Groundhog day in Hell

My disk drive failed. Last night I started the process of recovering a corrupted LUKS encrypted hard drive. I created a Linux (ubuntu 12) bootable thumb drive.

It took three attempts to get the computer. To boot.  I entered the crazy long password. The partition that holds root was marked dirty.  An fsck and it was mountable, but had thousands of bad files, irrecoverable I/O errors.

My important partition was apparently in better shape. I cleared some space on an external hard drive and started recovering what I could. 400 MB from a wonky hard drive to another drive over USB 2.0. This was going to take all night.

I plugged in my cell phone and retired with a book.

I woke, made a cup of coffee and sat down ready to receive the bad news. The screen went into death throws. The computer is pining for the fjords.

I was going to make a phone call, but... the phone was dead.  All night on a new battery with a new charger. I put in a second spare battery and it started charging.  Where are the workers who were to have been here at 7:30?  They showed up an hour later.  Ok guys, empty the cupboards and drawers and clean out all the termite byproducts. I will wait a week and see if the fumigation was successful.

Beto called, he is going to take a water taxi out here and look at my seized outboard.

Lining up the dead soldiers. I have one propane tank not empty. One more coffee and I will put it on the generator and have a cold shower.

A mechanic showed up.  "Jim, pull your boat back here, put down some logs for me to stand on."  He removed the foot from the outboard.  Seized.  "Put the flywheel cover on.  Put the cowling back on."  Laziest mechanic ever.  Off to town.  "Jim, carry the foot to my house, I can't."  WTF?  He outweighs me by fifty pounds.

More shit to take care of.. I popped back an hour later, the drive roller bearing was in pieces, the needle bearings were shot.   This is going to be expensive.   OK, how much do you want for that Honda 5.5 four stroke outboard?  $550.  Done, if it works.  I called my friend Chris, hey can I use that sailboat on top of Marita for a while?  Sure.  

OK.  Buy some chain, buy some padlocks, fix some computers.   Now mine won't even turn on.  Shit is breaking faster than I can fix it.

Such is Life

Trying to find somebody to work on my outboard. There is the crook, who swaps out good parts for shit he has laying around.  No charge for this undocumented service. There is the incompetent who can't diagnose anything. The guy who had me do all the work while he watched. The asshole who wanted to charge me $400 with no warranty for his work for patching a hole in my boat. A guy swamped with work who won't return my calls. A guy who is great but has decided he would rather play his guitar. Shit.

Off to take someone on a tour of the archipelago. some guy Chris knows from the Canaries.

Colon, Carenero, Solarte, Clyde's, Bastimentos, Crawl Cay, Popa, Loma Partida, Cristobal. That's everything but the Zappatillas and Shepard Island (Isla Pastures).

At Loma Partida I attempted to collect a long overdue debt from a former friend to whom I had loaned money. She continually claimed poverty but acquired more land, built more cabins and a restaurant while failing to repay.  Three volunteers sat on the deck.

Two of them commenced to beating a three legged dog, one with a stick and one with a small baseball bat. "Stop. What are you doing?"

"This dog is mean. Don't use a stick, use a machete."

"He is not doing anything. Leave the poor thing alone."

I walked over to the dog and was welcomed with a big wet kiss.

"We were told to keep him away from the other dogs."

"For the love of God, just put a leash on it and walk it past the gate and close the gate."

We walked to the boat and the dog hobbled behind us and gave me another lick as we left. Fuck all of you and your boss.

What's that smell?

I put the percolator on the stove. The handle melted and caught in fire.

Looks like another one of those days.

What Next?

I barely made it to town on my gas starved boat. Squeeze bulb, one hundred yards, repeat. Pop, pop. How can there be water in the fuel line? I have a top end water separator.

Once in town I found the source of the problem, resorting to using the handle of a fork as a screwdriver.  There was an air lock in one of the fuel lines.  I took her for a test spin. That solved the problem. I hung out with some visitors to town, friends of a close friend who was off captaining a sailing charter.

