to do some finagling. I had to angle the units in order to make enough space to connect ducts without pinching them. Also in the quarter berth had to cut out section between unit space and drawers to make it fit. For the fore unit, again, had to install it at an angle. Also, had to cut holes for feeder and pan drain hoses for direct connection as running them through main hose channel pinched them too much.

Note re. pan drains: Did not want to run pan drains to bilge as I did not want more water in bilge. However, with the dips and rises in the drain hose from units to stern thru-hull, the pans did not drain. Even after just one session of use, there was ¾” of water sitting in the pan, this despite my attempting to alleviate the issue with the installation of an in-line pump—no go. I elevated the pans with a strip of ½” ply under one end and ran the drains to the bilge. The pans drained. More than not wanting water in the bilge, I absolutely did not want water sloshing out of the pans into compartments, creating mold and rot issue. In any case, there is inevitably water in bilge from freezer defrost and water tank overflow. I had previously installed a diaphragm pump in stern to deal with this issue (best project—absolutely worth it).

Wiring

Each unit has a breaker at the panel. Power lines run from respective breakers to individual units. The pump has its own breaker at the panel. A power line runs from the pump breaker to the relay box. Then power runs from relay box to pump. Each unit has its own control box. A switch line runs from each control box to a connection on the pump relay so each unit can activate the pump. I re-used the original pump relay box.

The best part of this project was when it actually worked immediately when I had finished the install.

Reflection

Please. I have had too many codgers tell me I don’t need this and I don’t need that. Actually, AC was the last thing on my mind. However, the boat already had the vents and the ducting just sitting there.

“What are those vents for?”

“Oh that’s for our AC.”

“Really? How does it work.” 

“Well we don’t have any. I decided I did not want to spend the money and we didn’t need it.”

“Why is this beer so warm?”

“Oh, listened to old salts and decided I didn’t need refrigeration either.”

“At least this finger of scotch doesn’t need to be cold but it somehow doesn’t taste right.”

“Oh yeah, that’s some ersatz scotch that I bought at a trade warehouse liquidation. A real bargain. Apparently, they get the coloring right and just infuse it with the chemical smoky flavor.”

Saw my God Damn leg off! Is it a crime to actually want to enjoy a bit of comfort?! Jesus Christ. I was recalling July surf trips to frying pan Baja. Think about that. The middle of the day slapped me down flat like roach on a counter. Or med cruisers in Greece in August tied up to the quai, baking. You walk by and you see gasping bodies under cockpit tarp looking like Napoleonic troops strewn about a grime-covered Syrian plague ward. Oh the joys of sailing the Greek isles in August. Really? Honestly, as we head into May, it’s starting to get hotter down here. Thus far this AC has not just been a minor enhancement in comfort that gets a smug nod—it has been a revelation. An hour or two here and there have made a great difference. I know that the units could crap out at any time as so many things have a habit of doing. But they are working right now. Glory Hallelujah!

Yalpoudougou Jules or The Easy Way

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In the lower belt of the Sahel, in the middle of West Africa, on a blazing hot day, about three miles outside of Ouahigouya in 1984 I am standing in a line sweating with all the other bus passengers breathing in the hot dusty air wafting up from the rusty sun-baked land. We have been ordered out of the bus by a squad of commandos who are going through every bag one by one. 

It was maybe a year after the Sankara coup and there was a lot of apprehension on the part of the new government, a lot of good ‘ole revolutionary rabble rousing with pick up trucks blasting revolutionary slogans, “L’imperialisme! A bas! Le Neocolonialisms! A bas! La Patri ou la mort! Nous vaincrons! La patrie ou la Morte! Nous vaincrons! Merci Camarades!” As a part of the new revolutionary agenda, it was concluded that more teachers were needed and thus batches of revolutionary “teachers” with minimal qualifications were given a cursory indoctrination and, with opaque objectives, sent off to schools to assist in the new revolutionary anti-neocolonial, anti-imperialistic educational intervention. That’s where Yalpoudougou Jules comes in. He had a shaved head and always wore green army fatigues. He was skinny, maybe in the mid five-foot range and was a hard headed type, self-righteous and easily triggered. A number of meetings and social gatherings among faculty had, at his instigation, degenerated into polemical exchanges. A more adamantly contentious individual would be hard to find. He was one of these revolutionary teachers thrown into the breach, and he miraculously happened to be on that bus with me.  Also on that bus was a nice package of shinkafa (that was rice in Hausa, our code word for weed) and it was in my bag on the roof of that bus and a commando who had tossed down all bags forward of it had his hand right on it. That was when Yalpoudougou Jules saved my ass. He was already into the thick of a diatribe of increasing intensity that began when we were stopped at the anti-imperialism road block. He had a high voice and the words came quick. “Je connais mes droites! Je connais mes droites! Vous ne pouvez pas faire comme ca camarades! Vous ne pouvez pas faire comme ca!” Everyone was mum baking under the sun and those commandos were sweating right through their uniforms. And the sun was baking and baking and Yalpoudougou Jules was getting louder and louder. The officer was arguing with him back and forth and Jules would not back down. It was the sun and Jules and Jules and the sun and louder and hotter and hotter and louder and flop—my bag dropped down, sending up a cloud of red dust when it landed on the parched laterite. And when a soldier was just crouching down beside my bag, to open and search it, the officer reached his limit. “OK  tout le monde monte! Sauf toi!” (Everyone back on except for you!) He said to Yalpoudougou Jules. “Tu prends tes baggages et tu vas a pied!” (You take your bags and walk!) I didn’t get busted and Yalpoudougou Jules had to walk into town.

