Long Distance Dripless Rubber Booty Call

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No, the title isn't some sort of kinky sex reference, although AnnMarie did fly down here for another conjugal visit (they allow that in Mexico) but the title refers to the new "dripless" mechanical seal she brought with her from Emeryville. The propeller shaft on one of the engines started leaking, and rather than chance having it get worse on our way up the coast, we ordered another. As it turns out, the other engine is starting to drip as well, so we'll need to change that one out pretty soon. What fun, heh?

These are pretty nifty devices, they allow the propeller shaft to exit the hull, and still spin, yet keep the water out. In most older boats there is something called a "stuffing box" (I love that term, it sounds like some sort of Thanksgiving desert) which is a long piece of hose that attaches to the boat, with a brass flange at the other end. The shaft goes through the flange, inside the hose and out the boat. Inside the flange is a "packing gland" (another term whose mental image conjures up something definitely not holiday related) which consists of strips of flax impregnated with some sort of earwax. You unscrew the flange, stuff the flax around the shaft then tighten up on the nut until water stops leaking.

Almost. It actually has to drip a little, constantly, in order for it to work correctly, if you make it too tight then it will overheat when the shaft is spinning. Too lose and water fills your boat. Just right and the water acts as a sort of lubricant and cooling fluid, but means you always have water in your bilge. In actual use, these things are always sort of a problem, and they require constant checking and continual maintenance. Most boat owners dread touching them, it is the moral equivalent of needing to go to a proctologist. It's a problem back there somewhere, you know you should deal with it, but really wish it just healed itself.

There are newer types of synthetic packing material that supposedly work better and eliminate the drip, but the general design is [several hundred years] old technology, and there are newer alternatives. Namely, the "dripless mechanical seal". This system supposedly eliminates the constant drip (thus the name) by eliminating the stuffing box and packing gland entirely.

Instead, a hollow, compressible, rubber bellows is placed around the shaft, one end attached to the boat, and the other terminated with a graphite ring that goes around the shaft. A stainless steel collar then fits tightly over the shaft, it's aft facing surface pressed up against the graphite disk's forward facing surface. Lock nuts hold the collar in place on the shaft, compressing the belows slightly and providing the seal. Because the two disk's surfaces are in compression, no water gets past, yet the shaft can turn without heating up because there is always seawater inside the bellows to keep it cool. In fact, a small tube is run from the rubber bellows up above the waterline (preventing air pockets from forming inside it) to make sure that there is always water cooling the two disks.

Very simple, very clever, and it should last seven to ten years without maintenance or hemorrhoids. What a concept! We'll see just how long and well it works, but it appears to be doing the trick so far. Of course, once we start up the coast will be the real test. Providing the stainless steel collar doesn't slip, it should remain completely dry in the bilge. If it does slip, then water comes gushing in. To that end I've put a couple of pipe clamps around the shaft just behind the collar, as backup, and added a second, completely redundant bilge pump, giving me a total output capacity of about two thousand gallons per hour per engine compartment. Plus another two thousand gallons per hour in each of the separate hull compartments forward of the engines. If I'm taking water on that fast, odds are good the propeller fell out or we were rear ended by a whale.

But first we needed to get the part down here. Now, although there is a brand new DHL shop not ten minutes from here, it hasn't opened yet (it was supposed to have been operational two weeks ago, but this is "manana" land) and according to everyone else getting anything here could take weeks. And more than a hundred dollars. I wanted to get the seal installed before the crew arrived, and get to see Ann again, so she found a cheap, non-stop flight for not much more than what it would have cost to ship it. She ordered the part (it took less than two days to ship it from Europe to Emeryville) and hand carried it down with her. It meant she flew down on the weekend and had to leave for work on Sunday, but it was great to see her again!