Dinner and off to the house. About a mile from my house the engine slammed to a halt. This was not a sputter and die, this was an abrupt, definitive halt.  What now?  It wouldn't crank. I registered over 12 volts.  I popped the fowling and the flywheel cover. The starter gear engaged the flywheels but could not rotate it.  I had no starter cord so I improvised one by dissecting a diamond braided mooring line and using one of the core strands. Nothing. Seized.  Damn it all to hell.

I paddled until I got to my neighbor's house and tied to the dock. My bright flashlight and calls elicited no response save a deep and loud barking of what was obviously a very large dog.  Hmmm.  I walked the sidewalk, past the hotel under construction to a residence on the grounds. No one home.

Guess I'll have to man up and paddle the rest of the way. I got back to the dock and encountered an enormous rottweiler that immediately charged at me. I bent over and he licked my face, attacking it like a parched dog at a water bowl.  I looked up to see an Indian sitting on a bench.  I explained my situation to him and he offered to take me home if I had some gas, as he had none.  He called his wife who scurried to the dock ten minutes later and he pulled me home in an erratic path that kept varying in speed.

It turns out that the guy was from Kusapin, a remote community of four or five thousand Ngobe. The people there have a reputation as being hard working.and honest. I asked if there was anybody he knew there that was looking for work. Turns out his father is.  I gave him my number, though it was kind of pointless as my phone won't take a charge. Twenty hours on an OEM charger and it won't do more than vibrate when I hit the power button.

I have to find some way to get to town, pick up a desk I had made for me, go to Almirante to buy a new refrigerator for my house, figure out how to get them both up my flight of 100 stairs, get the old one down, check on a broken computer and camera that I sent to Panama City, arrange to have my outboard rebuilt, figure out how I can get over to the farm so I can resume my scheduled activities.

I was shaken awake this morning by an earthquake that rocked every island in this archipeligo. 

That's today's list of fun filled activity.

Treading Water in a Strong Undertow

Yesterday I hobbled to town in my boat.   The engine was fuel starved.   Many times in the past this was a result of a clogged fuel filter.   I bought a new filter and two spares and put a strap wrench on the boat.   With much effort, I made it home and back to town this morning.   I checked out the fittings.  Everything appears good.  I guess I need a new fuel pump.   How long will this take to get?

My phone was working fine, then in use was discharged to 6% of battery life.   Overnight it fully discharged and refused to turn on or take a charge.  I borrowed a new battery and the phone worked.  Now I am going to try to charge my battery in another phone, but I doubt that the store will let me do that on their display model.   We shall see.  If I can, I hope the battery is dead as the charger is good, the only other thing would be the USB connector or the circuit board.  Never dropped, never wet, shit just breaks.

My camera has been sent to Panama City, along with a tablet and a netbook computer. The camera was working fine, put away and two days later told me that it was unable to format the SD card.  Hopefully it will just be cleaning of the contacts, but that requires disassembly of the camera, hundreds of tiny screws. 

The keyboard on the netbook just started emitting characters when I wasnt typing.   So, its either the keyboard or the USB bus.  

The tablet is probably not worth fixing, somebody stepped on the screen, the microphone is dead and the USB connector is wonky.

I will try to get some starter cables and connect two giant six volt batteries in series and see if I can desulfate and charge them.  This 240 dollar charger has charging, equalization and desulfation modes, but no settings for six or twenty four volt batteries.  

My propane refrigerator at home is beyond redemption, I need to go to Almirante and buy a high efficiency chest refrigerator for the house.   Now that I have converted my generator to propane this shouldnt be too painful except I wont have a freezer unless I buy another unit.   No room in the kitchen for two, so I will have to put it in the bodega behind my house.

There has been a lot of rain lately, far more than necessary to fill the tanks.  They are overflowing.  A few days of clear weather would be welcome.

