Fixing Things

Fixing things is what we have been doing for the past couple of weeks.  It is a never ending part of living on a cruising sailboat.  Things just break, or wear out, or corrode, or you discover that after three years of use, they were not put together correctly in the first place.  Thank goodness Mike can fix things.

First thing we needed to fix was (again!) the water maker.  The main pump stopped working.  The company we bought it from graciously sent a replacement, which UPS promptly sent flying back and forth between California (where it is built) and Florida (where our shipping agent is located).  It went back and forth three times without being properly delivered.   No one knows why.  The UPS tracking page was cryptic.  Finally, after almost a month in transit, it was delivered.  The odd thing was, there was another package mailed at the same time from the same shipper, that arrived in Miami with no problems.  Anyway, Mike got it installed, so we have a water maker again.  Of course we have not needed it  because it has been raining a lot, so we are drinking rain water.

After that was handled, Mike turned his attention to the fridge, which has a leak somewhere.  He bought all this fairly expensive fridge-fixing equipment, and had at it.  He took out a piece of copper piping, and replaced it.  Sounds easy but it was not - he had to use a braising iron and stuff like that.   It seems to be working fine now but Mike is not satisfied - he wants to tear the whole system out and put it back together in a slightly different way.  Big job - but he wants to do it, so who am I to stop him?

Mike also decided that we needed a new battery bank, so he arranged to have that happen as well.  The plan is for the switch to occur on Wednesday of next week.  Then we should be free to return to the islands for a week or so, and finally on to Costa Rica!  I am looking forward to a change of scene, and we plan to stay at a full service marina, with a pool and all that good stuff.

So we have been busy here, and it has also been raining a lot, so we have not left the boat and done much.  My kindle needs some new books.  I did re-read both "This Side of Paradise" and "The Beautiful and the Damned" both of which I loved of course.  Before that, I read some Booker T. Washington ("Up From Slavery") and then a bunch of silly stuff I got on the kindle for free.   I have some stuff I can re-read, of course, but I need something new.  Time to take it up to the little mini-mart, where if I buy a beer I can use their wireless for free.  The kind we have on the boat works with a stick, which can't be used by the kindle.  It needs what I refer to as "free range wireless."

I love it when it rains, even though it means we are stuck on the boat as who wants to take a dinghy ride through choppy waves and rain.  Not fun.  But I like it.  It sounds nice, and I feel snug and safe within the little wooden cabin.  Especially with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, depending on the time of day.  I like to look across at all the other boats, and see how a curtain of rain blocks my view of the shore.  The birds and hunkered down, but the fish are still jumping and doing what they do.  There is a school of thought that says fishing is best right after a rain.

Anyway, not a really exciting post, I realize.  But things are not always that exciting. I did have to go to the dentist, and I hope things are better, at least it does not hurt now.   My experiences with medicine and dentistry since I have left the US have all been good. 

This is it for today.  Have a great day!

"I read so I can live more than one life in more than one place."  (Anne Tyler)