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Diane's DiaryOctober 18 Tuesday I think the refrigerator definitely needs to be looked at today as the temperature is going up and the top of the freezer compartment is not frozen. I don't want to lose all the food I have inside, as it will be expensive to buy it all here. Hopefully, all it needs is a Freon charge like the last time this happened. We went into town around 9:30am to make some phone calls to get a mechanic. Both the marina and Budget Marine recommended the same guy so Budget called him for us. We'll pick him up at 2pm today at Club Nautico. We walked around town in the morning looking in the stores. We walked to Carib Inn to look for a new pair of dive boots for Larry but couldn't find any. This was a long walk back to the boat as we had parked the dinghy at the "green dock". We were going to eat lunch out until we discovered the restaurant was closed on Tuesday so we just came back to the boat to eat. The mechanic finally came at 2:45pm after we called him twice. Remember time here is "Caribbean" and Caribbean time is not the same as American time so 2pm does not mean 2pm but rather when they get to it. It's just a way of life down here but it's definitely hard for Americans until we get used to it. Anyway, the mechanic said he would come back between 6-7pm to complete the repair. He did come back later that night but at around 8pm and stayed till 10pm. He said the system was fixed; it cost $125 so let's hope it works. The temperature in the refrigerator is up to 53 degrees and the food in the freezer is starting to defrost. I made some chicken fajitas for dinner to use up some of the meat in the freezer. October 19 Wednesday The refrigerator "fix" didn't work although the temperature didn't decrease much overnight but something is definitely still wrong. At 9am we went into the marina and Freestyle has a phone so they called the mechanic for us. He'll come between 10:30-11:30am so I guess we'll just have to wait for him. I lent Freestyle a whole bunch of DVDs we had as they had been kind enough to lend us a bunch of their originals. Freestyle also gave us a half bag of ice they had so we could put it in the refrigerator. We were going to buy ice but had forgotten to bring our shoes to walk to the store. Anyway, the mechanic used R134 gas in our old refrigerator, as the old R12 gas is not available here in Bonaire - or in the US either. It's been outlawed for a number of years now and is only available to those who stockpiled it. We hope this new gas didn't mess up our old system. Hershel, the mechanic, came at 3pm - 6 hours late! He said it was a problem with one of the new valves he replaced. I really don't think that was the problem but we'll see tomorrow. Freestyle has said I could put some food in her refrigerator so I think I will. We'll buy some ice to keep the other stuff cold. Anyway, when Hershel left, we went swimming off the boat and Larry cleaned the bottom of the dinghy. When we came back from the swim I noticed the temperature was not decreasing so we knew something was still wrong. Instead of just keeping the compressor on all night, which could burn out the compressor as well as burn up lots of amps, we just turned the refrigerator off for the night. October 20 Thursday We went into the marina at 8:30am after the net ended to call the mechanic again. He said he'll come at 3pm today but we know it probably won't be that exact time as he hasn't been on time yet! I brought Freestyle all my food and was lucky they had so much room in their refrigerator. They are flying back to the US in November so they had been eating most of their food in their refrigerator and so had plenty of room. Anyway, we walked to the small grocery store near the marina to get some ice. We got back to the boat around 10am and I made some breakfast. We went diving to Something Special at 10:30am. We didn't want to dive too far away as we need to make sure we are back to the boat before 3pm in case the mechanic comes on time. This was our first dive in three days. I think I am over-weighted and need to reduce my weight some. Anyway, we saw the largest grouper we have ever seen - about 4 feet! We also saw a band tail puffer fish - we had only seen this fish twice before and once was in Blanquilla. We got back to the boat around 2pm, had lunch and waited for the mechanic. He finally came at 4pm. He and Larry went to Budget Marine to buy some parts while I stayed with his worker on the boat who did some other work. Hershel thinks the leak is an aluminum pipe under the stove. He brought some aluminum epoxy but this didn't seem to work so Larry will try fixing the leak tonight with his epoxy. The epoxy stick he bought at Budget Marine was expensive too and we didn't even need it! Anyway, tomorrow is a holiday here on Bonaire but Hershel will come back