Category Archives: Boat Living

Afternoon Gin

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I’m sure there’s a name for the drink I’m having here in the cockpit, watching the Terns hunting small fry in the fairway. A delicious concoction of pineapple juice, gin, and TopoChico, shaken, not stirred, it’s a fine way to end the day. Heavy on the gin, please.

I’m sprinkling this post with photos of the remodeled house. Because I don’t want to do a whole post on that.

Back in the day when Paul Bryan wrote his blog about life aboard S/V Kelly Nicole, he used to write these posts he called Morning Tea. I stole the idea, except called mine Morning Coffee. But unfortunately, I still have a job for a couple more weeks and I don’t have time to write in the morning while I drink my Nescafe’. So Afternoon Gin will have to do. These are going to be posts where the mind wanders with little restraint. It’s hard to tell what will come up but I will try to manage a loose theme. Maybe there will be some mild ranting and expressing of opinions. We’ll see. If I get to the point where stomping around and spitting is called for, I’ll try to dial it back.  It’s a little like dreaming on paper; a way to get back into the swing of writing. And I really need that.

Get yourself a drink of some kind and sit back for this post. Relax a little.  I feel the spirit moving in my hands so here goes.

Do you ever wonder how living aboard a sailboat, sailing from port to port and across the wild blue sea would change a person? I tell you what: it’s hard to explain. There’s a longing to be away from all people, from all land, from all the telenovelas of life. There’s a bone deep, visceral feeling that to not ever sail on the open sea again is to die a poor death, with a life truly unfulfilled. I have stopped expecting anyone to understand that if they’ve never found themselves drifting through a high pressure zone, sails down, just loving the flat, clear water. I know I personally did not understand it when other people talked about their experiences, until I, too, had been across the ocean on a smallish boat. It’s so far outside most people’s boxes of life that people just cannot relate to it. And that’s just fine. In the end, this experience is deeply personal anyhow.

A different view of the living room. Want to see what the house looked like before? Go Here.

As a rule I feel like if I ever die at sea, so be it. I’m not predicting it will happen, and I will do everything I can to mitigate that, but at the end of the day, if it does I hope people will shout for joy that I didn’t die in a hospital bed hooked up to all kinds of shenanigans. When you are in your 60’s you start thinking seriously about your own mortality as it stares you in the face from the bottom of the hill you’ve crossed over. And when you are on a long voyage, you have a lot of time to think while staring sightless into the deep turquoise of the water. Maybe too much time.

The kitchen was a complete tear down. I salvaged the original fir floors in here. We love a kitchen with workable spaces that are small enough to keep clean; another thing learned while living on a boat. For more on Edison House, go HERE.

Here’s another thing: after our years of cruising, and there were not even that many of them so I imagine this will only get worse after our next go around, my bullshit meter has a hair trigger. Office drama? I do not have the bandwidth for it. People looking to gain a little power in their otherwise powerless existences by lording it over me or my kin and/or coworkers? Sorry. Go bother someone else. Just get the heck out of my energy field. Be gone.  Personal drama? It weighs me down in a way that makes me wonder if I’m just over drama of all kinds.

Honestly, the finesse with which I used to put up with interpersonal BS on all levels is now replaced by a zero tolerance zone. As I type that last line I realize it’s a lie. I have never put up with that stuff willingly. I learned at my father’s knee to call bull crap when I saw it. And the idea that I would have some finesse at dealing with small but power hungry people in a work situation is kind of laughable, actually. So maybe it’s just that I had a little more tolerance for it before but now, I absolutely do not. I understand what drives it, and I ‘get it’ why some folks need to exert control over others. But I simply don’t have the bandwidth to tolerate it anymore in my own life. I think it’s kind of related to the dying at sea theme (again, not throwing down any gauntlets for the Universe here. Just making a point.)  If I have X number of decent years left on this planet, being around people whose way of being in the world doesn’t align with mine is not how I want to spend that time.