Picking her up at the airport I ran into a strange situation. I wasn't sure which public parking was appropriate at the airport, the signs are less than clear, so I pulled up in front of the terminal and asked the cop directing traffic where to go. "Oh, well, you can park over there, or you can leave it here in the red zone if you are only going to be a few minutes...just tip me on your way out." Well, that seemed odd to me, but Ann was due to arrive any second and it wasn't clear how much stuff she would have. I thought about it for a bit, and defaulted to that age old advice: when in Rome, do as the Romanians.

Now if a cop tried that at an airport in the states, he'd lose his job, maybe go to jail. Down here, it is just another day. Several of the other cruisers here have told me about numerous traffic stops that were "resolved" by paying the cop directly, rather than dealing with the ticket. The corruption and bribery is something that I think ultimately needs to change before Mexico will really be able to compete on the global scale, but things are changing fast down here. No doubt even that will fade (it has already improved significantly since the last time I was here) and eventually rule of law will take hold. We all hope so, anyway.

On the way back to the marina, we stopped for a bite to eat. I was pretty tired and very hungry and suffering from low blood sugar. I could barely speak. Ann said "Is there somewhere we can get lunch?" I tried to explain that I knew a place, it was on the way, but that they "...serve meat, and, uh, meat, on potatoes, or you can just get meat." There was a brief pause, then she said, "Oh, can I get meat with my meal?". She laughed and made fun of me the whole way there. But it was really a great place, just a little road side stand, run by "Fidel" (he was quick to point out that there was no relation to Castro) who knows everyone in town. Basically, he serves meat, grilled with potatoes. He sat and chatted with us as we ate, and every other car that drove by honked or waved as they went past. If you are ever in San Jose, check him out, he is on the road that leads to the Marina Los Cabos, just off the traffic circle.

Oh, that is another thing about San Jose. They love, Love, LOVE traffic circles. And road bumps. And traffic circles with road bumps. I think the Mexican Tire and Suspension Repair Consortium is behind it all, but you can't drive more than a few blocks without going around a circle, across a ditch or over a bump. And, to really make life fun, they put paving stones the pavement in spoke like patterns radiating out of the center of the traffic circles. This means if you go faster than seven miles an hour around one of these circles you better be really good at regaining control out of a skid. That doesn't stop the locals from driving like maniacs, but it does provide seconds of terror filled amusement as you navigate your way home.

Ann and I spent most of the day just hanging out on the boat. We tried to go to a fancy restaurant that evening but got lost trying to find it. The numerous police officers we stopped to ask seemed surprised that anyone would voluntarily talk to a person in uniform at night, but while being very polite and as helpful as possible, they didn't know where we wanted to go. Eventually we just gave up, pulled up in front of some roadside joint and had a mediocre meal.

She left the next morning, but not before making me take a picture with my favorite roadside attraction. I had the seal installed that afternoon, but we were missing the set screws that held it in place. They had fallen into the packing material, never to be see again. No big deal, Ann eventually found them when she got home, but it means that I won't be able to finish and test it all until the crew gets here with the new ones. Ugh. They are also bringing down another seal, which I'll probably install on the other shaft if there is time, or we stop somewhere. This boat is absolutely fantastic in that almost anything can be repaired on it without having to take it out of the water. I love how well thought out the design is.

I've also got to hang out a bit this week with a Dutch cruising couple, Marcel and Anok, and their one year old child Lev. We had bumped into them in La Paz, then in Los Frailes, then in Cabo, and now they are here in the marina as well. They've been cruising on a 27? foot trimaran called "Evasive", which was originally owned by Larry Flint, painted bright pink and called "She's Easy". When they bought it, it was tan, and had already had its name changed. Being less than perfectly fluent they didn't really grok the subtle meaning of the new name. They are thinking of changing the name back, because "Elusive" just doesn't capture the spirit of their adventure, and it sounds kind of shifty to them. I agree.

Unfortunately, they ran into some problems this week with the four stroke outboard that powers their boat. While motoring into harbor it broke free from its mooring plate and fell into the ocean, still running. Marcel was unsure what to do about it, and asked my advice. I suggested the standard things, like draining all the fluids, flushing the cylinders, changing the oil several times, etc., eventually we got it running again, and it sounded pretty smooth. "Okay", I said, "now change the oil again, run it an hour, then change it again after that." He did, and started it up. It seemed fine. "Wow, you got really lucky!" I said, "most motors that suck in water while running blow a seal, or crack the head, or worse." I left feeling pretty good about things.

