Everything Grows Here

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We’re growing barnacles on our hull. When we left San Carlos in December we had a brand new bottom job. Naturally we had hoped that this would see us through the year, at least. But we’re just ignorant that way; and also still accustomed to the colder waters of the Pacific Northwest, I guess. I mean, why else would we have what has turned out to be unrealistic expectations? Friends here in this anchorage with us left San Carlos with a new bottom job at about the same time as we did and they, too, have barnacle growth to attend to. Maybe that’s normal in these waters.

My hull scraping cutting board and suction cup handle. I have plans on how to make this cutting board work even better.

It’s not that there are big huge creatures attached to our precious hull, it’s that they are small and numerous and I know we cannot leave them to grow. So I find myself in my snorkel gear, earplugs firmly intact, using a flexible cutting board as a wide scraper, swimming along the side of the hull removing hard growth and attracting myriads of smaller fish who are pleased with the growing smorgasbord in the water. I was using a smaller putty knife but it doesn’t remove enough material at once. I’d be there until Christmas that way. I’m kind of ready to hire someone to do this for me, actually.

Such a clever fellow, blending in as he does. These iguanas live close to the marina and like the shrubs next to the walkway. I wish he’d let me give him a pat. He looks so nice and scaly and dry.

One of the many things about this lifestyle that has taken us a little by surprise, because we just didn’t think much about it, is how you have to constantly adjust to new environments. I don’t mean the usual ‘finding the grocery store here’, or ‘which place has the best tacos’. I mean the change in climate, water temperature, air temperature…all that stuff.

The difference between our lives here in Banderas Bay (because it feels like we live here now) and our life in the Sea of Cortez is profound. We are dealing with humidity, increasing heat, and we are enjoying the warmth of the water, which means we swim almost every day. It’s a whole different world. This, apparently, has exposed us to new and exciting organisms that, while invisible to the naked eye, find hospitable purchase to grow in our bodies. Everything seems to grow here with wild abandon.

Here are our two lessons we’ve learned the hard way so far: always clean your ears out with hydrogen peroxide after swimming, and always wear a full mask that covers your nose when swimming. In other words, keep the salt water out of your orifices. Who knew? Well, I guess we do now.

We had been here about 2 weeks when Mike began to feel ill. He actually had a fever, which is pretty rare for him. Lethargic and with a painful jaw on one side he wondered about an infected tooth, but none of his teeth hurt. I wondered about a sinus infection, based on my considerable experience with those. He felt like crap and slept a great deal.

Giving him the once over I discovered increased blood pressure for him, and an increased pulse. Hmmmm. No bueno.  I decided to take a look in his ears. In what turned out to be a prescient move, I had invested in a cheap Dr. Mom otoscope when we were back in the states. It was an impluse purchase that I felt would come in handy. I checked the ears and found, to my horror, that he had what appeared to be a bulging, red and purple weepy area on the ear canal. It was not behind the ear drum, but it was definitely not something that belonged anywhere on a human body. Something alien was in my beloved’s ear. This meant a definite trip to the doctor. Immediately.

There are two places to see a doc here. One has an office attached to the pharmacy in town. I understand the fee there is extremely reasonable (read: cheap) and you can get your prescriptions filled right there. The other is a 24 hour clinic that is more focused on the tourists in the area and is quite a bit more expensive. We went by the pharmacy doc’s place first, but he was out to lunch and Mike felt too ill to wait for him in what was turning out to be a very warm, humid day. He was fading fast. We went to the emergency clinic. Mike was seen immediately.

Lots of water here, making a good place to see this painted turtle. There were about 5 of them right there. He’s a good sized turtle.

About 100$ later the doctor had given him antibiotics and some steroid drops for his ear and told him that an organism had found its way under the skin probably due to some tiny scratch in the ear canal. It had created an ulcer. He said it happens frequently and we should wash our ears out with hydrogen peroxide on a regular basis, and especially after swimming. Huh. We aren’t in Washington State anymore, I guess. Although you could never have paid me to swim up there.

