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Larry's LogEarly the next day, Claude and Dianne picked up Diane to go to the market in the town of Cariaco, with Jean Marc via a por puesto (van) this morning, while I stayed on the boat. I was going to just relax, and I did read a bit, but I wound up changing the bungee cord on 2 hatch covers, put away some more stuff, this time in the aft head and then tried to run the watermaker. The watermaker had been pickled for about 6 months, ever since I had bought a replacement membrane in Trinidad, and it had to be run. I turned it on but it didn't seem to be getting any feed water through. I tried some fresh water and that worked. Diane came back, having bought some food and arepas (pretty tasteless) and so I stopped working on the watermaker and we went in for the lunch that Jean Marc was preparing. Lunch was Grouper (Mero) with a type of Béarnaise sauce, and was fantastic. We stayed on shore enjoying our lunch and then went back to the boat where I continued with the watermaker. Jean Marc had also kindly given us a CD with the new El Golfo magazine and his web site on it. He also gave us a piece of paper that Picasso had shown us regarding the unnecessary procedure to do national (by State) check-in and out. After struggling with the machine for about 3 hours, I finally narrowed it down to either a blockage or airlock in the feed line from the intake. I blew through the line and all sorts of junk came out but it still didn't work. The pre-filter wasn't getting any water and therefore the HP pump wasn't getting any water. I tried pouring water down the hose from the intake, taking the fresh water flush valve out of the system and still no luck. I disconnected the HP pump so that when I tested the feed pump, it wouldn't run and just run empty and use amps. We went back in for showers and a beer and decided to stay another day so I could try to fix the watermaker's plumbing. We saw Claude and Dianne when they also came in to have dinner and told them about the watermaker problem and that we probably wouldn't be able to go with them tomorrow to the end of the Gulf. They wanted to go anyway since they were going to see the Guacharo (Oilbird) Cave in Caripe. We said we would call them on the radio when we were coming. Again that evening there were thunderstorms across the Gulf but we didn't get any rain on our side. Sunday, as has become our 'tradition', Diane made bacon and eggs for breakfast. I then continued to try to fix the watermaker. First, I traced the feed line hose and found no kinks or blockages, but to be sure, I blew it out, hooked it up and still no water flowed, although lots of crud came out when I blew the line out. Finally, since the feed line is off a tee from the engine intake, I figured that running the engine might 'force' water through the hose and get rid of the airlock, and that worked. Water finally flowed easily to the feed pump, but it still wouldn't flow to the pre-filter well. I tried various things but eventually moved the fresh water flush valve below the forward head shelf and water flowed easily again. It had worked just fine for 2 years above the shelf, but at that point, I just wanted to get it working again. Now, turning on the feed pump brought water to the pre-filter with no problem so I reconnected the high pressure pump and it started to work for a while and then stopped producing any product water. This was a real puzzle and I wasn't sure what was happening. I tried various things, making sure that the discharge valve was in the right position (it was) and such. Finally, after making sure that the pre-filter was indeed getting water from the feed pump (it was), the unit started making water. After letting it run, I tested it and it was 200 PPM, which is very good quality and so I let it run into the tank. I think it stopped suddenly because the water level in the membrane had to build up and there was an air pocket that had to escape first. That was at around 12:30. I let it run for about 3 hours and we got to a little less than ¾ tank, as it was only making about 4gph now, although its rated to produce 8 gph, the best I ever got was 6. I think that was because the battery voltage was so low - around 12.1, since Diane had the inverter on and the refrigerator was running also. I cleaned up from ripping apart the cabin to get at everything and even found some more storage space under the cabin sole just forward of the mast. I turned the unit off around 3:30. We then went in to shore and had showers, some beers and paid our bill. A total of about 28,000 Bs for our wonderful lunch and whatever drinks we had over the last few days. We had a nice dinner on the boat and decided to go to the end of the Gulf tomorrow. I got up early the next morning and started to get ready. The dinghy was up on the halyard so I lowered it, took off the gas tank, etc. to get everything ready. Diane then helped get the engine on the stern and we were underway by 8:15. The batteries were very low from yesterday so we motored all the way there, although we probably would have anyway since it was right into the wind and it was pretty light air early in the morning. We arrived at 10:30 at El Muelle de Cariaco, the little town, and saw Picasso anchored there. We took the boat into the Laguna de Cariaco for a little bit (it was shallow in