A hour later Marcel came by and asked if I could look at the motor again. It seems there was water leaking out of the oil drain plug. Well, I checked it out, and sadly, there was water just pouring into the crank case when the engine was running. Very bad. Very, very bad. It seems he did blow a seal (or worse, maybe cracked the block somewhere), and would have to take the motor in to La Paz to get it fixed. Damn, just when I thought we'd cheated death. So, its off to the mechanics for them, and back to being a mechanic for me. The fun never stops.

In the meantime, work proceeds apace. I've got a bunch of wiring and plumbing done, have a bunch more to do, but should be ready to go by the time the crew arrives. We hope to leave here Friday night around 10pm, motor down to Cabo Falso and check the weather. If it is good we will run up the coast towards Mag Bay. If not, we'll wait another twenty four hours and try again.

So, if you are of a religious nature, please say a prayer to whatever God you worship, and ask him to put in a good word with Poseidon, tell him to spare Triton from his wrath, and grant us flat seas, calm winds and clear water. Getting round this point is considered one of the hardest bits of sailing there is to do, so we'll take all the help we can get. In the meantime, we watch the weather charts and listen to the HAM nets and hope for the best.

Cheers for now,

Robb


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Please allow me to help you...that will be ten dollars.

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Fuckin'A!

You just gotta love Nicaragua. Friendly people, beautiful scenery, unmarked speed bumps that can rip the suspension off your vehicle (I'm not joking, you'll be driving along at sixty and not see one of these things and suddenly be airborn!) and cops that supplement their income by shaking down tourists. I know, that sounds like another exaggeration. It's not. Let me explain why...

A few months back I had left the boat in Marina Puesta Del Sol, Nicaragua and flown back to the states for a few weeks. When I left I had taken a taxi from the marina to the airport. It turned out to be a bit of a harrowing experience, the driver was your typical machismo nut job with a death wish (I think this is an actual requirement when applying for the job), who chain smoked filter-less cigarettes while passing long lines of cars as speeding oncoming trucks blared their horns at us. The cab's interior had no door knobs or window handles in the back, and the driver was acting a bit spooky...he would sporadically pull off to the shoulder, jump out of the car and pee on the side of the road, then sort of stand their looking down the road, as if he were waiting for someone. Usually, I regret not being able to speak Spanish. This was one time when I really didn't want to know what he was doing. BTW, this kind of taxi driver is found everywhere in Central America, Nicaragua has nothing special going here.

At one point we stopped at a gas station and he demanded I give him money for gas. I didn't quite understand what he wanted at first, and was trying to figure it out by asking him to speak slower, and write down some words. He became very angry and agitated, yelling at me in Spanish. Not knowing what the fuck he wanted I gave him thirty dollars and that seemed to appease him, but left me completely bewildered as to why he was behaving so aggressively. By the time we reached the capital, I was a bit non-plussed, and then even more anxious when I saw the kind of slums we were driving through to get there. That was the first time I'd been through Managua, which is one of the worst cities I have ever seen. It isn't as bad a Colone, Panama, but it is close. It's basically a large slum replete with burned out buildings, tenements, roving gangs, and the occasional small pockets of moderately impoverished homes that pass for middle class here. Short of war, the only thing I know that will destroy a country as completely is fifty years of dictatorship followed by socialist rule. Everything we would take for granted (street signs, traffic signals, sanitation, law enforcement, etc.), is either broken, dirty or just not there. I sat in the back of the cab and wondered if I'd actually get to the airport, or be rolled by the taxi driver on some side street. Not a pretty place.

