Jim and I tried to come up with a fix for the seals on the Jabsco Pump, but we were not able to do so. We found out that you cannot order replacement parts for this pump through Jabsco or any of their distributors. The parts are available only through Northern Lights. (The gen set is a Northern Lights 5KW unit.)

Jim and I decided to put the Johnson Pump on the gen set to keep it working so we could make water on our trip down through Belize to the Rio Dulce. We just hoped the impeller would work and wouldn’t fail until we reach our destination. So far, with the gen set, my only failures have been impellers for the raw water pump. We got the raw water pump on the gen set, and the pump is checked out was working just fine.

Another part of the pump effort is ordering and getting the parts to our friend Paul so that he can bring them to me in the Rio Dulce. It turned out to be quite an effort between Dan at West Marine in League City, Texas, Jim in Irving, Texas, and Paul from Plano, Texas, who was actually in Boston visiting his newly arrived twin grandchildren. When Jim left Isla Mujeres, he took the failed Jabsco Pump with him to Irving. I was in contact with Dan in League City, and he had the new older model pump, which he sent to Jim in Irving. I asked Jim to send the failed new model pump to Dan in League City so I could get credit for it, which he did. I then contacted a Northern Lights Distributor, in the Miami, Florida area, Bishop Marine, and ordered all of the impellers, seals, and O-rings I needed for the gen set. As it turns out, Bishop Marine did not have all of the parts in stock, so they ordered the parts from Northern Lights in Seattle, Washington, and had the parts drop-shipped to Jim in Irving, Texas. When Paul returned from Boston, Jim gave all of the parts to Paul, who will bring them to me in the Rio Dulce in Guatemala. Ahhh, the adventure of getting parts while cruising!!

Jim and I next tackled the problem of leaks. I have some leaks at the front cabin of the boat, and some leaks mid-ship on the port side of the boat. The forward leaks show themselves by getting the cushions in the forward berth wet, and anything laying against the hull up forward gets wet. Not a good thing, especially when you are using the forward berth for crew or storage. The port side leak manifests itself by dripping water from the overhead into the navigation station. This is not a great situation, as we really use our electronics for vessel navigation, and entertainment, and, of course, work on our computers.

Anyone who has owned a boat knows it is extremely difficult to find the source of a leak ... and, at some time, all boats leak. Unless you have a gapping hole, about all you can do is come up with theories about the source of a leak. Also, just to keep the wary boat owner on his/her toes, you can spray a hose on the suspected source of a leak for hours, and you still get no clues. You walk away with a smug expression on your face, and with the first small shower provided by Mother Nature, the dreaded leak is back!

Anyway, Jim and I decided that possibly the source of the leaks forward are the boat name boards, and/or the bases for the bowsprit. The possible source of the navigation station leak may be some old damage from hurricane Wilma that I had just patched and never fixed properly.

We started on the bases for the bowsprit. This involved removing the forestay. The good news for this portion of the project is that the genoa sail was at the sailmakers getting repaired so we did not have to remove the sail before removing the forestay. With the forestay removed, we then removed the bob stay. Next, we removed the bases of the bowsprit from both sides of the bulwarks. Once this was completed, we cleaned the bases, put roof mastic (that I now use for all bedding projects) on the bases, and put the bases back into place. There was some possible evidence of water leakage around the bases. Once we finished bolting down the bowsprit bases and had the roof mastic squeezimg around the outside of the bases, we were confident that the bowsprit bases would not leak in the future.

Next were the name boards. I seriously considered removing the name boards, and re-bedding them, but there are over twenty screws or bolts holding each name board to the side of the hull. I decided this was too involved a project, considering the time we had and the time required. We masked off each name board, and ran a bead of sealant around the full circumference of each.

When we finished, we felt that, if the bases for the bowsprit or the name boards were the source of the leaks, we had them fixed.

I just want to mention that while we doing all of these projects, before Jim left, not all all the time was spent working on the boat from dawn to dusk. We usually had a nice breakfast, prepared by Diana. Then we would get to work. Sometimes we would go into town and do some shopping, and stop someplace in town for a nice lunch.

In the evenings, we had showers, and then usually an adult beverage - rum and lemonade in my case, and a cold beer for Jim. Then we would have dinner, or go into town and have dinner, then back to the boat for a nightcap.

Jim left us on November 20th. We saw him off at the ferry depot. He was taking the ferry, making his way to the airport, and then flying back to Dallas. It was great having him along, not only for the friendship, but also because he is a great help on the boat.

Our plan now was to go to the sailmaker and pick up our sails, then move out of the marina into the harbor, stay at anchor for the next week, and then head out to Belize. We were planning to celebrate Thanksgiving in Isla Mujeres, then we would move on.

We went to the sailmaker that afternoon, and paid our bill, but did not pick up the sails as they would have been pretty heavy to carry back to the boat. I went the next day, Saturday, in a golf cart driven by Tom the manager of the Marina Paraiso, and got the sails. I put the main sail back on, but had a real struggle with it. I felt very faint, and was sweating a lot more than normal. That night we went to dinner in the Colonia Gloria, with some new friends we had met, Ray and Alison. We had a great time with them and a good meal at a restaurant named La Bruja (The Witch). I was having a problem with incredibly sore joints in my arms, hips, and knees. It was really bad - the pain was astounding.

I went back to the boat that night, and went to bed. Being in bed did not help the pain, but at least I was lying down. As it turned out, I had Dengue Fever, and I was out of it for about ten days. When I was finally able to get up and around, we had to wait for a weather window before we could continue to Belize.

Because I was down with the fever, we did not go out to the harbor and anchor, but decided to stay at Marina Paraiso. I was in no shape to drive the dinghy, and Kitty cannot start the motor.

I had most of the projects completed on the boat that needed to be done, so we just waited for a nice weather window. We enjoyed ourselves with relaxing and reading. We visited with friends, and generally had a very leisurely time.

We spent a lot of time visiting with the young English language teachers we had met, Ray and Alison. We would go to the Colonia Gloria and meet them for a meal, or they would come by the boat and visit. We raved to them about our trip to Merida, and they took off for a weekend and visited the city also. They had quite a great time, and a few adventures.