Oh yeah, a shitty patch job on the bottom of my boat gave out when it was beached last week.  Rolling it over logs to take it out of the water so the boat wouldnt be tossed resulted in the patch being torn away.   It took three people bailing for two hours just to maintain equilibrium ten miles offshore.  I will go into that story another day.   Much to do today. 

Ahh, the simple life.

Bocas, You Wear Me Out

The diesel generator at the farm leaks oil and water.  I picked up the diesel mechanic that inspected the generator for me before I bought it who declared it to be in fine shape.

We arrived at the dock. Well I guess I wont punctuate as this keyboard is set to some language different than English and different from what is printed on keys.

How far is it to the generator? About 300 yards.  Sure lard ass, I will carry your tool box.  I walked back down to pick up 16 gallons of diesel fuel.   Then a bag of parts.  He was sitting there waiting for me.  I installed two fan belts, his job
was to guide the belts over the pulleys, mine was to turn the engine over by hand, turning the flywheel.   I installed a capacitor and fired it up.  128 volts, good.   Into the kitchen, I checked the voltage at the outlet.   121.  I fired up the new high efficiency chest refrigerator I had purchased. Within minutes it was cold.   Got to get one of these for my house, that propane thing wears me out.

The battery is dead.  There is a crank.  He instructed me to crank it.   What the fuck.   Ok I decompressed, pulled out the crank and he released the decompression switch.   Hey, let me get some RPMs before you do that.  I got it going.   I went off to take care of something.  I came back and he was sitting there looking at it leak.  I turned it off, pulled a plate, found a hole where presumably an oil pressure gauge would go, whittled a plug out of a piece of 2 x 4, made a gasket with a utility knife out of a discarded leather belt and put it back together.   Now it was leaking from under the valve cover.  I instructed him to pull the head so I could look at the head gasket.   I went off to take care of something else.  I came back and he was looking at the engine.  He could not apply enough force to remove the valve cover. Jesus, give me a half inch socket wrench with an 18 mm socket.  I took the head off, and peeled off the gasket.  Shot.  Not much to do here.  I put the gasket in the tool box.

Down to look at a golf cart.   Fuel pump shot.  I tried to salvage one from the other cart.  Shot.  I secured a gas tank and gravity fed it.   The starter motor belt slipped.  I loosened the nut, pulled hard on the starter and instructed him to tighten the nut.  Wrong way. WTF?

I fired it up and ran it up the trail.  The accelator stuck.   I mashed hard on the brakes and turned off the ignition, turned it around and drove it back down.  No lubricant.  I sprayed the fittings with carburetor cleaner, better than nothing.

Ok. Now the peddle doesnt stick.   Got my venturi? Put it on while I take a shower.  Ten minutes later I came out all clean and fit for town.  He did a fine job, except the venturi was on backwards and he hooked the low pressure gas line to a water outlet on the regulator.   I took it apart and assembled it properly.   The engine started right up.  Ran for three minutes and quit.   Hah! It was just running on gas in the float bowl of the carburetor. He told me my regulator was defective.  I loosened a lock nut and backed out a screw, pressed the primer button fired it up and tightened down the screw until it ran at a nice even steady rate.  I scrounged up a hose clamp and put it on the high pressure line.

There, undid your shit, did it right and showed you how to do it.  I was missing three black vanadium sockets from the last time he worked for me. I found one in his tool box, a large metal box jumbled with unsorted sockets, screwdrivers and wrenches.

Still missing an 8mm quarter inch socket and a 10mm three eighths socket.  I have had this kit for 15 years and never lost a piece. I let him use it for an hour and three pieces are missing.

How much do I owe you.   You told me the generator was in fine shape, it is not, I converted my generator to propane and showed you how.  I carried  your tools. I took the diesel generator apart while you handed me tools.

Dollars fifty should do it. What a fucking deal.