This has made it sometimes very hard to work for a corporation that contracts with a school district. (Read: Two huge layers of expectations and needs, not to mention the layer of the school itself.)  But all corporations are the same under the skin. They are made up of people. And I am so appreciative of my supervisors and colleagues during this arduous time of having an extremely easy job for which I am very grateful but also for which I am completely unsuited. This is the only job I have ever had where I threatened to quit more than one time and I actually meant it and would have been relieved had it come to pass.

The last time I offered to quit my team lead didn’t even respond to my impulsively scribbled email offering my head on the proverbial platter. She knew to give me time for that bullshit meter to cool down. She’s great.  I learned a lot during my tenure at this job. Mostly I learned that I am still living the emotional trauma of my military upbringing. I thought I was a bit more resolved about that. Not totally, but a bit.  Apparently I was wrong.  I think it’s hardwired into me. That’s kind of unsettling. I believe in reincarnation, so I hope I can get that resolved before I die. I really don’t want to repeat that lesson again.  Maybe cruising will help.

I have two more weeks to work and as easy as this job has been on the actual ‘work’ level, I’ll be glad when this part is over. My only caveat is that I really loved working with the high school students. I can take or leave the middle school (mostly leave, if I’m honest), but I feel like many of the high school students I counseled really benefitted from our relationship and that makes me glad. I am proud of them. Most of them are personally courageous and as a group they know way more about life than ever did at that age.

On another note, newly back in land life I quickly discovered that shopping for clothing is almost the most boring and absurd thing on the planet. I cannot believe I ever loved it as much as I did. What a lot of wasted time and money. The buying of clothing is WAY over rated. And this is a shame because at the tender age of 63 I can wear clothes I could only dream of wearing in my 40’s, even in my 30’s. It should be true that I dress for the geriatric runway each and every day possible but I feel really resentful that I even have to wear clothes, much less that they would need to somehow be pleasing to others. This entire year of working I have worn maybe 4 outfits. A year of in-person work. 4 outfits. Just let that sink in, all you clothes horses. It’s possible 4 is an exaggeration. I can’t be bothered to really count. I could go cruising for at least a year on the money I have literally thrown away on useless clothing, most of which I wore only a few times.

And don’t even mention makeup to me. I have discovered tinted mineral based sunscreen. Hoo Rah! SPF 50, baby, and an evenly toned complexion. Moving on.

View of the living room from the kitchen. The plant’s name is Fred and he has lived with me for decades.

When I got my current job, I immediately hit the Goodwill  to find stylish over-priced used clothing. I am always amazed at what people get rid of.  I bought some really cute skirts and envisioned myself being the cool counselor, dressed for secondary school success. I would be fashionable and kicky and fun. I would wear skirts and leggings and arty looking flats. I would look French, but I would not necessarily BE French. The students wouldn’t be able to wait to see what I wore that week. I would be both professional and approachable, which, as a woman, is damned hard to pull off at any age, much less the age where your bullshit meter shows on your face, with or without a mask. That plan did not work out. The skirts still have the tags on them. Glad I didn’t pay retail. (As if I ever would.)

Before we went sailing you could not have pried me away from my vast wardrobe. It filled the closet AND the chest of drawers!  I tell you what: that is not the case at this time. I have one shelf of clothing and one drawer. I have one smallish basket of overflow because the clothes we wear in cold weather take up more room and God knows we may not even have summer this year so I have to keep those handy. I have, I think, 6 pairs of shoes, including tennis shoes, everyday winter shoes, and a few pairs of sandals. That is way too many shoes and I look forward to ditching at least half of them. I’ve already started. I probably have too many socks as well. Those will be going. Laundry is not how I want to spend my time. While some people may pity me, I assure you I absolutely do not miss having a lot of clothes. I do not want to take care of lots of clothes. It bores me and wastes vasts amounts of what time I have left on this planet. These kinds of belongings that I have to care for day to day weigh me down.

