Since getting back from the states last week of April, most of my time has been getting Andiamo prepared for the next chapter, heading down to Panama for hurricane season. A trip I’m really looking forward to, because alas, it’s time to move on.
When I got back to Puerto Cortes, I arrived to find that the navy yard’s boat lift out of commission. This was due to the fact that two of the lift’s tires had non-existent sidewalls, and the concept of rotating tires on the lift was apparently an alien one to the navy yard guys. I was told over the next four days that the lift would be ready “manana”, only to find that it wouldn’t happen. Which of course, I’m used to by now.
The main problem was that the guys didn’t understand that they needed to CHANGE THE TIRES. They kept trying to change only the inner tubes, and after four tries, they realized that wasn’t going to work. Mitzy was planning on going to Utila for her monthly trip and offered to crew, but I told her to wait until I knew that the boat would really get ready to be splashed. After the fourth or fifth time that I was promised to be put back into the water, I told her to come down, which ended up being on a Friday.
Of course, the tire blew out again, and we weren’t going anywhere. So we were told that we’d have to wait until Saturday. The lift operator said he thought he can get us into the water with just one tire on that side (each corner of the lift has two tires). So saturday morning, we were told that we’d be splashed that afternoon. Then that afternoon, the yard engineer told us that the lift operator never came back from lunch. Oddly enough, we were walking back to the hotel, when we saw the lift operator kicking back a few brews at a small watering hole just outside the yard. We told him that the engineer was looking for him and that he was trying to get us back in the water that afternoon. The lift operator, Eduardo, was pretty buzzed obviously, but said he’d go and run the lift if someone from the base came and got him.
Mitzy then sprang into action. She went over and lobbied one of the officers to come and get the lift operator and get him off his ass. Then Eduardo had a little tiff with the engineer over how drunk he was. Then, there was the matter of moving the other two boats that were in Andiamo’s way so we can get splashed (planning and organization are also alien concepts to these guys). Mitzy showed her stuff as a mover and a shaker and got everyone involved until the lift guy was actually in the seat and moving boats. We figured it would be a while before they’d get to Andiamo, so we went and got lunch. By the time we got back, they had moved two boats and were only minutes away from moving Andiamo. We were stunned and amazed. They were moving boats so fast that one of the boats they had to move had a french family on it, and the woman didn’t even have enough time to get her kids off the boat before they put it on the lift. Crazy stuff.
Anyway, they managed to get Andiamo on the lift, and start moving her to the water. It was about that time that Mitzy and I noticed that the one tire that was handling all the load on that particular side was eroding before our very eyes. We were watching chunks of rubber fall off the tire as it flexed and rolled over to the lift dock. We were really hoping they’d Andiamo in the water before it blew, which was inevitable.
Luckily, they managed to splash Andiamo in time. And from what I heard, Andiamo was the last boat to get moved by that lift for SEVERAL days while they waited for tires to arrive from the states. So finally, I got a lucky break for a change.
The sail over to Utila was fun, but slow. We battled a nasty surface current that kept us below 5 knots most times. The wind finally shifted a bit to make pointing to Utila better. But the current persisted. We ended up making it to Utila is just over 16 hours.
I then spent the next few days in Utila, hanging out with Moni and Mitzy. Moni was getting ready to head over to Guatemala City for her birthday and some vacation. And she was doing all she can to get me to go. But I was definitely not keen on riding a bus to GC, and I was also rather focused on getting Andiamo ready for the next big trip. Beside, I had to find crew, and a whole slew of other stuff. So I was unable to make the trip to GC for Moni’s birthday.
It didn’t take long for me to line up crew for the trip, so after doing that and knocking out some projects, I headed over to La Ceiba last Tuesday to get some more stuff done, get diesel, and provision the boat for the trip down to Panama. I had a little problem with my coolant tank which required me to pull it off and take to a machine shop. So that cost me a day or two. While in Ceiba, I hung out with Lucia, Cristina, and Teresa of the LC Gang. That’s when Teresa decided she wanted to go to Panama too. So another crew member joined the roll. I also managed to catch “Spiderman 3” at the mall theater for just a little over 2 bucks.
So we left Ceiba yesterday, after a stay that was a little longer than I would have liked. We stopped in Utila to pick up the rest of the crew, which consists of Sarah, a dive instructor from the UK, and Jenni, a Finnish girl who’s riding her bike through North and South America.
So after a stop in Roatan, we’ll be on our way to Guanaja and onward…
Stay tuned…