Welcome to Bocas

Off to town.  A few things to take care of.  Trying to find a venue for a fund raiser for a local expat who just had open heart surgery in Houston and has no health insurance.

I pulled the boat into Casa Verde and told a friend that I was going to walk to see some other people I know at Mar e Iguana.  It's not more than a three mile round trip, but it was hot and the buildings block the breeze.  Nobody wanted to make the walk.

I took the boat to Frank.  Damn.  When I try to start her, "click, click, click,click". Plenty of voltage, good clean connections.  Ahh, Christ, this is not going to be cheap.  Turns out it was the Starter Relay Assembly.  Frank called it the solenoid.   Not quite my man.   The Starter Relay Assembly is a $400 part, the solenoid is a $15 part.   He procured one from Victor for $100, I'm sure it was salvaged from another outboard.

Then Frank told me I need a new bobbin.  What the hell is a bobbin?  He showed me one.  An armature.  Ok, I can get an armature rebuilt (that is a $450 part) or I could replace the whole starter.  I am not going to turn a $600 starter (plus shipping and duty, let's call it $800) into a piece at a time repair that would add up to much down time and $2000 in parts.  Or am I?

I walked back to town.   Garrett was calling out to me from the deck of room 301 at Palma Royale.  Right under the room Jimmy Buffett stays in.  What the hell?  A month ago you had $300 total to your name and were going to spend it all on airfare to get home and now you are in one of the most expensive hotels in town.  I walked up to see him.  "What the hell are you doing in here?" "I'm celebrating.  I got an extension on my unemployment." Wow!

Back to Casa Verde.  The guy who was making my console cover was beaming like a proud father as he slipped the tight fitting cover with room for the side lights and a slit for the throttle control.  It fit like a hooker's skirt.   People were laughing on the dock.  He didn't know they were laughing at him.  Walter said "Welcome to Bocas."  Ahh... shit.   How do I tell the guy that this should drape over loosely.  The seams were already to blow, like the jeans button on the Mama Loca barmaid.  When that thing goes, somebody is gonna die.

I got home.  The iPhone I had bought off Ebay and received a couple of days earlier would not take a charge.   Great!