Back to the present … It had been a long day skinning knuckles, squirming beneath the cabin sole running wire and squeezing my eyes closed to try to see with my fingers the head of a bolt I had to access on the blind side of a joist. You know when a prodigal returns and the blind sage is called to lay her wizened palms upon his face to verify his identity by touch? She gets a sketch more detailed than that of a police artist only with feeling, texture—it’s rhythmic and projects images of decades past of a joyful youth full of life who once skipped joyfully down the village lane. Believe in the concept. With a pinch in the dark, and a bit of practice, one can access angles and bolt size, even metric or SAE, or one can utterly fail, retreat like a sprained pretzel, resort to religion, the chisel and hammer or the sawsall. The results were miraculously positive for me that day. I had completed my list of tasks and there I sat reclined in the cockpit, sipping on a cold IPA when in the gathering dusk I did hear the familiar notes of the warbler. 

As we were hundreds of miles from our port of departure where I last saw him, I was a bit surprised as to how he had found us or how he had escaped the sanitarium, but there was little time to come to any resolution there uponst as with a pock and a stomp, and the pronouncement, “Bit of sun today and could be usin’ a nip of brew if it please yee,” he plopped down onto my cockpit grate. I produced the requested beverage and he ensconced himself along the port settee, myself on the starboard and we sat there staring out over the stern at the passing seabirds, the forest of masts set against the fading orange glow of the sunset.

And so, as he was there and knowing the old salt had visited countless countries and conducted boat repair around the world, I decided to share with him my dilemma of how to get boat parts I would be needing in several months in the next country of destination.

He let out a long sigh, gulped down the last of his beer, let out an air horn of an ancient belch and signaled by the raising of one bushy gray brow that he would like another. Once restocked he leaned back and let into a diatribe, both reflective and admonitory, the theme he called “the easy way.” 

“Now decades ago on an August day on a weekend I was pulling into Bonga Bonga. Now mind yee it was one of the smaller islands, not the main one, but I intended there to check in. I get to the police station and immediately the “official” there starts a homily of lamentations, oh that this is not the proper port of entry and oh the customs officer comes but once a month and oh we were hard upon the lee of a national holiday, of such a holiday I had never heard a peep, but I could sense a crescendo, a pat judicial tactic, and so I let him lead on to his intended theme. Well we could radio the capital and request that an agent be dispatched, or we could fill out an apppeal for an exemption, or we could file for a re-registration of your vessel as temporarily domestic. How long might that take? Nine months. My face was a mask of stoicism. Or we could just handle all this the easy way. Easy way, I responded with alacrity. Easy way! Of course the easy way was two thousand cowries and then the stamps, signatures and flashing photocopy lights were triggered. Easy way, he told me. Easy way. Get an engine into a remote harbor in East Asia at night? Easy way. Account for a passenger not on the original list? Easy way. Deliver a large bail of merchandise to a remote river town in the Northern Territory at zero dark-thirty and be gone? Easy way! I waded ashore, he said knocking on his wooden leg with a winch handle at his side. Easy way! Had no idea there might be a crocodile in that river. That was a tussle but did get some steaks out of him and sold his hide to a bag maker in New Guinea. Easy way! You get to customs, just hit that green button … nothing to declare and walk on through. Easy way! Easy way! And the bottom of another bottle swung up to the sky, the air horn blasted and the brow went up.

In theory, I like the easy way. Who could not ascribe to something called the easy way? What would be the alternative? However, I was arriving at the airport with a poop tank, a water heater and a roller duffle full of new tools. There was no concealing the obvious. I therefore took an alternative approach. I asked myself if I needed this kit and was willing to jeopardize all I went through to get it and possibly get the whole lot tied up in customs. Yes and No were the answers, so I went for an alternative to “the easy way “ called “shut up and pay up.” It’s usually what I end up resorting to unless, on the outside chance, there happens along some divine intervention in the form of Yalpoudougou Jules.

