Maybe Monday and Small Jobs

The last I heard on Friday was a verbal assurance from Ada at Columbia Transport that the Volvo engine would go out of San Diego on Friday's truck. If so, it should arrive at the La Paz depot on Monday. (I'll believe it when I see it.)

The winches had not been serviced since Hawaii, perhaps 14 months ago, and the four big ones were getting stiff. Four days ago I began a round of servicing, one winch per day. It took me over 5 hours to do the first winch, and today's fourth winch took 3 hours. I take my time doing this work, largely because one faux paux can mean a vital component going over the side and rendering the winch useless. I meticulously clean every component using a biodegradable cleaner that I mix with water. (It's great stuff: a strong solution will degrease an engine and a weak solution will clean a sail.) I clean every gear tooth with a tooth brush as if it were one of my molars. Once everything is clean and dry I apply a thin coat of winch grease to every wearing part using a tiny brush. Of course each gear tooth gets its 15 seconds of fame under the brush.

Today I actually serviced two winches: the last of the four large cockpit winches and one of the smaller ones on the cabin, meaning that I have only one to go.

I must say that I am pleased at the state of the winches. I found all gears, bearings, etc in good working order. Given the amount of spares I have on hand and the fact that I now know how to maintain and protect them from corrosion I can't see why these not-made-anymore Maxwell winches shouldn't last through my tenure of Pachuca. They are very strong winches and have the great feature of being able to reverse the drum rotation, which I have exploited to great advantage.

Another little job that I did was to recharge the refrigerator. Using my beer temperature index of performance I detected a steady deterioration of performance of the unit, which Brenda confirmed. The likely culprit was another slow gas leak. I dug out the gas recharging kit, read the instruction on how to use it, then took out one of the four canisters of R12 gas and injected everything that I could, which meant equilibrium in pressures between the refrigerator and the canister.

The results were spectacular. In ambient temperatures approaching 100F the refrigerator was taking beer to the freezing point in about 4 hours.

I know that recharging is not a real fix but at this point all I am interested in is having the refrigerator see me through my stay in Mexico. Too much effort has already been spent in chasing down leaks. Soon after departing Mexico I will be in cooler weather and when I return to Australia I will replace the refrigerator with a more efficient unit. R12 is banned in the USA and undoubtedly Australia too, but it is legal in Mexico and very cheap. For me R12 presented a moral dilemma that shook me to my foundations: be responsible to the health of this planet that we all share, or have cold beer? It was a tough one but the 100F outside temperature was of great assistance in the resolution of my spiritual turmoil.

By the way, La Paz has had 3 days of respite from the hot weather, with the temperature running approximately from 70F (21C) to 90F (32C). One theory is that the intense low pressure of the hurricane on the east side of Mexico is drawing cool air from the Pacific ocean.

Brenda's Bird of the Day is a Tricolored Heron. This bird was at the edge of the marina this morning. He is an expert fisher and in six attempts got six little fish. One of them is on the way down in the second photo.