anyway. That is extremely nice of him and so far he hasn't asked for any more money either. Of course we are paying a much higher price we suspect than the locals but that probably is the way in all the islands also - cruisers definitely get charged higher prices but what are you going to do? Anyway, if this repair doesn't work, we don't want to spend any more money fixing it - we'll just use ice until we can buy a new refrigerator. Since we plan on going back to the US in December anyway, there's no sense buying a unit now and just have it sit on the boat not being used for 6 months or so until we come back so we'll just use the refrigerator as an icebox and buy ice. We missed Wanna Dive's Thursday night party tonight. It's really the only time we go out at night so I definitely missed it but we were just too hot and aggravated to go. We had run the water maker for a half hour in the morning, but when we came back from diving, the high voltage alarm was going off, so we ran the water maker for 2 more hours so we have about half tank of water in the port tank, 3/4 in the starboard tank. Several days ago I finished book #22 Critical Mass by Steve Martini, which we both liked a lot. Now I started and finished another book #23 Bad Company by Jack Higgins, which I liked. I like Jack Higgins' books- they are fast reading and usually always entertaining. He usually writes about Northern Ireland or WW2. October 21 Friday Today is a local holiday so all the stores are closed. The mechanic said he's coming back at 4pm but he hasn't been on time yet so it will probably be much later. I knew the supermarket would be opened as it usually is on all holidays but only for a half day so I had Larry drive me to the dock and I walked from there- probably about a 15-minute walk into town. I happened to see Tim and he said they are leaving tomorrow for Curacao. We have hardly seen Ray at all since we are here. Nirvana was supposed to come for drinks tonight but we had to cancel, as we don't know what time the mechanic will show up. We went to a close dive site, Small Wall, as we wanted to be back at the boat early in case the mechanic shows up early. Since Freestyle had all our food, we didn't have much to eat for dinner so I opened up some cans we had from Martinique- cassiolet and ratatouille. They weren't great but not too bad; I just wouldn't want to have a steady diet of it! By 6:30, Hershel still hadn't come so Larry called him on the Skype phone. It wasn't a great connection and I felt he had forgotten about us but he said he would come in an hour and he did. Thankfully, the leak looks fixed. All we really want is to get it back to PLC at this point. I can buy ice there and it won't matter if the refrigerator doesn't work. With the AC running on shore power, the boat is cooler so the ice will last longer. We can also buy block ice in PLC but it's not within walking distance here. Anyway, Hershel wanted the refrigerator completely open, the interior temperature is now 83 degrees so it's going to take at least a day or two to get it back to the 40-degree range. I don't want to get out food back from Freestyle until we know the refrigerator is working. We have a little wind and some sun but we'll have to run the engine again since the refrigerator is using so many amps. October 22 Saturday A miracle- the temperature is going down and the refrigerator seems to be working. Let's just keep our fingers crossed it works until we get back to PLC. We were both up around 3am last night and just couldn't get back to sleep. It is very hot on the boat as there is no wind. We woke up to find another west wind had arrived! The winds were light though- about 10 knots. Around lunchtime it finally started switching around to SE. The batteries are really low- down to 80% since the compressor was running the whole night. Larry stayed on the boat running the engine while I took the dinghy into the marina, visited Freestyle for a few minutes, and walked to get more ice. Even though the refrigerator is working, we know if we put more ice into it, the temperature will go down quicker. So, I bought 2 bags of ice. We went diving at 1pm. The dive shop told us visibility was very limited as the west wind stirs up the water so we didn't want to waste the dinghy gas and go too far so we just went to Something Special. We got back to the boat around 4:30pm. Around 5:45, Larry drove me to the dock and I walked to Bobbie Jan's for take out bar-b-que and ribs. Everyone there was taking out and I know why- the mosquitoes were fierce! At 8:30pm, 24 hours after Hershel fixed the refrigerator; the temperature is at 50 degrees and decreasing so it seems to be working OK. Larry is just afraid the new gas is not compatible with our old system and so will burn out the compressor so we will definitely buy a new one when we get home. Also, the new refrigerators