Tip: before beginning any project, start the day off with a cockpit solar shower wash of the hair. It makes one feel refreshed and ready to tackle the day.
The day after my birthday we woke to enjoy our morning coffee which happened to be Starbuck's Via that my mom graciously gifted us during our visit home. We love our coffee, especially strong coffee and cannot find such in this part of Mexico. Enjoy what you have when you have it and we definitely are as our Via supply is limited. We were thrilled the stove was working as it wasn't the day before so when it turned on without issue we thought there to be no issues. Wrong!
After coffee we noticed the smell of propane which is never good. The smell was coming from the stern where our propane tanks are located. We checked our recently filled propane tank to learn it was now 3/4 empty; also not good. Combine the propane smell with an almost empty propane tank and you have a propane leak! After some thought and research from the day before we decided to change the propane solenoid which provides the electrical current to the switch inside the boat which turns on the propane flow to the stove. We could see the solenoid was a bit corroded and thought it may have a leak. The past owners had purchased a propane solenoid so we had a replacement part! Good thing as these little mechanisms are spendy as proven by the $160.00 price tag!
Our very sweet neighbor, Tony, who owns the boat docked next to us along with his very sweet wife, Marquita, was gracious enough to help us learn how to replace the solenoid.
Poncha getting instruction from Tony.
While Poncha worked with Tony I reorganized the space under our V-berth (where we sleep) to accommodate our cart and our inflatable kayak. The space is rather small so being able to contort myself helps!
Several hours later Poncha has successfully replaced our solenoid!
We thought our propane issues were solved only to learn the next morning the leak was coming from the propane regulator! Off to the local hardware store we went with fingers crossed that they would sell the item we needed. We felt pretty confident they would as everyone here uses propane in their homes as well as on boats. Lucky for us we scored one and installed it ourselves. The only glitch came when I pulled out the solenoid wiring that Poncha had done the day before. Oops! So we had to repair that as well.
There is a person here we deem 'The Water Guy' who comes around the marina with a small pickup truck loaded with 5 gallon containers of water honking his horn and yelling "AGUA! AGUA," which he sells for 30 pesos each. We hadn't seen him in weeks and we were getting low on potable (drinkable) water, therefore we decided to pull out the big cart and take a 1.5 mile walk to fill up our water containers at the local water outlet store.
Here I am ready to go and feeling ready to tackle the adventure ahead as once our 5 gallon containers are full they will weigh close to 200 pounds!
As we pulled our cart down the dock one of our neighbors on S/V (sailing vessel) Waveglider offers us a ride to the water store. Well, we aren't crazy and accept immediately! Not only did we save money since purchasing water at the water store costs us less than half of what we usually pay plus we didn't have to haul the water back! Lucky us! We are ever grateful for the kindness of others!
Thank you S/V Waveglider!
He we are filling our water tanks.
All in all a good project day!
Our next project is to replace our bilge pump. Here's to hoping that goes smooth!
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