It’s nice to be sipping fresh Blue Mountain coffee:)
Well I’m making way on the transmission project. It was certainly the oil cooler. It was mixing sea water with the gear box’s oil. At this point I’ve got another oil cooler installed after a lot of running around, finding parts, and sweating in the Jamaican sun. I’m spending a fortune in oil trying to flush the gear box but after all this we may be able to get moving next week, fingers crossed! I spoke to the engineer in England about the transmission and have decided we had a 2-part problem. I thought the tranny was slowly failing and finally burned up at sea. Now what I believe to be true is that we had water in the tranny that was causing the clutch plates to slip, hence the hunting RPM’s. The RMP on the motor would increase with the absence of load on the prop. After driving for a while under these conditions I got snagged in the net. Anyway, that’s the story I’m going with.
Sam, Guin, and I took a break for mothers day. We took a bus & cabs up into the mountains to ‘reach falls’. The river water was cool, clear, and clean. It was such a nice treat on a hot Jamaican day.
I have to say just one more time ‘Thank you’ to the guys that helped out with the donations it made getting out of here possible. I was starting to have crazy ideas run through my head like leaving the boat here and going back to the states to find work. That would have been such a bummer! We have a number of people interested in chartering with us in the San Blas and are scraping by until we can get that whole charter thing under way. We may also run backpackers from Panama to Cartagena and back. They don’t pay so much but the work is okay.
Guin has turned out to be such a swimmer, we just cant keep her out of the water. I think she was starting to fall asleep in this picture. She prefers snorkeling in the sea but the pool is really good for now. I must say it is such a treat having a pool and endless water not to mention hot showers.
Sorry for the ridiculous monster face picture of the 3 of us but I just had to post it. We were feeling really good at the end of the day yesterday after I got the new oil cooler installed and were a bit punchie.
Also check out this military boat (HSV 2)that pulled in. I met one of the guys on the boat and asked how fast it goes and he told me it was “Top Secret” but it does in excess of 47 knots, WOW.
Anyway, I’m off to buy more oil and keep flushing the gear box. I’m also going to have some new oil lines made as the ones on the cooler are cracked and about to fail.
Peace from Jamaica.
Sail far and live slowly.
– Alex