When I returned to Nicaragua this last time, I tried to get a taxi to drive me from the airport to the marina, but he claimed he would only go as far as Chinadega (which is as far as the paved road goes), and he wanted over a hundred dollars to do so. I decided to rent a car instead. As I drove from the airport to the marina, I passed a large factory building with scores of people getting off work. Just beyond it were two police officers standing on the side of the road, one of which flagged me down. "Oh, this is gonna be great" I thought, given my inability with the language. I wondered if perhaps they were going to give me a ticket for speeding, or not signaling properly, or driving while American, or something like that. The first officer walked up to my side and through a few gestures and a minimum of words managed to convey that they wanted to ride in my car. Okay, they have guns and uniforms, what am I gonna say? So they got in, one in the passenger seat, the other directly behind me.

We drove along. They didn't say much. I started wondering if maybe this wasn't such a great idea...in fact, I was a bit embarrassed at finding myself unable to assess the situation. It could have been perfectly safe, or I might have just fucked up royally. Where I grew up, this would count as the latter; to be in: in a car with two armed men you've never met before, one sitting directly behind you, the other sitting outside the first's field of fire, while driving through sparsely populated countryside. This is exactly how people get whacked in Jersey. But my fears were for naught. Within a few minutes they told me to let them off near a roadside cafe. They got out, politely thanked me, smiled and walked away. Hmmm, I thought, maybe the fuzz down here aren't all that bad. When I got back to the marina I mentioned this to a couple of the cruisers. They all assured me that picking up cops was cool, and that Nicaraguan police are often so poor they don't have cars; if you should see one asking for a ride, you should pick them up. Great. I'm learning the customs, going native. Pretty soon I'll be opening up my on factory and start raping the ecology.

A few days go by, and I exchange the rental car for a pickup truck, as I've described in previous posts. Then yesterday, AnnMarie was flying into Managua Airport, arriving at 2pm, which meant I needed to leave the marina by about 9am in order to be there on time. I had the truck, which meant that even though the roads were still barely passably I would probably be able to get through. I bounced and slid my way down the several mile long private road leaving the marina, four wheeling through enormous mud puddles, boulder strew roads and avoiding (and often driving straight through) small herds of cows in the process. Eventually I came to the main road, and was happy to be on fresh pavement, but pretty exhausted from the trek. It takes a lot of concentration to avoid breaking an axle on roads so bad. Plus I was a bit worried because it took about two hours longer than I had anticipated, which meant I might not be there on time for AnnMarie's flight.

I drove along for maybe a half hour when I came to T intersection, where I needed to turn left. Standing on the side of the road was another police officer, looking for a ride. I pulled over and he hoped in. I explained that I was going to Managua, and that I spoke almost no Spanish, and asked if this was, in fact, the road to the capitol of Nicaragua. He smiled then began speaking in rapid fire Spanish, which I didn't understand at all. We tried to converse, but it was pretty difficult to understand anything he was saying. I managed to explain that I needed to go to the airport, and asked him again if I was on the right road. I wasn't really positive if I was, because I'd only been to the airport once before (via the under medicated taxi driver I mentioned above) and had driven from the airport to the marina (going in the opposite direction) only once as well. In both cases I was a bit stressed, and as you know, memory is state dependent. If you study for a test while stoned, you should also be stoned when you take the test. If you experience something while agitated, your recall of it will be better when also agitated. At least, that's how the theory goes. Since the last two times I'd driven this road I was pretty stressed, and now I wasn't, nothing seemed to look that familiar.

Fortunately for me, I now had someone in my car to remedy that problem. As we drove along, he kept speaking very quickly in Spanish, and saying something about money. Each time he would finish his sentences with "intienda?", which is Spanish for "do you understand?". Each time I would say no, I didn't, could he please speak more slowly. Each time he would give me this weird look, then say something else very quickly. This went on for about an hour. It started to get really weird, I got the feeling something wasn't right, but couldn't figure out what. Perhaps I was just being paranoid but I got the impression he was saying pretty insulting things, just to see if I understood him at all. I also started to get nervous because each time I would ask him if we were going the right way, he wouldn't say anything. As we reached the capitol and started driving into the slums, he starting telling me to pull off the main road and down one of the side streets. At this point my (fear-state-based) memory was crystal clear, and I knew exactly where I was and needed to go, and it damn sure wasn't down some alley. I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. We looked at each other for a minute and then he smiled this creepy smile. Not the kind of smile you want on someone with a badge and gun.