Something That Never Happened

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It starts on a cool moonless night with a pinniped pod lounging on a channel buoy about four miles or so off shore. The conversation goes something like this.

Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaat! Move over. How? Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! Yes. Something like that. Yes. Your warm spot, my cold spot. Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! And give me a scratch. Yes. Right there. Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! Now you have to turn your warm spot too. Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! That was good fish we had today. Yes, good fish. Want more. We get more. Yes, more. Later. Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! Want sex. Want sex too. Too tired. No privacy. Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! Feel shark? No feel. Safe here Yes. Safe here. Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! Get off my spot. Ouch. Don’t bite! Oh God, gas. Jesus, Eddie. Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! What?! What the f is that? Where?! What?! That. Red light green light. Coming right for us. Who is that a**hole?! Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! Dive for your life!

And so, so many things to attend to, so many things to think about. So many parts to get. So many failure scenarios that might play out, so many things that might go utterly wrong. This pump needs rebuilding. Gaskets must be replaced on leaking thermostat housing, mystery elements of standing rigging, main sheet blocks should be replaced, strange haunting noises of problems in germination … this leaking, that broken, this needing repair, that a cause of concern … As all of this like Ringling Brothers acts going on and on in three rings in my head, trapeze artists flying through the air, tight rope walkers high overhead, women with giant colorful feathers sprouting from their heads in skimpy sequined outfits standing on galloping white horses, clowns in baggy pants with white faces and big red noses, tigers jumping through hoops, some jackass with a snapping whip … It’s not like I live the boat. I am the boat. I feel all parts of the boat incrementally wending their way to compromised function, malfunction, defunction … It’s a bit like the implacable obsessions of the disaster mongers, those incurables who adhere to any report of calamity, landslides, hurricanes, wildfires, avalanches, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes and sand storms … you name it. They imbibe it all. They absorb. And they share. Going to the mountains? Well watch out for the blizzard. You heard about that family that got caught and had to eat each other? Kid now only has one leg. Going to the beach? Don’t get too close to the shore; you heard about that guy who was swept off the rocks the other day. What? A vacation to Italy? You haven’t heard about the volcano?

Somehow, I just want to be free, just want to clear my mind, to draw in a deep breath, thought-free Savasana on a rubber mat on a wooden floor in a spacious room with tall glass windows and a view of the mountains and cherubs fluttering about over a green field outside, playing some sort of endearingly ridiculous slow motion game throwing big inflated flowers at each other that just float slothfully through the air. And there’s a mime, because talented mimes are always underrated. This one is cooking an elaborate invisible meal, a delicious work of culinary brilliance, aided by his sous-chef, a dolphin wearing an apron, because this dolphin has just had enough of swimming in circles in a sea show and has decided to take up cooking. That’s what I want. Everyone smiling, bright sun warmth and colors, and garden gnomes bringing me towels and water, maybe a bowl of miso soup.

But instead it’s a moonless night and there I am motoring out of San Diego at about 6.5 knots, autopilot on.  Sage mariner that I be, I have checked the chart and cleared the final pair of buoys and all is well. I go down for a minute to refill my water bottle and when I come back up, Jesus Christ. There is a tower of a buoy smack dab right in front of me closing fast. I go to the wheel but it won’t budge because the autopilot is on and now I have seconds until disaster. Must become robotic, logical, mechanical. Get flashlight to see autopilot control. Check. There it is. Hit “Standby”! Check. Back to the wheel. Check. Manic turn to port.

From the fellows on the buoy: Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! Holy sh*t here comes that son of a b*tch!

Seals jumping off in all directions like the soaring sparkling petals from one of those flowering fireworks explosions.

I missed that deep sea buoy by four feet. It must have been sixteen feet tall. And how big and bad and heavy and deep was the keel tube under it? 6.5 knots? Pretzeled bowsprit. Forestay popped. Cracking hull. Taking on water. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!

But it’s not something that a supposedly salty fellow would like to admit. It’s not something that anyone whose sole abode is his hull would like to mention. It’s a scary thought to recall. So, for the sake of convenience, pride and piece of mind, it never happened. Yes indeed I shall try to learn from this near miss. But, on the flip side, ironically, when everything seems to be part of a larger scheme of impending doom and disintegration, when the needle for intervention is in red zone at DEFCON 1, I do find it somewhat diminishes the intensity of a “crisis” at hand and proffers comfort to think of what never happened and how much worse things might have been if it actually did.