The antibiotics helped over time and I kept a close eye on that ear, checking it everyday. It took about 11 days for the thing to heal enough that it didn’t look like an open wound. We feel like we were lucky to catch this because his ear didn’t hurt and it was only because his jaw was hurting that I thought to look in the ear. The doctor made it clear that had we waited much longer, this would have been a serious infection and much more difficult to treat. Damn. Way to put the fear of the gods into us.

I don’t know what this little guy is, but he was clearly too pretty to swat and made no trouble.

So Mike is fine and back to swimming and practicing standing up on the paddle board. Thank goodness for good medical care that is affordable. In the states, we probably would have avoided going to the doctor longer due to cost. The freedom of not having to worry about the financial implications of treatment is considerable.

Soon as he was well, I got sick. What?? I feel sure that my bottom-cleaning antics are to blame because I made an unwise decision and wore swim goggles, which do not cover your nose, rather than my full face mask. Even as I was sideways against the hull with organism debris all around me, that little voice of wisdom in the back of my head was telling me this was not a great idea, that I needed to keep the salt water/debris out of my nose better than this; that keeping air pressure in my nose wasn’t cutting the mustard. I hate when that little voice is right AFTER the fact. I got a nasty sinus infection, which I fortunately had antibiotics for on board the boat. I’m better and back to swimming (WITH my face mask, thank you very much), but between Mike’s illness and mine, we’ve been kind of growing attached to La Cruz. It’s not a bad place to be stuck, but I’m wondering if we need to check our own bodies for barnacles, we’ve been here so long.

I finally found my piece of Huichol art. I’m kind of in love with it. That’s the ocean Goddess on the right side.

One of the good things about being in a place too long is you make more connections with the people who are here. And that leads to some opportunities. In our last post we talked about how we realized we were looking at inflatable dinghies with longing. (Well, it wasn’t actually the dinghy we wanted, it was the ability to move faster and with more power. Frankly if we could do that with our Pudgy we’d be happy.) But anyhow, if you are following us on Facebook you’ll already know that very shortly after that post Mike was chatting with a guy at the dinghy dock and somehow it came up that we were kind of thinking we needed to be looking at other dinghies. People always ask about our Pudgy and admire her, so these conversations about dinghies are common. This guy had a dinghy he was selling for 100$ but it was deflated on his foredeck. His woman was seriously ready for it to be gone because it was taking up space. He was feeling the pressure.

Mike took a look at it but was pretty unimpressed. It looked like it had seen way better days and as a rule, we believe you get what you pay for, although we are completely open to gifts from the Universe, as it were. While not really interested in the dinghy, Mike kind of felt for the guy and realized he was under pressure from the wife. So he offered to come the next morning during the calm water time to help the dude just get the thing off the deck, get it in the water; just cruisers helping other cruisers. That would at least move the situation along and take the sting out of his complete disinterest in moving forward with that particular dinghy.

That afternoon the guy pulled the dinghy up to our boat and said, ‘Here, give it a try. Don’t worry about paying me. Just see if you can use it.’. Well… OK. I guess that was a bit of a surprise, but why not?

A sad looking vessel, to be sure. And filthy.

It was a sad looking boat, let me tell you. Filthy, no seats; it was like my first bicycle that I pulled out of the trash at the tender age of 5. It only needed everything to be just perfect. Still, it was floating, it had a fiberglass double floor with a drain, it was hypalon (not PVC), and it was the right size. Having invested nothing, we had nothing to lose by trying it out. It was made by Avon, which has a really good reputation for lasting decades if cared for. We went down the research hole on the interwebs and determined that based on what we found, and on the feedback I had received on the Women Who Sail forum, we would see if we could save this apparently worthy dinghy. Hey, if you know S/V Rubicon, this used to be their tender long ago.

