MdP - Toilet Working and Laundry Done

Every night I'm sailing the boat in some sort of struggle. Last night we were beating our way upwind in the Rio de Plata estuary and magically managing to hold our own. I'm still tired and I've come to realize how deep down bone weary I was when I arrived, even though I could always somehow summon the strength and energy to do what had to be done. I'll need the weeks here in MdP to get back to normal. Incidentally, I didn't gain any weight during the passage from La Paz. If anything I lost a bit. This is in spite of being generous with myself with food, particularly energy foods. My legs and upper body are slim, but I've still got a bit of a pot belly. With me the pot belly is always the last to go and I can get rid of it only through heavy and heroic dieting, but a solo sail around the Horn is no time for a killer diet. In spite of my weariness and grey beard people still express surprise when I tell them my age. It's too consistent a reaction to be disingenuous. It can't be due to clean living, though on the other hand compared with the substance abuse and domestic & business problems that I've seen around me I've actually led a pretty tame life, even though I thought at times that I was being very naughty.

There is a lot of substance behind the saying "Let me sleep on it." Over and over I've woken up knowing what decision to make or how to attack a problem. This morning over coffee I realized that it was going to be a lot easier to somehow fit the toilet outlet hose than to run around all over town in a likely fruitless search for proper sanitation grade ("para aguas negras") wire reenforced hose. I started off by giving the inside of the hose a shave. I wanted to change the square edge of the end of the hose to a tapered one on the inside. It took three disposable razors but I manage to shave off the corner of the rubber liner. I then treated result with sand paper (Yep, you can sandpaper soft rubber, I found out.) to make it nice and smooth. Back at the head I coated the inside of the hose and the outside of the outlet pipe with olive oil then lanolin grease. The big moment came and I still could not manage to get the hose to move over the pipe so I heated about 4" of water in the kettle and tried the old trick of heating the end of the hose in hot water. That worked a treat and with amazing ease I rammed the hose all of the way down over the pipe. I put on the two nicely offset clamps then fitted the toilet end of the hose, which was a much easier job. I then opened up the inlet and outlet ball cock valves and started pumping and the water started to flush with lots of squeaking from the pumping mechanism. A few doses of olive oil in the toilet water fixed that problem very quickly. The toilet brush could not deal with the hard crust that had been left by the 3 months of stagnant (but clean) water in the bowl so I attacked it by hand with a new green scouring pad and detergent. (You've got to be willing to get down and dirty when you do toilets.) Soon it looked and worked like a brand new toilet. It was good to have it back, and now I didn't have to sneak around pouring jars of urine over the side. The big outlet valve now opens fully and in future I'll make sure I fully open it every time. I've got the measurements of the hosing that I require (38 mm diameter, 2.1 meters long) and I will pick one up as soon as I can and carry it as a spare because the current hose is top quality, in good shape, and has had the scale beat out of it. (I slammed it so hard on the jetty to loosen the scale that Martin came out of his boat wondering what was going on.)

I've found two good soft rock stations on the FM radio, one in Spanish and one in English. Life is inching toward normalcy. I went by the office today and told Martha that Pachuca is now in a slip. The looked puzzled and said "So?" I told her that I was trying to keep her informed. There seems to be no interest on which slip I'm in. (Incidentally, this slip has well over 3 meters of water.) I then asked about making a payment. She told me that the manager is considering her response to my request for the cost of almost a year's stay in advance. I let that proceed because the final verdict isn't in regarding my going to Buenos Aires, given what I've heard about the bureaucratic hassles, treacherous shallow waters that can't be properly dredged or charted because the bottom keeps shifting, and lack of lifting capability. Antonio told me that Argentinean riggers use Chinese wire unless one is very careful about asking for a specific brand and ensuring that they get it. Given that, he thinks that I'm better off simply replacing the two broken stays and returning to Australia with the other stays as they are. In view of the fact that I would need to replace those two broken stays before sailing to Buenos Aires I may not really need to go to Buenos Aires at all, remembering that North Sails has a loft here in town. Also, I'm pretty sure that I can get the boat hauled out here in MdP. My apologies for inflicting this seesaw drama on the blog, but I want to be clear on how things are evolving.

In the afternoon I headed for the Laundromat with a heavy load of dirty and damp clothes in the duffel bag which I was carrying on my back using the handy straps. Marianne had told me that it was just off 12 de Octubre along Edison (There is also an Einstein.) I went left instead of right at Edison but got to see where the computer shop is, and eventually reversed myself and found the Laundromat. The woman running it was very helpful, to the point where eventually I could see that in future I can just drop off the laundry and come back an hour later to pick it up. There were two machine loads of a pretty sad collection of clothes and towels that represented just about everything that needed washing. It even included the mattress and seat covers had done such a great protection job during the voyage. During the washing I visited the nearby bank and tested the daily limit by asking for 1000 pesos and got it. Back at the laundromat I wanted to explain the disgusting state of the clothes so I told the lady about me being on a boat and where I had come from. She seemed interested and asked a few questions so I gave her an outline of my ports of call in the last 3 and a half years. She lit up when I mentioned Tahiti and Hawaii. I expect to be a regular customer of the laundromat for a while.

I purchased a cold bottle of beer on the way back and in the evening I would probably cook rice and fish. For the last two days I'd been having a brunch at a nice and simple little place just past the footbridge where I order a "the works" hamburger with fries. It is the usual hamburger with also ham, cheese, and an egg. Yum!

Tomorrow I plan to deal with my electrical needs by visiting the computer shop to get the Acer power pack set up and then walk on to an electrical shop that I spotted during my wrong-turn tour and get a cable for shore power.

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