Things had been at a bit of a standstill here in Bocas. The weather’s been pretty ruthless, particularly the last couple of weeks. There has been massive amounts of rain and NASTY thunderstorms almost every night. The lightning has gotten pretty scary and fierce sometimes, but luckily no boats that I know of have been hit thus far. Hoping we get some consistent sun soon, I’m losing my tan!
Despite the nasty weather, there have been some fun times in Bocas. I’ve been hanging out with Eveline, a dutch chica who runs the Spanish school in Bocas and the various students most nights. Usually, we get together for dinner and drinks. There are always new people coming and going at the school, so it keeps things interesting. There have also been a few beach outings and cocktails on Andiamo.
Bocas has some really nice beaches, and great surfing. Which I’ve only begun getting into. When I get things a bit more stabilized on Andiamo, I’ll be getting out on the waves a lot more often.
I’ve been trying to keep busy on Andiamo, but the weather hasn’t been helping that along. Until recently, she was in a bit of a state of chaos. I had several projects going on at the same time, leak repairs, wiring repairs, that the boat got into a pretty bad state of disarray. Then, one of the toilets went out on me (AGAIN), and then my alternator that I just had fixed in San Andres decided to give me trouble. So needless to say, I’ve been scrambling a bit to get Andiamo back to a functional state.
The alternator issue was the one that was most critical, because without good alternators, there’s no battery charging going on. That means little or no power for lights, water pressure, refrigeration etc. This has made life on Andiamo a little less convenient than usual. It got to the point where I tried to borrow a spare alternator off another boat until I can get to Panama City to buy a new one. I got lucky with Aaron and Lyla of “Blow me Away”, but the alternator that they lent me didn’t fit my mount.
I decided to try to see if I can cannibalize my two bad alternators to make one good working one. Considering my limited talents in rebuilding alternators, that was a crapshoot at best. But lo and behold, I managed to get it done and working! So, for now, Andiamo’s power problems are resolved.
I’ve since restored Andiamo back to an organized state, which is really good. Mitzy (of the GC gang) is heading down from Guatemala City for a week or so. We’ll be doing some road tripping in Panama via a rental car (possibly with Lisa, who’s in Boquete), and hopefully a couple days’ sail. So finally the relative monotony breaks, and new things are starting to happen.
And that’s what it’s all about. 