He started demanding money. I didn't understand much at all of what he was saying, but at first he said he wanted $100.00US. "Why? For what?" I asked, using up three of the ten words I know in Spanish. He said something to the effect that he needed a taxi. I explained that I didn't have that much money. In fact, I had only fifteen dollars in cash. He insisted I give it all to him. I refused and started to get pissed off, which is not a good situation because when I get really pissed off I stop being afraid of things like guns or badges, and become pretty sarcastic and antagonistic. He kept demanding money. As I recall, I then asked him, politely, to get out of the vehicle, although I think I used a couple of extra English words that he might have known. He started yelling at me and pointing to his badge. I took out five dollars, and yelled "Get the fuck out of this truck or you'll eat that fucking badge!" I think he sensed that I was really pissed because he took the money and got out quickly. I drove away feeling really stupid for not realizing what was going on much sooner.

From that point on I've not been willing to pick up anyone else unless they were on the road between the paved highway and the marina. Even then, they ride in the bed of the truck...no one gets inside the cab I don't already know. What makes me mad is that I just don't have a good sense of the culture, or the street sense to know what is cool. I hate having to err on the side of chicken shit, but I'm just not willing to take those kinds of risks right now. It would be different if I were backpacking through the country, perhaps, but right now I need to get a boat back to California, and I don't have the luxury of learning Nicaragua street sense the hard way.

Anyway, I arrived at the airport almost an hour late, pretty shaken up, and very tired. AnnMarie wasn't there. I drove over to the hotel across the street, where we had arranged to meet should there be any problems. She hadn't shown up. I checked my mail on line to see if she had sent a message. There was nothing there. I used the VHF hand held radio and tried calling her. No answer. I went back into the hotel and she was standing there, looking very, very unhappy. "Where have you been?" she asked, clearly upset that I wasn't at the airport to pick her up, she then explained that "I've just had the worst time getting through customs! They wanted to charge me for the boat gear. And then I had to carry all this luggage across the street, and I haven't eaten, and I'm exhausted."

There was a long pause, I smiled and said "Were there any firearms involved in any of this?" She looked back, noticing the look on my face, and said "No, what happened?" I just smiled and said "Then I think I've had a worse day." I gave her a big hug, then an even bigger kiss, and we held each other for a minute, just glad to be together. We jumped into the truck, and I plied her with various foods I'd brought along for the trip, plus lots of cold drinks. After a minute or two we were both happy to be together and headed to the marina. We rode back without incident, even getting through the roads without much trouble. The ten hours of direct sunlight and heat had gone a long way towards drying up a lot of the mud. We pulled into the marina, threw our gear on the boat and jumped into the pool. We then ate some gray hamburgers and went back to the boat to snuggle. It was a delightful way to end a miserable day.

So, I guess all's well that ends well. AnnMarie is here for the weekend, and it seems that there might be other crew members coming down after all. I just found out that the stainless steel dingy davit, which broke on the way up here, can be repaired, and that the weather looks good for sailing north. Things are looking up. In the meantime, I intend to spend as much time as possible fondling a beautiful woman, relaxing at the pool, and enjoying the short time I have to spend with her. If only we could get decent take out service!

I hope everyone else is doing well and am looking forward to getting back to the bay area before Christmas. Of this year. Well, at least by the fourth of July. Sorry there aren't any photos for this entry. AnnMarie has brought down the new camera but we hadn't had a chance to unpack it yet. Expect lots more snapshots as the trip progresses.