We soon found a leak on one side, so that would need fixing. We took it in to the marina and talked to Horatio, the local dinghy repair chap. He looked it over and came up with a plan to fix that leak, then we could determine if there might be more, smaller leaks that would show up after this one was fixed. He said after he fixed the leak, we should use it like that for awhile and see whether it held air and if we liked it before spending more money on restoring it further. I liked this guy. He was clearly looking out for our interests as much as his own and I felt he was honest about what he could do for us. He didn’t want to see us invest a lot of money in a dinghy that turned out to be a poor investment. If we decide to keep it, he can replace all the seams for us. It also needs a new rubrail, but we will have to get that from the states.

Checking the bottom.

So we played with it a bit and we enjoyed how big and comfortable it was. We put the Octopus engine on the thing and even though our engine is a 2.5 hp baby, it pushed that dinghy along much faster than the heavier Pudgy can go. It cut our time to get to the dock by at least a third. It’s a way wetter ride, though. Maybe with a larger engine that can get it up on a better plane, the ride would be a little drier. But inflatables have a reputation for being wet, something we had not appreciated about our Pudgy as much as we should.

Mike, testing the speed. See how his hair blows in the wind? What a feeling.

At this point we are not ready to give up the Pudgy, but we’ve got Andrew and Jill (check out their cute blog) coming to spend time on the boat in September and if we are lucky Claire and Dan may make an appearance this spring. This dinghy will be grand when they are here. That will give us enough time to use it and see if we want to invest in a larger engine with this dink, or if we need to look at other inflatables once we get to the states. Storage is the only issue, but what else is new? We think we have a plan but we haven’t tried it yet. I mean, we’re already well into the Beverly Hillbillies vibe on our cabin top, so what do we have to lose? We’ll see.

Our current look, minus the shotgun, of course.

While we had planned to spend the summer on board, once more that is not happening. We need to go to Tennessee to visit Mike’s family. And since we’ll be in the states we will go see my family as well. We plan to get our car in San Carlos, pray it still runs, and drive that to Tennessee where we will stay for a few weeks. We’ll then need to drive the car back down to the southwest and store it somewhere, probably near Tuscon I’m guessing, so we can fly home to Washington. We will leave the boat here in Banderas Bay at Paradise Village Marina. It’s a good hurricane hole.

We think we are almost ready to go exploring now but I hesitate to say that out loud. We plan to spend a few days in Paradise Village Marina before we leave as they have potable water. Have I mentioned here that a water maker is high on our list of requirements for going further with this whole cruising gig? Hey, mentioning the dinghy paid off in spades, even though that guy has never heard of this blog. I have nothing to lose by throwing it out there that we need a water maker, especially for when 4 of us are aboard. Bring it, Universe. Bring it.

S/V Galapagos, standing by on channel 22a.

Dinghy Lust, Whale Aversion, and Turtle Love

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We’re still here in the anchorage in La Cruz (Banderas Bay) and, in spite of this being a VERY rolly anchorage, we are really in no hurry to move along. We’re having a great time here meeting new friends, catching up with old friends, and taking it slow; getting a few little boat projects done and trying to stay out of trouble. Our goal for the season is to make it south to Bahia de Zihuatanejo. Or not. After that we have no clue. Maybe we’ll come back north into the Sea of Cortez, maybe not. We don’t know what we’re doing for hurricane season; i.e. the season of hellacious heat. We don’t know if we plan to cross the Pacific next year, or at least get to the Galapagos Islands. We don’t know a whole lot of things lately. But all that will fall into place.

From the anchorage in La Cruz. People just go sailing here.

What we do know is that this is the first anchorage we’ve been in, ever, where we’ve begun to develop Dinghy Lust. It’s funny how other people always love our little Portland Pudgy and in return how much we love their big inflatables. Goes to show there is no perfect boat, but still, we are at a point where we are considering trading up to a different model to fill the bill as the family truckster. Maybe it’s time for us to move along. After all, there are a lot of dinghies here to lust after. That probably isn’t helping.

