Yesterday Friday, after not hearing from Colin for a full week after he promised to finish the engine work last Monday or Tuesday I tried to contact him but he was not answering his telephone. I got what I thought was an instruction in Spanish to leave a telephone message but I did not hear the beep signalling me to start talking. I left a message anyway but I have my doubts that he will get it. I hung around the Marina for about an hour hoping to see him with no success so I walked over to CCC for more supplies. When I got back to the marina I tried telephoning again using my phone card but it was the same message in Spanish.

At the dinghy dock I saw Peter and Cheryl from Stolen Kiss. We are next door neighbors at Pachuca's new home at the end of the anchorage. I went over my difficulties with getting my engine fixed and they counseled me to use time as my ally, and if things dragged on not to be tempted to sail south during the hurricane season because it isn't worth the risk. It was good advice which I appreciated, and it has clarified my thinking about my options.

I then returned to Pachuca and had a very unpleasant afternoon cleaning the sea growth off the anchor chain. The section to be cleaned is about 10 meters long - the part of the chain that is suspended in the water and is not dragged around the bottom, which keeps the chain clean. I winched in 6 or 7 meters of chain and started scrubbing. It is an awful job. Each link must be individually scrubbed of the thick fuzz of growth. I found that the best technique was to combine scrubbing with foreceful agitation of the chain in a bucket of water, which helped the chain to clean itself. After two hours of this came the hard part. Much of the material had found its way into the anchor well. Think of finely cut grass soaked in water to render thick globs of vegetation. This is perfect for blocking the drain holes at the bottom of the chain locker. I removed the spare anchor rode from the top section of the anchor well then removed the upper section itself, exposing the entire area. It was worse than expected. The two tiny drain holes were being constantly blocked by the mud-like globs of material. After more than an hour of working upside down with a screw driver and wore to free the drains I eventually got the system clean and working again. During this effort I came to realize why a previous owner had blocked the lower drain holes and drilled holes to take the water from the chain locker into the sail locker in the interior of the boat. Originally the lower level was totally sealed, with only the hawse pipe giving access to the area. It would have taken only a small amount of mud or vegetation to be introduced into that lower area by the chain to block the drain holes, with no access to that section for freeing the blockages. The only avenue would have been to poke a wire through the drain holes from outside of the hull. The person must have made the modification out of desparation. I consider this to have been a design fault with this boat. But at least now I can remove the top level (at great trouble!) to reach the lower drain holes, But that is not a great comfort. If I weigh anchor and the drain holes get blocked up am I really going to place the storm anchor and over 80 meters of rode onthe foredeck, then remove the upper level, then hang upside down to clear the holes, all while solo sailing? Maybe, but the weather had better be very calm.

This presents another job to add to the growing list of modifications when I return to Fremantle after one of history's longest shakedown cruises. I consider the chain locker to be a sort of aquatic DMZ: totally islolated from the interior of the boat with water flowing freely in and out as the bow plunges through the sea. So I plan to put several over-sized drain holes on each side of the chain locker.

Scrubbing the chain by hand is too hard and messy. I plan to try Bob's suggestion of paying out another 10 meters of rode so that the "dirty" part of the chain will rest on the bottom and be dragged over the sand as the boat moves around. After a few days of this I will pull in those extra 10 meters of rode and should have a clean chain.

The first photo shows Pachuca at her new home. The cursor to the top right of Pachuca's location is roughly where she was before. My distance to the marina has increase only slightly - maybe 200 meters. Though a big disadvantate is that I will probably get fewer visits from Bob as he motors to and from his boat farther over at El Mogote. The second photo shows the chain clean-up. Some of the chain was so fuzzed up that it was difficult to identify it as chain, and it jammed up the hawse pipe (the tube though which the chain passes through to the chain locker below).