The little dining room off the kitchen.

Also, why do people wash their clothes after wearing them one time? Is it just easier than putting them away? Try wearing the same clothes each day for a week. I bet it reduces your stress. It’s ok. Just throw them on the floor at night and put them on the next day. I guarantee you that no one is going to say, ‘Hey there, Bill. Did you just throw that shirt on the floor and put it on again? Are those the same exact grey pants you wore yesterday?’. I mean use common sense. You don’t actually have to go feral.  If you’ve soiled your clothing in some way, go for the washing machine. But as a rule, I bet you are over washing your clothing and wearing it out faster. Oh wait! Then you have to go shopping sooner! I see how that works now. That’s very clever! I wonder if the washing powder people and clothing manufacturers are in cahoots somehow?

And in that same vein, how many showers does the average person actually need? The amount of time and resources wasted taking daily showers is tremendous! If you smell bad after one day there is something wrong (unless you have a physically laborious  job, of course).  Maybe you have too much stress and the stress hormones are leaking out. Maybe your diet is wrong for you. If you constantly feel dirty, maybe that’s a mind over matter issue you need to speak to a therapist about. (I’ll probably be taking your insurance soon. Everything is confidential, you know, and, quite frankly, we’ve heard it all.)  Anyway, living on a boat at sea or even at anchor will quickly recalibrate your need for everyday long showers (brought to you by the folks who manufacture and sell body products). It’s possible to be both clean and frugal with water. We know this. Fight the machine! Question authority! Be clean and tidy but not fastidious! Challenge the expectations of the Society of Beige! You’ll never go back.

Tiny downstairs bathroom. Just don’t splash around in the tiny sink and get soap all over the Italian plaster and all is well.

I roll with things a lot better than I used to (except see above re: interpersonal and work drama). This is how I survived the renovations of Edison House over the last year. Meh. All things must pass. I still get my knickers in a twist with big transitions, like moving and having a chaotic space kind of stresses me out, but overall I do much better with that than I used to pre-cruising. I’m, if not content, then certainly accepting of waiting to see what happens next rather than perseverating on controlling the future, which I have learned from hard experience is not actually a thing that is possible. Occasionally I catch myself in a rabbit den of worry and the old anxious brain starts taking over, but overall that’s way better than it used to be. I think the weather systems over the years of cruising taught me that. And all the break downs we had. The dramatic breakage of the boom. The potentially deadly backstay failure. The unfortunate hitting of the charted rock in the Sea of Cortez. Those things are lessons you will never learn in a book. I look back at those  times and feel proud of how we handled them. What’s a little hole under the boat? If we aren’t sinking, we keep going. I’m ready. Let’s go.

I could sit and watch these Terns hunting for hours. Scratch that. Cruising didn’t change that in me. It’s one of the reasons I went in the first place. It was never about the people, or the cultures. Sorry. I know it’s polite to say that I want to visit other cultures and learn new languages. And sure, those things are interesting to me. But the languages I’m really most interested in are those of the octopus, the fish, the whales and dolphins and tiny creatures. The culture I am interested in mostly is the culture of the coral reef and the reefy rocks. I’ve spent my entire adult life studying humanity.  It was, and forever will be, about the animals in these travels.

People said it couldn’t be done, adding a complete bathroom upstairs. Um. We did it.

Tiny Japanese Soaking tub. Actually a perfect size.

Cruising brings into focus that age is not just a number. It’s a real measure of how long we’ve been on the planet and the wear and tear on all our systems. Boats age. People age. Boats need to have parts maintained and replaced. So do people, apparently starting in their 60’s. When you turn 60, all systems seem to begin failing. We have been grateful for our very good medical insurance through Michael’s job with the State Patrol. We’ve used it a lot. We’re trying to get as many body parts fixed,  healed, repaired, and replaced as possible before we cut the dock lines again.

