Why didn’t we fix it on Roatan?
It would have been so easy to do as the water pump was totally exposed! Only three more bolts and we could have had it off! Well, not all the hindsight in the world will change a thing and the truth is we did not really have the time to wait on any more repairs. While living at Fantasy Island was great, it was very expensive and there was still the deadline of the high tide at the Livingston Bar. To miss the tide would delay our return to Guatemala’s Rio Dulce and Mario’s Marina for another month! We had all the fun we could stand! It was time to go home.
Besides, getting work done while tied to our ‘own’ slip takes a lot of the worry out of how long it takes getting the job done. It was for this reason; we postponed the repair until after the back deck repair.
It was early in December when we contacted ‘Johnny’ of Pez Vela Yacht Services. He and his helper showed up and looked at the problem. Yep, it was the fresh water pump. Moreover, his contact in Miami said that they could get us a new one for $650.00 dollars! Yes! Now that does sound like a lot, until you realize that this is a discontinued motor with a very limited number of parts still available. Unfortunately, the water pump’s internal seals are not one of those parts. These little rascals haven’t been available with a Volvo part number for a couple years!
It was a false start however, as the pump that the Miami connection sent us was a raw water pump that pumps seawater; we needed the fresh water pump, which is the one that pumps the anti-freeze/water mixture through the motor.
With the hopes of obtaining, new or rebuilt water pumps slowly being dashed on the shores of reality. I began exploring the use of electric water pumps and a separate heat exchanger. I have plenty of time as the back deck repairs should only take a week, remember…? ………………………………
Back Deck repair 101
Is sort of a ‘crap shoot’ in the Rio Dulce! While there are probably more persons and yards that can do this sort of job, we chose Abel’s Shipyard. Abel’s Ship Yard is a Father/Son business that came highly recommended by other cruisers. We even saw some examples of their work, and heard praises sung by many cruisers. There were actually a couple ’yards’ in the running, but Abel was right there with an available date,( the week before Xmas holiday) and breathed a sigh of relief as we set a Jan 5th date. That being the 1st Monday his people came back from holiday.
Monday morning started early as went thru the final process of getting things done like taking the front window shade down so I can see ahead and Oh, yes! Fill the water tank, as we will not have a safe water source until after the work is completed. We go through a tank in a little over 2 weeks so even doubling the yards time estimate of 1 week still had us a small margin for error. By around 12:00 we finally moored alongside a tugboat waiting for the young Abel and the workers that would do the work to finish lunch.
Right after lunch, young Abel, the son and 2 workers came aboard to discuss what we needed exactly. After a short meeting, it seemed they were on the right track and work began. All the warnings in the world will not prepare you for the sight of all the “polvo”, “Mucho polvo!” was about all the English Martin had but it aptly described the virtual snowstorm of fiberglass dust that enveloped our rear deck. Or for that matter, the gapping hole left shortly as the complete back deck was lifter out in one piece!
We were forced to ’walk the plank’ just to get on & off the Oasis! Since we had to get ashore to watch the rest of the work. That meant
climbing onto the tugboat, then negotiating another, much longer plank to the pier. We were also hooked up to the tug electrically into a household type plug so would be electrically challenged for a few days.
As soon as our deck hit the beach Martin and his helper
descended upon it as they began the process of removing the fiberglass and drenched balsa. The idea was to use the top or upper layer of fiberglass as a template. The balsa core proved to be a little more tenacious and took into the next day before they were able to scrape all of it off and lay the top portion on the shop floor to do the build-up. Then they put 3 layers of glass was put down as a bed for the ½ in. marine ply which was then covered with 2 more layers of glass to totally encapsulate the plywood. Our ’floor’ was solid once more. Now all that remained was to put it back!The weather that had held off so nicely, decided to turn cold and rainy. All told, we were lucky as
we only lost 2 days of work, but the ½ days lost are hard to keep track of…After we were well into the 2nd week our rear deck only tabbed into place work ground slowly. Oh, speaking of grinding, did I mention “Mucho polvo!” and then came the painting part with lots of over spray! Moreover, speaking of spray, it is time to tell you about the showers in a third world boat-yard.
In an effort to cut down on the water usage, and the fact that the rear deck was missing, we decided to use the Abel’s facilities. It seemed to
be the path of least resistance considering the alternative was trying to shower in our cramped head. This is probably the only thing nice to say about them except they were very clean. There was only one knob and one PVC pipe sticking out of the wall. Cold does not begin to describe it! The fancier one had a 90-degree PVC elbow for a shower head! Lucky for us, Tortugal Marina was close by with the 
nicest hot showers on the Rio so we did not have to rely on them the whole time!In all, we cast off from our tugboat home 3 weeks to the hour from tying up! The time estimate was three times the quoted 1 week. The yard bill was only twice as high, but we “saved” 3 weeks slip rent while the work was on going. Overall, we would do it again. Not that we want to go through this again!
In hindsight, while repairs did take much longer than expected, the over all experience has been positive. We were not upset at delays or disappointed by any shortage of parts or materials. The ‘trades people’ here are every bit as capable as those are ‘stateside’ and we believe we saved quite a bit of $’s as well
Motor Repair cont….
We have put off the motor repair until we were “home” in our slip. There a few days later at the swap meet Johnny came up to us with an interrupter. Johnny said that the water pump could be re-built with non-Volvo parts in Guatemala City. Total time 1 week, sound familiar? Nevertheless, we were told, that when Johnny says 1 week, that is 7 days! Right! We decided to get started first thing Monday morning at 8:30. The mechanic showed up right on time and 4 hours later, he had removed all the same parts we had repaired on Roatan except removing the engine head. Removing the water pump only took an extra ½ hr.!
Lo and behold, next Monday afternoon (7 & ½ days!) the mechanic showed up. Unfortunately, I had another major project happening at the time so we had him come back the next morning at 9:00.
We had our motor running by lunch, well, a late lunch, but no leaks! We had thought that the motor part was going to be the most difficult repair and now to have it all behind us was a relief!
Things were going so nicely that we decided to have Pez Vela install an electric engine shut-off switch, as our old cable was rusty. Now Jeanie can shut the motor down with one finger! It used to take me both hands and a lot of cussing.
Now all that stands between us and a salt-water fix aboard the Oasis is a new anchor to stop the dragging and the will to go.