The Mighty Tercel, The Buddhist B*tch, and The Best Years of Your Life

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At that time, on every weekend morning, on the morning of every day I managed to have off, I would be walking in the cold lonely dark to the mighty Tercel, that crazy blessed contraption of a vehicle.

It was funny because we were leasing an apartment in this complex where all the streets and buildings looked the same and parking was scarce and I often had to park a ways away from our place and sometimes it took me a while to find the bloody hell car. In some sense it felt like being in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Wait. I know I have a car, but do I actually have a car? And all this landscaped area looks like it’s from the 1950s and it’s never used. Seems like a staged set. People don’t walk on the grass. The trees are trimmed to have abnormal circular foliage. The buildings have no graffiti and are all the same maddening cream color. Do all of us who live here have the same name and wear the same clothes? And where is my bloody hell car? And did I park it, or did my other park it? Some alien entity who calls himself me …

We sublet a place from a woman we called the Buddhist B*tch. She, she declared, was an artist. She had a bunch of canvasses slathered with paint to prove it. Ok, maybe I should provide more detail. Let’s go for the DIY approach. Go to the hardware store and get some cans of paint, like white, red, brown, blue, yellow, green, purple, and get big brushes like the ones you use to paint a house. Now, take a canvas about four feet square. That’s it. Now mix up some red with the brown and purple and slather a big heart on the canvas. That’s right, a big heart. Cover nearly all the space and just leave a little space on the borders. Now dip brush in yellow and green and splatter it on top. Done. Occupation—check. Now get a bunch of pictures of you standing with monks in robes and press your palms together with elbows out parallel and fingers towards the firmament and put a sublime smile of smug enlightenment on your face. Transcendent piety—check. Voila! Buddhist! Artist! B*tch!

She had a rent controlled unit intended to limit financial pressure on those in need. She turned this bit of charitable policy into a tidy profit making enterprise. Her gig was subletting her rented rent-controlled unit for months on end while living rent free with a family member and stocking away thousands in cash. A clever hedge with strong margins. The problem was the place was full of mold of which she performed a cursory cleaning right before a new two-legged ATM sublet her digs. Another part of the problem, the most inexcusable, was that the pious saintly selfless soul played dumb and denied it. Press those palms together now! Mold? What’s that? What have you done? Never saw mold before. I think you guys brought that mold with you. 

In any case, our little peanut was coughing and coughing and coughing. She would stand there in her crib, hands on the rail, looking up at me, tears running down her little cheeks, crying and crying and coughing and coughing saying, “No thank you! No thank you!” She didn’t quite know what it meant but it was one of the few things she knew how to say at that time. We thought she had pneumonia and took her to the doctor who prescribed amoxicillin. Well BB had some kind of conflict with family (probably tired of her mooching Buddhist ass) and was giving us the boot, months before the agreed upon departure date. We had to scramble. We were both working. What were we to do? Well, of course that was not BB’s problem. Funny coincidence though, one of those ugly “paintings” was worth, with a substantial discount extended, she affirmed,  $2000, exactly the amount of our security deposit. We, she suggested, could just walk off with that sublime iteration of creativity nirvana and leave her with our cash. No. We did not think so, but thank you for that generous offer oh Saintly Selfless Nonmaterialistic One.

We managed to legitimately rent another unit (for less than the amount charged by BB) and immediately, when we moved in to the new spot, brighter, no mold or bad karma, the peanut was all smiles and prancing about in her blue onesie with the zip up and the little snap under the chin happy as pie. No coughing. Teletubbies were big then. She loved that damned show. We had no furniture but had a little TV and a beanbag chair on the floor in a corner with her books and stuffies. She used to march around shuttling her forearms doing the Teletubby walk. Loved that. 

So, I would get in that car. Ok. I can’t say it. All right. Here goes. It was always loaded with wood, building materials, wire, tar paper, bags of concrete, all that was necessary for whatever was the projet du jour. Ok, let’s just get it out there. The car only had one seat, the driver’s seat, because someone (won’t mention who) had removed all the other seats so he could fit in all the building materials. Oh praise be to you wherever you mightst now be oh Mighty Tercel. So there in the dark and cold in the am, I would start the car—and that crazy car always started and when I turned on the radio, at that time, it was always that Cold Play song that goes, “And it was all yellow …” It was so God damned morose and I’d be sucking it up, singing along. I think the worst part of any project, especially in those days, was starting. I arrive and everything is empty, cold and hopeless. I feel the cold damp. I see the trench I am digging for the bathroom drain lines but I also see the layers and layers and layers of all the other projects I have to complete in the next six months to make the place livable before our money runs out.