The breakdown of body parts creates a feeling of urgency about the next trip. It surely does. I remind myself that people get good healthcare (and way cheaper) most places in the world. Mexico taught us that.

People who say a person is (insert number here) years ‘young’ are going to get an eye roll from me so hard a 13 year old would go blind. When, exactly, do we start saying someone is ‘years young’ instead of ‘years old’? (Uh oh. There goes the bullshit meter!)  I’ll tell you when: it’s when we don’t want to call attention to the fact they are getting old. That’s also when mature women begin being called ‘young lady’ in grocery stores by random men. (Just stop. Don’t do it. You mean well, but you take your life in your hands. If you don’t believe women are witchy enough to curse your very soul, just call any woman over 50 ‘young lady’ and then look directly into her eyes. I’m warning you only because you are probably a nice person overall.) To be old in our country’s youth culture is a bad thing. So basically we condescend by saying so-and-so is 75 years young! When we do that, we pander to a culture that would pretend people do not get old or who would dismiss them when they do.

Bodies age and boat life will bring that into focus in ways that land life will not. There is no sense in denying it by inserting one word for another with a little wink of the eye. That kind of marketing just doesn’t work.

We cannot afford to pretend we are in our 40’s out there on the ocean. We must have systems that will accommodate our aging selves and this is entirely doable on a sailboat . We will be re-rigging the boat this season with our aging bodies firmly in mind. We may be getting older but we are  not going to be going quietly into anyone’s dark, still, night or whatever. We’re just going to need a longer winch handle. And maybe a beefier block and tackle. We’ll let you know.

Edison House, built in 1926

Seeing the Neowise comet from the middle of the Pacific on a clear night, just the two of us, is worth all the money and all the work and all the discomfort. All of it. Whales looking us in the eye as they keep pace with the boat, all of us moving north together. Also totally worth it. Being called ‘Adventure couple’ by the Chinese captain of a large ship in the middle of the sea. Worth it. The soft calling and cooing of Elephant Seals echoing off cliff faces in the dark of night. Worth it. Swimming surrounded by Mobula Rays in the Sea of Cortez, in the dusk of a long day. Totally worth it. Coming face to face with a quiet Monk Seal in crystal clear water. So very worth it. Swimming with dozens of Green Sea Turtles on Mike’s 60’s birthday in Hawaii. Totally worth it.  Having a seahorse swim into my face mask to say hello. Incredibly worth it. Even losing a backstay and ending a perfect, idyllic sail home. Worth it.  Uncomfortable , sleepless nights. Worth it. Scary water. Also worth it.  Let’s go.

The gin is long gone, the rain is coming. My friends the Terns are going home for their long sleep. We’ve got a seal in the fairway. Everything is peaceful and filled with gratitude for another day aboard the boat.

S/V Galapagos, Standing by.

 

 

 

 

Hardship is Over Rated

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Recently I was reading this really entertaining, if a bit anxiety provoking, story I found on Digg.com. It’s a story about a young couple who wanted to experience life on the road, #vanlife style. They wanted an “authentic” experience, one with no frills; one that wasn’t “instagram ready”. While they would be inspired by #vanlife, they would do their travels on a low budget. My anxiety began for them in that first paragraph where the author describes the super cheap van they bought with an engine that leaked fuel at the first fill up. My God. What were they getting themselves into? As the title explains, they wanted to do van life ‘right’, but it broke them down.

I passed the story on to my son and daughter-in-law because they had traveled the country in their Honda Element before setting off on their travels to Europe. I felt like they would probably relate to parts of this story after traveling for almost a year. Jill had seen the story and read it already and as we dicussed it, I thought her takeaway was appropriate: “Don’t get in over your head because you think the vision of your dreams will carry you through”. Man, such truth. Spot on. That’s what a year of travel by land, or maybe two years of cruising by sea, will teach you. This story spoke to me.