We thought long and hard about our choice of dinghy before we bought one. We also talked to a lot of experienced cruisers. Of course, most of them have inflatables. But the ones who have the Portland Pudgies love them and stand by them. We see more and more Pudgies out here cruising. So what gives?

Our Portand Pudgy, the boating equivalent to our old Mazda pickup truck. A real workhorse. But small and lacking in power.

Frankly, it’s the power. We don’t have enough of it. I can already hear the ‘I told you so’s coming’. However, we have used small, hard dinghies for the last 15 years and have been happy with them. We have been cruising now since June 2016, full time, with this little dink and it’s been fine. We have never owned an inflatable dinghy. The reasons we chose this little boat, the fact that it’s indestructable, will never sink, is rated as a life raft, is fun and easy to row, can withstand the tropical sun, and is very unlikely to get stolen; are all still true. It may be slow, but it gets us there. If I keep going, I might talk myself into just keeping it.

Here’s what it doesn’t do: go fast and far, land safely in surf, pull up on the beach with ease, allow wheels to be fitted to it. Now you’d think none of these things are that important. In fact, the pudgy-owner cruisers we talked to before we bought swore that they would choose one again even with all these shortcomings. Then we got a screaming deal on ours and the deed was done. We paid $1000 for this dinghy, less than $2000 for the whole dinghy/engine combination. So we’ve had good value for the money so far and as cheap cruisers, that’s sometimes a deciding factor.

But now we are in an anchorage that is pretty far from the dinghy dock. It takes us a long time to get there and we’re likely to make that trip only once in a day because of that. In a nutshell, we could travel faster and further with a different dinghy. We could go to beaches that are out of reach of our dinghy, but not anchorable with our Galapagos. So we lust. We do nothing about it at this point, but we lust in our hearts. If we decide to go further than the coast of Mexico and Central America, another dinghy will be at the top of the list of equipment we’ll want to buy.

Something else we have a lot of here in Banderas Bay is Humpback Whales. We see them all the time just outside the shallow water of the anchorage and lucky Mike, he can hear them singing through the hull. Of all the times my hearing loss has made me sad, this is one of the worst. Not to hear the whales sing? Damn it.

Because at this point I’d rather hear them than see them, especially up close and personal. It’s not that I don’t like whales, because I do. I’ve always been one of those whale-loving-tree-hugging-crystal-wearing touchy feely types when it comes to animals of all kinds but especially whales. It used to be that I would get very excited to have them near the boat, running for the camera, talking to them in cooing tones. “Who’s a big whale, then? Are we a big, sweet barnacle-encrusted whalums? Show me your precious fluke! Bless me with your special fishy smelling breath! “. No more.

This whale isn’t even particularly big by whale standards.

I believe my recalibration of whale love began with our encounter with Grey Whales in Bahia Ballena on the west coast of the Baja. Having a whale breach clear out of the water just to port, then being hit broadside by his friend as he log rolled under the boat, was a one-two punch that takes awhile to process. We both recovered from the shock of it as we stood in the cockpit, taking stock or ourselves and checking our pants for dampness in our personal areas. We laughed about it, exclaimed, expressed gratitude that the frolicking whale had not actually fallen on our boat, ruining both our days if not killing us outright. For at least an entire day one or both of us would, without warning, break out with a ‘SHIT! DID YOU SEE HOW CLOSE HE WAS?’ or  ‘DANG! I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE HOW LUCKY WE WERE!’. Yes, I do actually say ‘dang’. I make no apology for this.

As time went on it became one of those stories you tell new friends over dinner in the cockpit. But entertainment value was not the only lingering gift from that experience. The darker gift is that, once more, the separation between the conscious mind and the body’s experience is put into high relief. The conscious mind realizes we had an exciting experience that turned out OK and a story we enjoy telling. The body still sees whales as a threat to our safety. I just hate that. Where I used to be very excited, I am now only mildly amused. Where I used to run get my camera at the first sign of whales, now my first thought is how far away from the boat they are and which direction they are traveling. It kind of sucks, but it’s getting better. Every time I see a whale and it doesn’t jump on my boat, I take a moment to register this fact. These things take time and lately I am jealous of the time I have left in this world to enjoy the things I want to enjoy. Like jumping whales.