I remember one day I had to pop over to the local hardware store rather than do the half hour drive to the Home Bleepo to get something quick, a drill bit or a saw blade. I just recall driving down the street past the cafes and restaurants and it was as if I were floating past a Broadway set with all these little tables on the sidewalks and mini dogs dressed in mini dog clothes and arch hip types in black and gray and black and gray and black and gray keen on their laptops other more colorful types quaffing wine or clustered at tables with cups off coffee, throwing back their heads with great guffaws.  My funky self in the habitual work getup covered with stains of paint, dried silicone, sheet rock mud, remnants of expanding foam, torch burns, rips, solder burns and flux … was just floating by, mouth open, kinda dumbfounded, like some sort of troglodyte who had crawled up from the earth. What the f*ck was this?

The point is, at that time, with two jobs, full time day and part time nights and working like a maniac every spare moment I had to get that shell of a house move-in ready, I was always hearing that these were the best years of my life. That was the buzz. These are the best years of your life. Outside of the joy brought by my kid and my wife, I didn’t quite get it. I was just working my ass off.

In reality though, what makes it the best, I guess, in retrospect, is the energy and the vision, the relative absence of heath fears, the habitual eating and drinking whatever I wanted, working from dawn to midnight nonstop for an entire week during vacation with alacrity and focus, living with a feeling of promise. So, I realize now that was it. I guess, younger people, though hard to grasp when you are busting your ass, it is true.

One thing. Oh thirty and forty and fifty somethings, you must never raise your eyes to some glorious imagined horizon. You must never be deceived by snowy haired couples riding bikes in neat Sears and Roebuck attire, smiling with white teeth. Believe me. They are all on some kind of pills. They live in terror. Some or several parts of them barely work anymore and if they are lucky, the teeth were installed, with stabbing cost, through multiple sessions of needles and drilling, socket wrenches and head clouts, screwing of nuts and bolts into bone; the process makes Laurence Olivier’s work in Marathon Man seem like playground shenanigans—you don’t want to know about it. In fact don’t think of it. Ever. Yes. Make a plan, but live now. But again, there’s the rub. Some are loaded. Praise be. That’s wonderful for them. For the vast majority though, they are locked into the economic system. They can’t just drop everything and say screw this I’m out. They have to power on or make a sustainable plan. It has its frustration, but escape plans can be systematically laid while the best years of life must be lived and lived through.

Financial Fiasco–Refrigeration

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You know when you’re at a bus stop and the bus is running late or you’re at a laundry and the machine is acting up, or someone has a cool dog or someone with a cute kid at the grocery store or someone comes up while you are working on something or eighty thousand other scenarios where, momentarily, you cross paths with a stranger and have a little impromptu chat? I like that. My impression is that people are so god damned crazy it’s refreshing and redeeming to just touch base with someone sane and realize that world isn’t, at least in that moment, as berserk as it seems. But here’s the rub: affability does not necessarily a smooth transaction make.

So, the boat had a major refrigeration system on board. It was state of the art in 2002, water-cooled, pump, condenser unit in the stern, copper lines, plates that were 14” x 14” and 4” thick. It was a project just to get all the non-functioning old stuff out. And so the project began. I wanted a real fridge with a freezer that could keep ice cream solid and I was ready to foot the bill to get what I wanted. So, did some research online and went with Seafrost, a company that many cruisers had recommended and yes, they answered their phones and everyone at the outfit was affable. Their local installer was a little odd but he too was affable and of course I learned a little bit about his life as he had to come to my boat a dozen times over the course of two years because the bloody hell fridge kept on flaking.

Please listen. This unit did not take the standard refrigerant. It took another type that got colder but the problem was that it had to be re-charged with a scale and the tank and hoses and gauges and where the hell does one find all this shit or this oddball refrigerant in the middle of nowhere… Jesus it is now coming back to me PTSD that I was actually shopping for the hoses, scale and tank of spare refrigerant … Just to dig that financial hole deeper. The installer (I should say connector & charger because I installed the system myself) would come, charge, recharge, get on the phone to the manufacturer … and the best result we ever had was one of the plates froze properly, the other never was more than cool. Only way down in one corner did anything get icy. So time went on and when we were down to a year before departure, I finally said, “No.”  That system just was not going to work. It was a spill over so I put in a separate system in the fridge side, Technautics. I put it in myself. It worked better than the costly freezer and when it had a leaky valve, they sent me another and I replaced it and re-charged the whole system successfully by myself. I then went full bore and tore out all of the initial system. $4500 down the drain. Was able to get $450 for the condenser unit. Dumped the whole thing. Put in another Technautics in the freezer. It actually froze things. And, when one of the plates imploded, they sent me a new one and I actually installed replacement plate and got it running again—myself. It has to be that way. There is no way one is going to find a refrigeration tech anywhere outside the US. They might exist, but are they in your vicinity in the window that you are there?  Good luck on that. Unless you are super salty, like Thor Heyerdahl salty, like you can live on a raft made of reeds and eat canned food for eternity, refrigeration is very important. And, though I appreciate affability, it was, for me, not a wise determiner for key kit transactions.