Are we in over our heads? Do we still have the underlying dream? Some days we do, and then the next day we don’t. I speak for myself, of course. Lately I’ve struggled with what I can only describe as ennui. While Mike has experienced it as well, he doesn’t ‘do’ ennui as deeply as I do; at least where anyone would notice. He’s got too many projects going in his mind. I have a few, but I’m not as engaged with them as he is, although it says something that I really look forward to sitting down with a needle and thread and getting those cockpit cushions recovered with fabric I bought in the states. I’m not sure exactly WHAT it says, but it’s something. Maybe a glimmer of hope, a small piece of a dream that is still alive?

Galapagos was in great condition when we got back to her. That’s always such a big relief.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to put my finger on what these feelings are about. Am I not as adventurous as I thought? Am I just tired of cruising? Is it the heat of Mexico? (Because let me tell you it sucks.) Am I going to be able to get back into what I love when we are on the boat? Would a good snorkel experience put me back in the groove? There must be some reason why I was like a dog on a hunt for extra snorkel gear during our recent travels in the states. I had a dream recently that the boat had been tossed way up into the air and I had fallen into the water, all the way to the bottom of the sea. I was trying to swim for the surface but I was getting nowhere fast and was afraid I would drown. It was very scary, but on the other hand the water was super clear and warm. I hate these kinds of dreams. What gives, White? Take a salt tablet and snap out of it!

After sidling up to the topic on a number of occasions over the last year, we finally had the conversation about whether we are done with cruising. Spoiler alert: We aren’t. Whenever I am openly miserable I must give the impression that I want to quit and go home. I don’t want to quit, I just want to find a solution to the current dilemma. I’d like to hide my suffering, but unfortunately I wear it on my face. Please see photo below. So while I’m not ready to throw in the towel,  I do sometimes believe that suffering is over rated as a tool for personal growth. And yet give me one example of something that has caused tremendous personal growth that has not involved the fires of  suffering of some kind? I’m hard pressed to think of one but I’m open to your opinions on this subject.

Two down. A few more to go. As always, I do this stuff by hand.

I’ve been thinking deeply about this lately as we make our way through the work that is getting the boat back in order so we can actually be cruising again rather than sitting in the lovely Marina Real in San Carlos. The current situation is this: It’s blessed hot in the boat. Two days ago it was 97F with humidity of 87%. Michael and I could not drink water and electrolytes fast enough to keep our bodies in order. Even standing still we literally dripped sweat onto whatever we touched and there would absolutely be zero touching of one another. “You want to hold my hand? Surely you jest! Step back; crazy man! ”

I struggle with nausea in the heat. My feet swell. I finally experienced what I had only read about before: ” It’s too hot to eat.” WTF. Nothing gets in the way of me and my food.  I had not been sleeping well and was close to tears way often. I found myself hunkering down in the cabin just trying to keep cool, then I realized that all the fans were just circulating hot air. It felt like I was literally in a womb of a smelter. All I wanted was to be born again into a cool, refreshing breeze. I began to question the sanity of what we were doing. I mean why was I even here? I felt like I was just surviving the weather conditions, certainly not thriving in them. Is this how I wanted to spend my time? (Which, by the way, feels super short lately.)

Just not a good look for anyone.

Conversations about throwing in the towel should not be had in sweat-dripping, sleep deprived conditions where my core temperature is hot enough to convince my body that it is ill. But have one we did, and it didn’t go particularly well for me. I had to call it off because: getting angry, which never helps. Then there is the feeling that because we have the absolute privilege to be able to make this choice at all, we should just take our lumps and never speak of them. It’s not lost on us in any way that we were born at the right time, in the right country, and are the ‘right’ color when it comes to the downright luck that gave our lives the right trajectory that we could actually put our shoulders to the plow, as it were, and work hard to make this happen. We take credit for what we have done, but we also know that others work much harder than we ever have and will absolutely never have this opportunity because the obstacles in their path are that much greater than ours ever were. So even sounding like we might be complaining feels somehow wrong. And the work we did put into this choice, not to mention all the money we spent, makes the decision of when to stop a weighty one, indeed.