Cheers for now,

Robb

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Another Wasted Day

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To Whom It May Concern,

Well, Its almost 5:30 and I've accomplished almost nothing today. This is partly because of the rains we got last night, which made the already bad roads much worse, but also because I couldn't sleep last night. Maybe I was just bored, tired of feeling sick, hot, humid, run down, frustrated and missed being home, but I couldn't get to sleep. I decided to draw a picture of my view from the bunk. I ended up drawing a picture of myself drawing a picture of my view from the bunk. My knees are actually a bit fatter, but who'll know?

This is not exactly the most exciting thing to be looking at, but it is pretty much what I've been seeing for too long. Anyway, it gave me something to do, and took my mind off of things, but didn't make it any easier to nod off.

I didn't fall asleep until sunrise this morning. Then Ron & Diane woke me up around 8:00am. It had been our hope to take the rental car into Chinandega (the nearest main town) to buy supplies, batteries, diesel, solar panels, etc., and if possible, upgrade the vehicle to a four wheel drive truck. We got about 600 yards out of the marina compound before we ran into a patch of road that was impassible. There were foot high ruts in a muddy mess that had filled in with water, and several locals standing around it wondering what they might do to try to get their own vehicles through.

The day before there had been a wedding on the marina grounds, and it was impossible for the wedding guests to be driven within a mile of the marina. The trucks and buses would take them as close as they could get, then each guest had to scramble along side the roads and walk through muddy fields to get to the reception. Imagine asking your aunt Sally and Uncle Ernie to do that for your wedding-- at least getting "towels" would be a reasonable wedding gift.

Heavy rain is the Nicaraguan equivalent to our snow days. It makes the mud and stone ruts they call roads unusable, brings commerce to a halt, and traps people in their homes. Since many of the locals live a "hand to mouth" existence, this can mean not having any food on hand, or in mouth, the next day. Today was like getting five more inches of snow after a two day long major blizzard. It was so bad that the school bus couldn't make it in or out, which meant that neither the teachers nor the children could get to class. I did not see a single unhappy child. They were all running up and down the road, playing various forms of tag and "kick the can" (although down here it is called "kick the mud clump"), and giggling about the funny looking Americans. What surprises me most about them is how the children have all adapted to the environment, and can scamper and rough house in the roads or fields, but still not get dirty. Everything within a foot of the ground is covered in mud right now, yet every single one of these kids is wearing a pristine white shirt and neat blue slacks or a dress, and I'm yet to see a single child with dirt on them. Left alone at that age, my younger brother and I would end up mud wrestling within ten minutes, and the only bit of us not caked in clay would have been under our eyelids.

Since we couldn't get out to town, we stopped at one of the local "cafes". It is an open sided brick hut and unless you already knew it was a central point in "town", you'd assume it was just another shack, among many other shacks, but they serve breakfast and lunch, coffee and sodas, and the owner's husband spoke English. We sat and talked with him over weak coffee with too much sugar in it for a few hours and caught up on the local gossip. Apparently there have been a few murders in the neighborhood lately. One gentleman was found floating in the water after having gone drinking ad fishing with another friend. The friend turned up elsewhere claiming he hadn't ever seen the dead man, but other witnesses saw them both getting into a canoe together earlier that day. When the police arrested him he was down at the beach, with all his worldly possessions in a knapsack, waiting for a boat to take him to Honduras. He is awaiting trial now. In a separate incident, a well known hoodlum has been seen attacking and robbing people a little further up the road. The cafe owner explained that the police would be here tomorrow, armed with AK-47's, to "shoot to kill and ask questions later". They take law enforcement quite seriously down here.

What is odd, though, is the very, very peaceful nature of the general population. These are not angry people. They do not bicker or fight amongst themselves. They live in tough conditions-- what we would have called a hard scrabble existence, with almost no work available, and, for the most part, get along well with each other. Although the children can be typically rambunctious, and the young men behave like young men everywhere, the adult men and women here are typically quite shy and retiring. Whenever you engage them, they seem somehow surprised that you would bother. I've met many of the folks who work at the hotel and marina, and am yet to come across anyone who is anything but calm, reserved, quiet and dignified. It is rumored that once the main road is completed they will begin on the road into the marina. If so, then this area will change dramatically, and most probably for the better. There are a lot of folks who would love to come here, but right now the roads make that impossible. Having a paved road will change all that instantly, and probably mean a lot more work and much better working conditions for the folks who live around here.

