In bed at 2:30, up at five to a cold rain. Down to the dock and on the boat. So much rain had accumulated that water had filled the bilge and now sat on the deck half way to the bow. Several hundred scoops later all accessible water had been removed but hundreds of pounds of water remained below the deck. I had discovered that the bilge pump had burned out, clogged with dog hair and fishing line. $229 for a new pump is nothing compared to the cost of a new outboard after sinking a boat in a tropical rainstorm. The plug that I had failed to replace may have contributed to some of the water problems.
Back up a hundred steps to the house, dry off, change clothes. Back out on the deck. The sun broke revealing a destroyed rocking chair that I had purchased in Fortuna, Costa Rica a month or two ago and hadn't gotten around to assembling yet. This chair was a replacement for one I used for untold hours while I lived in Cocles, Costa Rica, which I left with a friend who coveted it. Soon my room-mate was up to reveal that an overnight guest had sat in the partially assembled chair at some time closer to dawn than midnight. It was sufficiently assembled that upon drunken inspection in darkness it might resemble something suitable for its intended purpose. The responsible party tossed on the futon, ignoring phone call after phone call and ignoring his Samsung phone snooze alarm that pierced the calm every fifteen minutes, louder than the parrots that were raucously chastising the squandering of daylight.
After many hours the women woke up, I made omelettes and American Fries, we cleaned up and our guest finally got out of bed at near noon. We went down, bailed out the boat again and headed into town. As he got off the boat I castigated him, not for having broken the chair but for failing to have the decency to have mentioned the fact. He laughed and blamed it on the dog. Scratch this place off your party spots, peckerhead.
The women went off to socialize and I to tend to matters. The Yamaha dealer had boat plugs. I bought three. Their bilge pumps were $229. Come on, it's a sealed DC motor, an impeller and a plastic housing. Off to Chow Kai, a hardware store. I met Shakey and told him I was new house owner here. I found a 1750 gallon per hour bilge pump for $59, seems more than adequate to replace my 1100 GP/H unit. Ok, crimping connectors, silicone liquid electrical tape, screwdriver set, stripping crimping pliers, some mounting screws.
I moved my boat over to Casa Verde and set about install the new pump. I showed Shakey how the electrical pliers were used to crimp the connectors, telling him that I used to manage a hardware store. He learned a thing or two. Back to the boat. I hooked up the pump to the old connector. No luck. Do I have power? No way to know. I tried to borrow a volt ohm meter, but there were no cables. Flaco graciously offered to go home and get his. It was worthless. I tested it on charged batteries. Let's see, three Nickel Metal Hydrides in series, that should be about 3.6 volts. Nope, -17.32, +53.2, piece of shit. Back to the store. A bit of wire, a Greenlee volt-ohm meter, some more connectors. Give money. Wait for change. Get off the phone, just give me my seven dollars back. "Hey, I'll just get my ch Back to the boat. No power. Hmmm. Attach some terminals to the wires, Attach terminals to connection block, run wires. Bilge pump runs all the time. A short walk back to the store, part of the reason I had relocated the boat. Boat a float switch and confirmed I could use it if I didn't need it. Checked the resistance on the existing switch and found it was operative. Hell, I'll keep the other switch and add a backup bilge pump. Patched in the switch. Siliconed the connections. The women found me. Not hard to guess where I would be. Bought some food and headed home.
Early night for all.
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