Fantasies of renting an air conditioned condo swarmed in my head but in some intangible way, that felt like a failure. Did we come all the way to Mexico to live in a condo and drive our car around? We did not, but I admit the temptation is strong and that could still happen. Mike was doing OK in the heat. I mean, he was hot and drippy, but he wasn’t suffering overly much. Or maybe I was just suffering enough for both of us. I don’t know. Our Andrew/Jill combo are coming to visit in September and it’s also going to be just as hot then as it is now.  I need to get it together so I can enjoy this time with them. We need strategies in place that will help them stay cool so they don’t suffer overly much. I’ve been waiting for this visit for a year now. I cannot let heat get in the way of having fun. I want to snorkel with them and show them the best that the Sea of Cortez has to offer. (And no, it’s just not possible for them to come later in the year. They’ll be back working for a living.)

But back to the story of life’s struggles from the van-traveling couple. One of the thoughts expressed in this story crystallized for me what I’ve been experiencing in the past few months but had trouble putting into words, heat and humidty aside. Something about seeing this in black and white in another person’s words struck home with me and maybe, if you are cruising, for you as well. It’s pretty simple:

“ …transient living can wreak havoc on anyone….it’s harder to maintain healthfulness when you don’t have stability—when trouble can come at any time, in many forms.”

Well, slam bam. That’s it in a nutshell. We definitely feel attached to the boat and consider it ‘home’ for now. But the constant transitions, the moving from place to place by land, sea, and air, sleeping in a new place every few days, the continual focus on preventing trouble, the problem solving in a foreign country with few resources where language is truly a barrier; the logistics of accomplishing the most simple task, they all tend to wear on us over time. When you add adjusting to hostile weather conditions into the mix, it can tip a person over the edge. And that’s what’s been happening. These inescapable hot, sweaty days pushed me over the edge.

Just a fond memory of that air conditioned AirBnb with the king sized comfy bed in Puerto Peñasco. Land living. It makes a body soft. 

We discussed renting a condo and that’s still an option. But I do want to be able to adjust to this. Maybe my body just needs a more gradual acclimation? To solve the immediate problem of no relief we bought an air conditioner that we can use while at the dock. I had been sleeping in the main cabin because it’s cooler and last night I actually was able to rest with the AC going. But I think we will put it in the aft cabin for now because it struggles to keep the salon cool. It’s small. And the heat is big. It would probably handle the aft cabin just fine. Then we can have a cool room to go to when the going gets tough. We can actually run it with a generator as well, but that’s not going to be a regular occurrance. Still, it’s nice to know that if one of us succumbs to the heat, we have a way to escape it. And if the kids come and they, too, have trouble accomodating the heat, we can give them some relief. One of the previous owners of our boat posted to me on Facebook that it was too bad the central air conditioner he had installed on the boat when he was in the Sea of Cortez was no longer on board. I tell you, I cried real tears when I read that.

Installed in the main salon, our fantastic Ryobi rechargeable fan helps circulate the cool air.

Air conditioning, boat style. When this happens you are no longer cruising. You are living at the dock.

Out here on the water we are constantly doing what we can to make sure we don’t ‘get in over our heads’. This isn’t a vacation we’re on. It’s a continual balance between what is worth it in the long run, and what might be dangerous or just even not very much fun. When people consider cruising on a boat as a lifestyle choice, these times that are between actual cruising trips are frequently discounted or missed altogether in the dreaming and the planning stages. I know that we didn’t even really think about them at all. Our entire focus was on being on the water and making the boat safe. It’s taken us a bit aback to understand that there is so much time where you are actually doing other things; not sailing or anchoring or snorkeling. There are way more than I imagined of these other, less fun things that you have to get through to get back to those things you dreamed about. These things have been, for me, the ones that have made me feel more like we are in over our heads, and where we have to struggle to keep the vision of the dream alive until we can go out and sail, anchor in a sweet little cove, and slip silently, once more, into the silent water to commune with our fishy friends under the sea. I hear the water is clear this time of year.