there) to look for the 'stakes' in the water near the shrimp farm where we would go later in the evening to see the Scarlet Ibis. We saw them and then went back to anchor near Picasso. We then got the dinghy ready to go but as I was finishing, I saw 3 kids get into Picasso's dinghy at the dock. As I watched, they got out and then went back in again in 2 minutes. I went over to the dock and checked the dinghy and it seemed OK. They were probably just playing around. After lunch, Claude and Dianne came back from their trip to Caripe, where the Cave is, and we saw them rowing out. I got in the dinghy and towed them back to their boat. Their engine wouldn't start; evidently the kids had done something. After getting them back, I drove Diane to shore to get gas and I went back to Picasso to lend moral support. Claude tried several things but eventually found that the kids had flipped a safety switch. He turned it back and it started right away. At least it was a cheap fix. They told me about the Guacharo (Oilbirds) cave and that we should go, even just for the ride there. About 30 minutes after I went back to Destiny, Diane called to pick her up. She had gotten the gas with no problem at all. We then relaxed until 4:15 and then we went by dinghy across the lagoon to see the roosting Scarlet Ibises and other birds there. We went down to just before the edge of the river, anchored, and saw many pelicans, some Ospreys, cormorants, herons, etc. Then we saw some Ibises in a tree near the river, they were high up but the color was unbelievable - at first we thought they were flowers. We stayed there for a while and saw some Ibises fly over, but none roosted there. We then drifted down a ways and saw some Snowy Egrets come in, but still no Ibises except flying overhead. Finally, we saw them lots of them roosting further up the lagoon - we had gone in too far. So I upped anchor and slowly motored there. Hundreds of brilliant red birds were in the trees - it was really spectacular but it was too dark by that time for any pictures. Back at the boat, we decided to stay another day, even though the noise at night was bad - roosters, dogs, etc. We wanted to go up the small river we saw at the head of the lagoon and then see the Ibises again at dusk. So, the next morning we went up the Rio Cariaco at about 8:30 and saw lots of birds; Ibises, herons, Ospreys, pelicans, Kingfishers, Cormorants, etc. but taking pictures was difficult since they would fly away before we could get close. Still, it was very interesting. The current was between 1 and 3 knots so we motored slowly up and tried rowing down. That took some practice and getting used to, but it was very pleasant without the sound of the outboard. Once in the lagoon, we also figured out where to anchor at dusk to see the Ibises again. Once back, I found had problems with the digital camera- it wouldn't recognize or format any of the memory cards, even the new one I had just bought in the States. I tried formatting the in the PC, as I had done before, but that wouldn't work either. I worked on that problem a bit and discovered that the Norton Utilities program I had just purchased was keeping the drive (the memory card looks like a hard drive to the PC) in use. After disabling that, the PC formatted them fine but the camera still wouldn't see the card correctly. Well, first things first and I started running the engine and watermaker at about 1:15 since we needed water and the batteries were getting low since there wasn't much wind and the sun was in and out. I worked on the camera problem again after lunch, while Diane made bread pudding. I decided to clean the contacts on the camera and the contacts on the cards. On the camera, I opened the battery compartment and used a pencil eraser to remove any minute corrosion and then an electronic contact cleaner; on the cards, I just used the cleaner. After the treatment, the camera worked fine and recognized all the cards and formatted them OK. Diane's bread pudding came out very well also! I then brought Diane in to get some more gas. She brought some candy for the kids in the village and she later said she was like the Pied Piper; they all followed her around. I picked her up at 4 and we went back to the Ibis spot at 4:15. We couldn't decide exactly where but as it turned out, the spot we chose was perfect. At 4:30, 2 fisherman rowed past and anchored about 200 yards up and got out of the boat (only about 3 feet deep there) and started fishing using throw nets. Inititally we were worried that they would scare the birds but as it turned out the birds didn't care at all. At first, many birds flew past the trees we could see, but eventually 1 landed where we could see it. Great, 1 Scarlet Ibis! But within 10 minutes, 4 more joined him and eventually, just before 6pm, there must have been 500 birds, brilliantly red, on the trees in front of us. It was simply spectacular. We thought we might have gotten closer, but we didn't want to scare them. As it turned out though, after we started the engine to leave, they didn't seem scared at all. We got back to Destiny around 6:30 and while Diane made the great lomito again, I got the dinghy ready and then hoisted it on the halyard along the side of the boat. We did this almost every night in Venezuela, except in the outer islands where we felt there was no possible threat. |