After our coffee we wondered back to the boat and I tried to take a quick nap. A few minutes later, Ron banged on my boat and asked if the bride from the earlier wedding party and her friend could come aboard to take some pictures on my boat. She was a quite beautiful young lady, and they both giggled a lot while Ron snapped pictures of them sitting on the bowsprit and then posing in front of the mast. I was asked to be in one of the photos, but I'm not quite sure why. I wonder what they will make of these pictures twenty or thirty years from now, when their grand children are looking through them. "Hey mom, whose this fat white guy with you and aunt Consuella?"

Well, the power is back on, so I should probably get back to work. It gets dark pretty fast around here, and for the most part it is very quiet. There is a beautiful swimming pool just at the water's edge, right next to the docks, that no one seems to use at night. I've been sneaking over there every evening and taking a dip. I'll sit in the water and watch the thunderstorms roll in across the jungle tops, and hear the fish splashing around in the estuary, and it is about as peaceful and serene a moment as you can imagine. I wish that you all could be here with us.

Cheers for now,

Robb

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The Saga Begins.

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Hey All,

I arrived very late last night in Managua, but didn't want to take a cab in the dark, so I checked into a local hotel for the night. Getting through customs and immigrations took no time at all. While on line I started talking with an older women next to me. I thought she looked like someone visiting from the bay area; actually, I thought she looked like someone you might see riding on the back of a motorcycle as part of Dykes on Bikes. I think I might have been wrong; she was a nun and worked for an evangelical charity.

She pointed me towards a shuttle that would take me to "The Mercedes", a part of the Best Western Chain of hotels where I could spend the night. On the way over I met Wim, a very nice man from the Netherlands, who was working for an NGO doing charity work in Nicaragua. When I got to the hotel, there were two people in line in front of me. Both of them were carrying very large, well thumbed bibles. The man behind me was chatting on the phone about setting up a prayer meeting. I may be the only unbeliever in the entire country. They put me in room 666, but I'm sure that is just a coincidence.

So, no trip is complete without at least one horrible cab story. This leg of our journey started with the front desk person telling me it would cost $150.00 for the taxi to drive me to the marina. "Okay", please ask the driver to come here", I say, knowing already how this is going to go. He doesn't speak English. "Explain to him that I will pay only $150.00 and nothing else, and he must take me directly to the marina." I tell the clerk. They chat in Spanish for a few minutes.

She then tells me that he doesn't know the way to the marina, do I have a map. I show him the stuff I got off the marina's website. He says he doesn't know how to get there, but that the roads are impassible. It is amazing that he can both not know how to get there, and also know about the road conditions getting there, but this kind of Zen knowledge is part of the Cabbie From Hell job qualification. He tells me he can only go as far as Chinandega, the closest major town, but will only charge me $100.00. I explain that that doesn't help me at all, I need to get to the marina. The desk clerk asks for the number to call the marina, so I begin to look it up, but the power fails, and all their internet connections drop. I've got a map off the marina website which is almost as useful as the Microsoft Help Desk. I realize that the webpages I have saved off don't have the local marina number, and my cell phone doesn't work in Nicaragua yet so I can't call Ann to ask her for this info, and "telephone information" is a new concept in Nicaragua.

Realizing that I'm just wasting time waiting around for the power to come back, I decide to get in the cab and head to Chinandega, but I'm not feeling comfortable about the situation. As we are driving past another hotel I see a huge sign for car rentals, I realize that cab rides for the crew are going to add up, and I could just as easily rent a car. I tell the cab driver to let me off at the next hotel we come to, and I inquire about rentals. The price is $10 a day for the car, and $14 a day for the minimum insurance. That is still cheaper than what it is going to cost me, AnnMarie, and Robinson in cab fares, plus I'll have the ability to go into town when I want. I rent a car and head off into the jungles of Managua.