Sea Fans keeping the dream alive.

I leave you with an appropriate joke I read on Facebook:

When you’re under the sea,
And an eel rubs your knee,
That’s a moray.

Get it?

S/V Galapagos, Standing by on Channel 22A

We’re in Hot Water!

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When we first took over Galapagos, Melissa and I felt as if we had just bought the Queen Mary. Stepping up from our sweet Cal 34, Moonrise to big ‘ol Galapagos was intimidating and exciting all at once. To paraphrase Bernadette Peters in The Jerk, It isn’t just about the waterline, its all the stuff.

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Of all the stuff that came with Galapagos, nothing could seem as luxurious as a hot water heater. Hot water from the tap? Just like home? What a time to be alive!

It wasn’t hard to slide into such decadence and when I began to re-plumb the whole boat with PEX tubing and new faucets, I knew that I wanted to update the old water heater and get it out of the engine room. So in January of 2017 after much perseverating, measuring and no doubt boring Melissa to tears with technical minutia, I bought an IsoTemp SPA 15 Marine water heater.

For the uninitiated, marine water heaters have an electric heating element, just like the units you have at home. But they also have a small heat exchanger that connects to the cooling system on the boat’s engine. That means you can have hot water just by running the engine for half an hour. The SPA 15 is tiny, only 4 gallons, but that is more than enough for Melissa and I to enjoy showers, wash dishes, and do all the usual domestic chores that can make living aboard a sailboat seem almost normal.

The main reason I chose this particular water heater was that it could fit, just, beneath the sole of the aft cabin. Getting the water heater off a shelf in the engine room not only freed up space for storage there, it placed a fairly heavy container down low, where heavy things should be on a boat.  This allowed me to secure it in place; confident that it would stay there in the event of rough weather or, heaven forfend, a rollover. It also simplifies the design and use of the the engine’s cooling system with the heat exchanger since no external header tank for coolant is required.

 

DSCN3847

This area beneath the aft cabin sole made sense as the center of our water system. There was room to locate the water heater, water pump and a simple manifold for the hot and cold water. The PEX tubing and fittings have proven to be quite reliable and really easy to use and modify.

For almost two years we have enjoyed what would have been an unheard of luxury when we first started sailing. In fact we may have grown a little complacent about having hot water and I suspect that Galapagos, like most boats, can sense when her owners are taking her, and her stuff, for granted.

In hindsight I shouldn’t have been too surprised when one night, lying in my bunk, I heard the water pump come on for half a second. Three minutes later, the pump bumped on again. Checking the faucets on the boat yielded nothing. Finally, pulling up the sole in our aft cabin, I could see a small trickle of water. Just an innocent little trickle. It could be anything. A loose PEX fitting, probably. In two years of cruising with lots of bumpy weather, things are bound to jar loose. I would have this fixed in no time I thought.

Sadly, all the easy things were ruled out and I could now see that the water was coming from under the water heater. If I wanted to learn anything more or have any hope of fixing this leak I would have to remove the tank from my super snug location under the cabin sole. I began to question the wisdom of locating the water heater there and was dreading the process of disassembling the bracing and fittings.

But bitching and moaning wasn’t going to stop the leak. And if I didn’t stop the leak we would lose precious water and,  quelle horreur!, Melissa wouldn’t be able to have a hot shower. That was a future too smelly to contemplate for long. Onto my belly I slithered and an hour or so later, I had the tank out. It got a lot easier after I had reinstalled and removed the tank a few times as I tried and failed to understand where the water was actually coming from.