Fuel Injection Pump Rebuild Bust

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So there I was on Christmas Eve, naked cold and crouched knees to chest, beside Harry the Heron perched on a one-inch dock line. Yes it was chilly and quite discomfiting, but silent Harry the sage had taught me much in terms of patience, endurance and humility. Our spot was wisely chosen beside a light post whose glow attracted the shiny swarms of estuary minnows which served us with sustenance. A quick splash and up I would crawl with two three or four dangling and squirming from my clenched teeth. A quick snap back of the head and down the gullet they went. How, one must ask, did I find myself in these circumstances, and how did I balance and grip that line with my toes? The latter matters were merely a question of practice, and I had had plenty of it, a month or so of evenings such as this. In fact, I was not even perched upon my own dock line. My boat had to be chartered and all my possessions pawned, my friends and family solicited to the utmost and beyond had all abandoned me and so it had gone—all to cover the cost of my diesel mechanic. The litany of work I had done, water pump, hoses, glow plugs, exhaust elbows, belts and impellers… and on it went until all reserves were spent. At one point, we were actually ready to cast off the lines and it was at that precise interval that I noticed a thin diesel leak that seemed to be coming from the governor on the injection pump. Immediately, I knew whom to call—Marcus, the mighty Marcus was the only one competent and skilled enough to expedite the matter and bring it to a successful conclusion. Now it must be said that I fully recognized his fees were a bit exorbitant, but, I reasoned, they were commensurate not only with the skills involved but also with the economic reality of the Bay Area. Times are costly for everyone there. Why a mere cup of coffee might be six dollars, a brake job two grand, a day at the ‘49ers stadium beyond the cost of a night at the opera and let’s not talk about gas and tolls and rent and kids’ tuition and…you get the picture. It’s a costly world out there and in recognition of said did I thus rationalize my exorbitant outlays to maintain my marine diesel engine. Mechanics work hard and given their household overhead, their fees are understandable. Why, of necessity they live lives of restricted means and great parsimony Miracle upon miracles, I had managed to get through to Albert, the butler of Marcus, a man to whom my pleadings were familiar, who answered the phone and assured me that Marcus, once he flew in from Miami on his Learjet and concluded his round of golf, a meeting with his financial advisor and his luncheon with Crystal, his twenty-one-year-old  pole-dancer mistress, he would see if he could squeeze me into his schedule. I was thrilled! Meanwhile the switchboard was alight with competing pleaders such as myself and Albert had to cut me off. Some time later I was able to secure an appointment and, of course, it turned out that it would not be an easy or needless to say inexpensive fix. Once one opens up a twenty-year-old injection pump, apparently the entire thing has to be rebuilt—and added to this would be the cost of the labor, the precious labor of Marcus who would have to defer departure to Capri in order to deal with it. And so the charter, the nakedness, Harry and the perch on the dock line. The only problem with the minnows is the texture and pungent flavor. No it is not akin to that of a fine fresh Hamachi. No. It’s more like a mixture of estuary stew, burnt particulate of coal and diesel mixed with brake pad dust, cleaning products and industrial residue, heavy metals, effluent, micro plastics and radioactive isotopes from the now defunct navy base. The taste is rather slimy, dense and lingering but I’ll have to deal with it until I morph like all the heroes seem to do these days, and I’m trying very hard, maybe into someone like Harry who doesn’t seem to notice because there are really only the minnows and such a paucity of choices also applies to the number of competent reliable diesel mechanics in the Bay Area.

Beware the Dock Warbler

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One of the craziest God damned books I ever read was an account of a septuagenarian who crossed the Pacific on a raft. Yes. A raft. It was basically a maybe twelve square feet of planks with a silly hut in the middle of it and a vertical pole maybe ten feet high. There was a critical moment towards the end. Well, actually every bloody moment on that ramshackle conveyance was probably screamingly critical. In any case, there were storms and such, yes, and then some miraculous moment shooting past breakers through a notch in the Great Barrier Reef… The most poignant moment that has stuck with me was when he developed a hernia and self-treated by hanging himself upside down from the pole until the protrusion receded. He didn’t need a doctor or a hospital. He had ingenuity and the pole. In any case, this is the misadventure that I recalled when, twisted in the aft lazarette I heard whistle like a warble and then a raspy voice in a crusty barnacled tone, “Ahoy there, what’s goin’ on?” And there on the dock was a salty appearing fellow creased and aged by the elements wearing a plaid shirt, worn famer john jeans overalls and an incongruous pair of puffy slippers that made it seem as if he was transported from place to place on two explosively permed guinea pigs.