To have an experience that casts a shade on a child-like wonder in witnessing our natural world is another small leaving of the Garden of Eden; to have forced upon us the knowledge that not only is our life decidedly finite, that end could come at a moment’s notice; dealt us by a hand we assumed to be benevolent.

An appropriate distance from my boat, a whale jumping for joy? Maybe. Or maybe he’s just a show off.

I don’t want to case aspersions on whales. Unlike our daughter, the whale hater,  I do not believe they are malevolent creatures who are out to sink my boat with malice and forethought. Rather I have come to believe I have given them too much credit. I wonder if they even know we are there and if so, if they actually care. I know that people can have what they describe as spiritual experiences with whales. It’s all over the You Tube. But I begin to wonder if that’s saying more about them than it is about the whales. I’m willing to be wrong about that, and part of me hopes dreadfully that I am completely mistaken. I would love to have a spiritual experience with a whale encounter, as long as that doesn’t lead to my untimely death. Until then,  let’s just say I have a, probably healthy, desire for them to stay in their lane out here on the sea; a healthy respect for their power. I like to turn on the engine when I see whales around. I figure they can hear us better that way. I’d like to have the innocent joy back, but alas, once that road has been traveled there is no going back.

Still, I do long to hear them sing.

This juvenile Humpback Whale may or may not be lunging at a panga, who is, by the way, entirely too close. Enlarge this and see if you can make out the expression on the face of that passenger. That’s the same whale as in the first whale photo, and he was feeling mighty frisky that day. Lots of tale slapping, spy hopping, and general trouble making. This panga driver was insane to be that close. Taken right here in the bay at Punta Mita as we went sailing by. It was a good show.

You know who DOESN’T jump out of the water and land on boats? Sea turtles, that’s who. So I’m pretty sure I can continue to be excited when they’re around, which is often! Anchored off Isla Espiritu Santo there were dozens of sea turtles in the cove. We had a cool experience in Puerto Vallarta last week where we got to go and release baby Olive Ridley Sea Turtles onto the beach and watch them find their way to the water. Less than 24 hours old, they looked like claymation animals; hardly even real.

Baby Olive Ridley turtles. So precious! All of these are boy turtles because their gender is determined by nest temperature.

Holding this tiny, perfect little sea turtle was a highlight of our crusing time so far. The turtle rescue operates all year long and they release thousands of babies onto the sand each year. Before the rescue efforts only one in a thousand babies made it and returned back to the beach to lay more eggs. According to the biologist at the site, now one in a hundred returns to lay more eggs. That’s pretty great!

I named him Wally. I hope he is out there eating and growing into a big, strong turtle.

If you are still reading, congratulations on your attention span in today’s sound-bite world. Your reward today is a few photos from our three hour tour through the mangroves at San Blas. It was pretty fun and we saw some birds we had never seen before. Also a lot of crocodiles. Absolutely no animals jumped into our panga on this tour.

Don’t worry, he’s just regulating his temperature.

Lovely Green Heron

Not even a little bit worried this toothy guy is going to jump on my boat. See how friendly he looks?

Boat Billed Heron

Wood Stork, migratory bird from Canada

Common Nighthawk

I spied this iguana as we zoomed passed and asked the panga driver to go back. Worth it.

This fresh water pool was irresistible. It was the perfect temperature and the beauty of cruising clothes is that this is a good way to give them a wash.

What the river fish look like. Those catfish are kind of weird.

Until we feel the urge to post again, S/V Galapagos standing by on channel 22.

 

 

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.

 

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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.

IMG 3587

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.

CHICOTE

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?