Dave got up about 7:30 and had breakfast. A couple scrambled eggs and toast. He definitely would go back if looking just for a place to sleep. He checked on the freighter again this morning. They have slowed down a bit. The new forecast is Tuesday morning.
He hit the road sometime after 8:00. Traffic was nada being a Sunday morning so he flew into Colon. Everything was still closed so he just headed towards the marina hoping the little store would be open for water and beer. He has way more than a couple beer job ahead.
You have to drive around to cross the locks but the road to the canal observatory is paved to the top. It is still gravel down the hill to where you cross the new locks, though. The new lock gates are in on the lake side so he drove over them to get to the other side. The road out to Shelter Bay is still it’s awful self.
He got to the boat around 10. It looked great as the marina took the covers off and washed her. So he started getting her ready for shipment.
- He took down all the lines he had rigged for the cover.
- He took the cover off the dinghy and noticed the dinghy was flat as a pancake. The dinghy might be dead. It blew out one of the back end caps to the main tube. We plan to get rubber dingy glue and try to repair her, but no hope of that till she is back in the Pacific Northwest.
- Dave tries to start the main engines. No dice. Uh oh. Looks like the starter battery is toast. Lots of voltage idle under charge but drops to 2 volts when cranking. Dave jumped the main batteries over and the engine started right up. That will be fine for the transit to the ship. Dave tests is a couple more times off the charger so he can be sure he can restart. Although the start battery is dead as a door-nail, the house batteries seem strong and are holding a charge just fine. Not liking losing some redundancy, Dave figures it will make it the 2-mile cruise out to the freighter.
- The main engine is sounding great, but the transmission was stiff going into gear. He brought it back to neutral and it got stuck in neutral. He fiddled with it for a bit but the plunger that you push to go into neutral was stuck in the down position. This is way bad. Dave realizes that in order to get to the linkages in the transmission he will have to disassemble the entire steering column and reassemble it. He figures this is a two-day job. He wonders what it would take to get a tow out to the ship as that might be his only way to get Apsaras aboard the freighter on Tuesday. Assuming she really arrives Monday night. Hoping for a better outcome, he starts lubing all the linkages. He took off the lever and lubed everything he could get at. He played with it for 60 minutes and it started to free up. Whew! And wouldn’t you know it, transmission feels better than ever before!
- Dave removes the side solar cells and stashed them inside as nothing can be hanging off the sides during transit. It was just as well as it looks like the controller for them is dead. Dave then discovers that the main solar cell connections have corroded and disconnected. This is bad because Apsaras needs some charging during transit to make sure that the batteries stay alive, or we might not be able to start her when she is offloaded. So Dave rewires the connections, and the big solar is working fine now.
- Fortunately, a lot of what we were fretting about seems fine. No mold on the interior, the fridge is working great, and the air conditioning units are running. The extended WiFi antenna has died. Dave thinks it is the power over Ethernet adapter again. He has a spare somewhere but it’s not worth fixing right now. The printer is complaining – maybe just needs reseating of everything. That poor thing has been through Hell. Oh and the ice maker is toast. The pump that transfers the water from the reservoir to the tray where it freezes is dead. Dave figures he could have adapted a windshield washer pump from a car but it was not worth a trip into town. He does decide he wants to repair it though, if for no other reason than old time sake since he has fixed it so many times before.
- Time to put the steering wheel back on. Where in the heck is the woodruff key? Dang it. We knew we would lose it. We tried to buy spares but alas could never find them in quantities of less than 100. A woodruff key looks about like a nickel cut in half. You install it in the tapered shaft that the steering wheel fits on. It keeps the steering wheel from slipping.
- Dave put the steering wheel on and tightened it up tight. Hopefully, it holds for the 2 mile trek across the bay tomorrow. Losing your steering while approaching a shipping freighter would be very bad.
Dave calls Melissa to debate what we do with all the booze that is aboard. Technically we can’t import that much into Canada. No problem to leave behind all the Clos boxed wine – that stuff is barely drinkable. But there are a few bottles of nice wine still in the hold. Be a bummer to leave that stuff behind. So Dave decides to just leave it be. Worst case is that we declare it and pay for it again in Canada. Probably better than leaving it in Panama and having to restock later.
With no wind, it is hot outside. It is coming up 4:00 so maybe it is time to have a drink. Dave checks on the freighter again and she has picked up speed again. It is back on track for a midnight arrival tomorrow.