are more energy efficient so we will save more amps. Of course the new refrigerator is also $1,000! We very little wind today but have about 80% sun so are getting some amps in. October 23 Sunday Today was a bad day - weather wise that is! We had lots of rain, thunder and lightning all morning. I caught several buckets of water. We were up around 5:30am when it started to rain and we had to close the hatches. We finally got back to bed and woke up at 7:30am when we were experiencing ANOTHER wind reversal. This is getting ridiculous - we have had so many wind reversals since we have been here. Around lunchtime, the wind finally started switching back to the east. I worked on my logs this morning, as we obviously are not going to dive today as the visibility will not be good. S/V Nirvana was supposed to come for drinks tonight at 5pm. I made a tray of enchiladas before Nirvana came so I would have dinner already prepared to go in the oven when they left. However, around 4pm the marina made an announcement that Aruba and Curacao were experiencing 6-FOOT westerly swells from Hurricane Wilma and we might get them here between 6-9pm tonight. Larry and I talked about it and decided to just stay on the mooring. However, later another cruiser made an announcement as the Marine Park had gone over to his boat and suggested we all leave as the conditions might get bad. Larry and I talked about it again and decided to go into the marina then. It was unusual for the Marine Park to come by the boats so we knew it could be bad. Also, we saw all the dive boats going into the marina - when they go in you know the weather could be bad as they rarely do that. By this time it was 5:45pm and Nirvana had not come anyway. They later said they were on their way to us when everyone started going into the marina. Anyway, we didn't want the waves to come at night when it would be too late to get into the marina. Besides, with all the boats coming in its possible there would be no room for us later. Fortunately, we were the second boat headed in and got a side to slip. We are on the same dock as last year and unfortunately the boat is pointing west so we don't get good air in the forward hatch. I quickly got up the screens, as I knew we would have mosquitoes here. Another cruiser lent us the key to the showers and off we went, as we were both hot and sticky. When we got back to the boat, lots of cruisers were on the catamaran Makai right next to us and they invited us over. We went for a little while. The marina hooked up our electric when we asked them as we are really low. We didn't bother with the TV although I was dying to watch it. As long as we are in here we will probably just stay for the week, as it's much cheaper than the daily rate. Also, the frig compressor seems to be running a lot more so it's using up lots of amps. October 24 Monday Larry connected the cable TV this morning. They have lots of good US stations here and it's strange to have TV again after not having it for so long. It's actually hard to relate to some of the stuff on TV. We both commented that we hadn't missed much not having TV! When we have TV we watch it at night and when we don't, we just read. Larry also took off the side-boarding ladder so we could easily use the gate to get on and off the boat. It's a pleasure to have a side to dock instead of that stupid med mooring we have in PLC! It's so much easier to get on and off the boat. Larry used the Skype phone and finally got a hold of Doug at Kiss wind generators in Trinidad. He apologized for not getting back to us sooner and promised to send the part out today via Fed EX at his expense as we explained we would only be here for another week or so. Larry also ordered a new bearing that we paid for but it was only $30. Larry said as long as he has to take the wind generator down he might as well change the bearing since it's 5 years old now. The sky was dark and gray and it looked like it was going to rain out but we had to go to Immigration today, as we have to apply for an extension. Fortunately, another boater was going into town and gave us a lift. Immigration was not friendly at all. They wanted us to fill in all these forms, wanted a copy of them and yet would not make the copies! Since it was near 12, I went food shopping in town for a few items and them we went to the Lost Penguin for lunch. It was not a good day to go diving since the water was all stirred up from yesterday. BTW, we didn't get any big waves last night but Harbour Village and Eden Beach lost half of their beaches and Buddy Dive shop lost a part of their dock. So, I guess it was best we came into the marina after all. We watched a DVD Freestyle lent us - White Oleander- it was terrible! It's nice to have lots of electric again but it is expensive here- .33/KW and 5% tax.
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