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The water tank removed and in the shop. In trying to locate the leak, I had thought something obvious might reveal itself without too much effort. I filled the tank with water and looked for air bubbles. No such luck.

 

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This is the heating element and the associated controls that I removed while trying to locate the leak. The electric heater element is mounted through a plate that has a rubber gasket that acts as a seal on the tank. In conferring with the manufacturer, the gasket was mentioned as a point of failure and replacement gaskets are sold on the IsoTemp site.

After disassembling the tank’s electrics and eliminating the rubber gasket, a failure point suggested by the manufacturer, I had nothing left but the stainless steel tank itself. As you can see in the photos, the SPA tanks are encased in a hard plastic case with a foam insulation. Since I really had nothing to lose, I carefully cut the outer plastic casing and started cutting away the foam insulation so that I could see the steel tank.

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Here you can see that I am well and truly committed to finding this leak. By removing a hard plastic band from the middle of the tank, I could remove the bottom half of the cover. I then had to cut away the foam insulation that covered the steel tank. At the bottom, you can see the pin hole leak.

But even with the steel exposed and the tank full of water, I couldn’t find the leak. No, the tank had to be under pressure. Fortunately I was able to pressurize the tank without having to put it back under the sole by using some spare PEX tubing, fittings and a hose bib in the engine room. Voila! the leak finally revealed itself. I had suspected that the weld had somehow failed but as the photos show, the pinhole leak is actually a little above the weld. It is troubling that the tank failed after almost exactly two years and we are wondering if another leak will develop at some point in the future.

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Finally!

In researching how best to repair the tank, a few of options were presented. Some people have had good luck with JB Weld and if we were far away from services, we would have taken the epoxy repair approach. Melissa has never seen a problem that couldn’t be solved with epoxy and was ready to go that route.

But since we were only a short dinghy ride and walk from several welders, I thought it might be a more durable repair to just have the pinhole spot welded. Walking down the streets of La Paz, carrying my leaky, disassembled water heater, I knew that I had arrived as a cruiser. I also felt a bit like a local; no self respecting Mexican would throw away a perfectly good water heater just because it had a leak. Everything can be repaired and made useful again.

A short walk from Marina de la Paz I approached the men at Taller de Soladura el Chicote (Chicote’s Welding shop) and pointed to my little leak. One of the men took my tank and soon a few other guys were gathered round including a very old man that did not do or say much but seemed to have some position of authority in the business. Was he the elder Chicote? One of the guys did a bit of grinding, selected a welding rod and took my tank over to the welding station. The welding machine ran for all of five seconds and my pinhole leak was no more. Total cost: 150 pesos. About 7.50 USD. The shop seemed pretty busy but I think my job was so small they just took care of it while I waited. It took all of ten minutes and I was schlepping my tank back down to the dinghy.

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The guys at Taller de Soladura el Chicote look over the tank. It was a quick, easy repair for them.

Once back on the boat, I filled the tank and put it under pressure again to see that the weld was holding. Huzzah! No leak.  I reassembled the plastic case as best I could and sprayed expanding foam inside to provide a bit of insulation and to give the bracing and mounting hardware something to work against. It was a glorious site seeing the tank installed and holding water pressure. Let’s hope we get many more hot showers out of this tank.

A phrase that seems to pop up in our conversations chez Galapagos is “In for a penny, in for a pound”. There were moments in this project that made me question how much further down the rabbit hole I really wanted to go. Many of our adventures keeping our boat in good repair seem to involve a decision to push on, despite the evidence that we are in over our heads. But one of the luxuries of this lifestyle is an abundance of time. Time to read, enjoy the beauty of the world around us and time to expend ridiculous efforts where normal people would have just pulled out a credit card and bought a new water heater.

Once again, Melissa and I have proven to be abnormal.  What’s the most ridiculous repair you’ve done on your boat?