            “I am installing an autopilot,” I adjured.

“You don’t need that,” came his response. “Just go.”

And so initiated my encounter with this interesting fellow. He would appear from time to time out of nowhere, always dully inquisitive and always with a similar insight.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Fixing roller furler.”

“You don’t need that. Just  use hank-on sail.”

“Whatcha doing?”

“Installing a refrigerator.”

 “You don’t need that. Gonna break anyway. Just go.”

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Installing manual crash pump below.”

“You don’t need that. Use a bucket.”

“Whatcha doin’?”

 “Installing AIS.”

“You don’t need that. Keep a lookout.”

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Installing AC.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

And so it went. The last time I saw him, well one particular time I saw him deserves to be mentioned. I was sitting on the loo TP in hand when I looked down and saw a couple of puff balls under the divider and God damn if a weathered claw did not descend and pluck the very roll from me hand. “Are you blind? You don’t need that. Use your fingers. There’s a sink and soap right in front of the bloody stall.”

That left me a bit shocked. And so the encounters continued sporadically during our three-year voyage prep period. It was the day we finally cast off the lines that I last saw him. We were making our way, about to hit the open bay for the last time when I heard a distant warble. It was coming from the Ancient Seamen’s Sanatorium on the point at the mouth of the estuary. I picked up the binoculars and there he was leaning  out of a third-story window. Unfortunately I could not hear him quite clearly but I could effectively read his lips as he said, “You don’t need that. Just go.”

The Costly and Complicated World of Feathering Fantasies

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Many have been the times when I gazed with, let’s admit it, a bit of envy and resentment down the fairway at some jackass in one of those “other” boats, under power, all gleaming and shiny with broad ass, swim platform and dual helm effortlessly backing straight down the middle of the fairway with one finger on the helm. You see, those boats have spade rudders which allow such precision and control in reverse like popping an eight ball with a clean snap into a side pocket and the cue left there smugly spinning. No, that boat was not for I. You all know the blather. I had to get a mighty vessel with a canoe stern and a skeg-hung rudder that could fend off shipping containers, submarine scopes and the bulbous metal helmets of ancient deep sea divers left drifting upon the tides. What was to do? Well, I schemed and I calculated, connived, negotiated with me woman and pulled that lever on my one-armed-bandit credit card-Ding! Ding! Ding! A feathering prop was my answer. Why five minutes on the phone with the retail outfit had me, the self-esteemed skeptic, convinced this five-thousand-dollar outlay would dramatically improve my whole outlook as well as my reverse performance and there would I be, ribbons of fine tobacco smoke twisting languidly upwards from my meerschaum, silly white cap and double breasted pea coat with gold bands around the sleeves, toss in a parrot on me shoulder and two or three young ladies naked as the day toasting florescent aperitifs in silly glasses right there in me cockpit whilst with index upon the wheel, my vessel did glide straight as an arrow right down the center of the fairway. And so, with this idiotic vision in mind, I did pursue the project. My diver fellow assured me he could obtain one at a reduced rate and could install it right there at the dock—no haul out necessary. Everything looked golden. In fact when that impressively sold piece of bronze kit arrived straight from Italy, it did have a golden and finely engineered appearance like an object more suited for worship rather than use. Well let’s cut to the chase. We all know the arch of these tragically flawed aspirational endeavors. The damn thing did not fit. The hub was too long so there was not enough space between the hub and the strut, not even with the ridiculously overpriced line cutter removed. So, my diver, good fellow that he was, took it back. No charge. And that’s when the cogs in my clock tower started turning. My brilliantly salty racing champion pal began relentlessly spewing admonishment, disappointment and calumny upon me for abandoning the feathering fantasy and leaving behind the possibility of that .5-.75 knot gain that the new prop would give me. He cajoled and wheedled, contrived and construed until he had me absolutely convinced that hauling the boat and installing the new longer shaft that the new prop would require was a valid, worthy and reasonable pursuit. And so it happened. Thank the Gods for Jorge in the yard whose precise measurements made the fit. The new shaft was slightly longer, and of course I had to have the cutlass bearing replaced and, oh yes, a new PSS shaft seal, oh, and a new coupler. It was a bit of a project but the day finally did dawn when we re-launched and retuning along the estuary came the critical moment of impeding triumph when I reduced speed, put it in neutral, waited for it to glide to a halt and then made the tremulous clunk at the lever to shift that puppy into its first test in reverse. Yes there I was with lips slightly parted brows knit and a despair dark as Erebus in my eyes as my boat, despite all attempts at control and correction, did donuts in reverse in the estuary. Ok, let’s try to look on the bright side. I do get the speed gain, important for cruising. Cutlass bearing replaced. Replacement of old pitted shaft and addition of new PSS shaft seal eliminated misting underneath the engine. New coupling meant that shaft could now be removed aft as well as forward into the cabin; whereas, the old coupling was sealed on and shaft could only be removed through the cabin. These were the thoughts I attempted to use to salve my soul. In reality this great investment taught me a couple of lessons: one, I had suffered a costly delusion once again; two, some boats just don’t back up. And there you have it. Some grand dame walking a wobbling aging asthmatic pug along the quay did that morning look up when she suddenly heard a prolonged and maniacal scream emanating from upon the waters, the scream, possibly from a fool, who from his money had thus been parted.

