A Wet and Soggy Roatan

Friday Jan 8 2010 6:38 am
Since leaving the Rio last week, the sun has decided to go on vacation. While you all up in the States suffer from the cold and Obama, we are waiting for your storm to effect us here on Sunday. This time of year your storms show up down here as northerners. We cruisers take refuge in different anchorages as these strong storms sweep down from the north. Joyce has mentioned our new set of problems.....I'll fill in the blanks. News Flash....the sun just poked through the clouds...guess we will go to the iguana zoo today.....and now you know what will be in Joyce s pictures when she does her next post
Those long time followers of the blog, know about my love hate relationship with batteries. When we got back to the boat in October, we had some dead batteries. Once 1 starts to go, it seems the rest are close behind. I took the bad batteries out, but the others would then start to get hot and gas. So back in Nov I bought 2 batteries (24 volts...so 2 wired in series) and disconnected the rest. I have been in contact with Interstate Batteries back in the States. They have given me a contact in Panama who we have talked with. We are hoping to get 12 new batteries under warranty.....for the 5th time. I was hoping we could live with minimum electric usage and make it to Panama this month. Remember....this is our 1st yr in the western Caribbean.... these northerners can really blow...not unlike the storms we have to dodge if coming down from the Chesapeake to the Islands....remember last yrs 54 knot storm we went through. We were having to run the genset every 4-5 hrs to keep our 2 batteries happy..... that includes at night. So to let us sleep and save wear and tear on the genset we came into the marina here....only 100 bucks a week. We will get ready for tomorrow nights blow..35 knts forecast-ed. Problem #2 showed up 4 hours out of the Rio last week on the way to Utila. The Amel is unique, the engine is mounted backward and Amel developed a U-drive. The propeller comes our of the back of the keel. Well this drive has to be serviced and we did when the boat was hauled back in October. Well we started to hear a strange noise that night...upon inspection I found this drive's reservoir was empty. I refilled it and most of the noise went away. When we got to Utila, the fluid was milky indication water in the drive unit. To repair this means the boat has to be hauled. Ram the boatyard up the Rio has assumed responsibility and we will have to go down to La Ceiba on the mainland to do this. With dodging these damn storms... getting parts ordered and scheduling the haul-out, we will have a hard time making Panama by the end of the month. Hoping to get some slack from the battery guy....we will see
We are enjoying meeting up with friends from the Rio, went to Happy Hour last night at the marina bar. The Marina is part of Fantasy Island Dive Resort. So we have the run of the place including the pool, nice beach,cable TV, free ice and discounted diving. So tomorrow we are going for a dive...supposed to be the best dive site on the island.....so it looks like you pic selection on Joyce s next blog will be lizards and fish.