Call Upon Me Jesus When the Engine’s Gonna Blow

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Yes, sailing through the wave tossed darkness of the great ocean night one quite often feels an exposition of sleep come uponst. The problem therein lies if the engine be running and suddenly decides to scrap an impellor or blow a hose and overheat. How can one be awake at all times with eye on the panel to monitor the temperature gauge? It’s more like to find a vestal virgin at the gates of hell. And so, unattended, said engine might very well overheat, seize up, sustain major damage and all this when the boat is winding its way through a treacherous reef system ripped by five-knot currents awash with ten foot breaking waves and for the hell of it throw in some lightning too and then the world ends and all explodes and contracts into a black hole, obliterated. And so, what is to be done? Well, something obviously to give a little piece of mind: the gentle call of Jesus in the screaming voice of a bleating temperature alarm, a potentially critical system enhancement that I have left sitting in a bag for the last two years. This exhaust temp alarm will trigger when the exhaust temp goes above 200 degrees. Provided that the person on watch is not deaf and has not fallen overboard, said individual can then shut down the engine, save it and attempt to sort things out and get to the cause of the problem. The installation of the mentioned mechanism was the task of the day, a three-hour operation with level eight cursing involved. That is to say below the intensity that one might experience when stepping into a bear trap but above that expressed when accidentally knocking over a freshly made cup of tea. Task completed. The thing lights up. Let’s see if and how long it works.

Spicy Poop Tank Sauce Surprise

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Ah yes, how gloriously naïve it be to consider oneself somehow, by the grace of good fortune or the Gods, invulnerable to the unpleasant mishaps, malfunctions and vicissitudes of life at sea. Many a time and oft did I hear echo of sailors online warnings regarding the aluminum poop tank. Piss and salt water are an acidic combination they did warn. It will turn any aluminum poop tank into a colander in under ten years. Yes. Thought I was immune. Our 47- gallon tank was huge and could accommodate a nice three weeks of night soil for tidy keeping. It looked fine and we had had no issue or signs with which to be concerned. Besides, we flushed with fresh water, not salt, and so, with hubris, pooped on believing ourselves anointed and spared. Well, the shit hit he bilge. We discovered it in San Diego. We thought it was from a loose hose when filling, rinsing and pumping in Avalon. No such luck. Indeed there were poop crumbs in the vile stream and that had not come from any weeping seam leak. We kept the tank low and noticed no more seepage so decided the leak must be high on the tank. Idiot that I was, I decided not to replace it in Alameda when I could and should have as a result of the above described delusional thinking. So, ordered a new tank when we were in Ascuncion. Don’t yet know how we will get it but that’s where we are. Also in Ascuncion, when changing oil, noticed oil containers were besmeared, so I rubbed my hands all over the poop slathered containers, rubbed it all over my face then poured the oil on top of my head and chased down shore birds on the abandoned beach. Well, that’s what I felt like doing, but being the clever resourceful analytical and unemotional functionary that I am, I quickly reasoned that the hole was above the oil containers on the backside of the tank—and I found it, a nice hole about the side of a nickel. Brushed area with wire brush, wiped it down with acetone, whipped up a mix of fiberglass strands and JB weld and pugged that hole with a hairball so mighty a twenty-pound angora would be proud. Just now pressed a paper towel on that spiky hardened patch and, despite much bouncing about on the way down here, no sign of stain or dampness. It will hold for the meantime.

Now we somehow have to get the tank here, cut up and remove old tank and install replacement. So this saga, our first in the exciting Fix It, Jesus series, will have a follow-up episode.