Now, most Americans will find this hard to believe, but there are no maps for sale in Managua, or parts near by. The reason for this is that there are no street names in Managua, or in parts near by. The idea being that if you don't already know your way around here, you are probably a foreign spy. I thought it was odd that the directions listed on the marina web site didn't mention street names, and included comments like "turn right when you see the rock shaped like a bear", but it didn't occur to me that I'd be navigating my way there. Had I known I would have brought my compass and GPS/Chartplotter along. I stopped about twelve times along the way, each time asking for directions.

Nicaraguans don't like giving simple directions, probably because it takes a lot of Spanish words to say "turn left after you've gone past Jose Gomez's barn that fell down". The fact that I speak eight words of Spanish which don't include "right", "left" or "road" didn't help. Basically, at each fork or intersection, I'd stop, find the most anal retentive looking man I could, and ask him to draw a map. Fully fifty percent of the maps were wrong. I'm sure that if given enough time, I will be able to find my way back to the airport, but I think I may need to hire a guide for the first trip. It is really quite impressive. Even CalTrans could hold their head up high compared to this place.

On the way to the marina I was stopped by police. At least I thought they were police. They were wearing police uniforms, and had guns. They were pointing at my car and directing me over to the side of the road, so I pulled over. There were two officers, and it turned out they wanted a ride up the road. They were not police, but guards at the local factory, and were on their way home. Hitchhiking while fully armed and in uniform is a new one for me. None the less, I spent a few tense moments realizing this, then another ten minutes wondering if I'd just made a really stupid mistake picking them up. They turned out to be very nice folks, we tried our best to communicate, and I even learned the word for "farm", which is all we saw as we drove along, but I've since forgotten it.

Eventually I found my way toward the marina grounds. At about this time the paved roads became gravel roads, and gradually the gravel roads became dirt roads, and then ruts, and then ruts filled with water, and then parts that were just water. At some point along the way I realized I'd made a horrible mistake in not renting a 4x4, preferably a truck. Or maybe a HumVee, if not a tank. The ground was saturated, and I found myself having to do some pretty tricky driving to get past some bad spots. On top of that, it was starting to get dark and I really didn't want to get stuck out in these parts at night. About a mile from the marina I encountered a really bad patch of muck, and pushed the poor little rental car to its limits getting it through. By the time I was driving down the marina driveway my vehicle looked like I'd just finished a Baja cross country race.

As I drove up the driveway I encountered Ron & Diane on bicycles coming the other way. Ron had been watching my boat for me while I was away, and I was bringing down some boat parts for him from the states, so it was a delightful accident to bump into them just as I arrived. Ron is a bit of a character; he is tall and lanky and always making jokes with everyone. He is the kind of guy that somehow knows everyone by name, and is able to befriend even the most reluctant natives. He and his wife Diane have been teaching English to many of the locals, and they have come to recognize his goofy antics and also make fun of him. We hit it off immediately, and have been teasing each other ever since. Its fun to watch him interact with Diane, who just shakes her head at his jests and rolls her eyes as if to say "Can you believe this guy?" They are a very cute couple.

They were bicycling along the road with another cruising couple, Tom & Ann, and were all on their way to dinner at a near by restaurant. We ate at a palm covered palapa overlooking the ocean. The hilltop sloped down to a beautiful beach with what, as I'm told by the local surfing tourist, Brad, is an amazing left break with two hundred yards of run that tubes most of the way. At least, I think that was what he said. I don't speak Surfer any better than I speak Spanish. I just pretended I understood and nodded dumbly. He had brought his guitar, I borrowed one from the restaurant and we sat and jammed after dinner. Eventually we hiked back to the car and I drove into the marina parking lot, glad to have managed to get this far.

So, I've made it back to the boat, which is still floating and doesn't seem much the worse for wear. The battery was dead when I got here, but that was because one of the marina workers decided to shut off the power to my boat but didn't turn it back on. When ever there are serious blackouts and the marina needs to use their own generators, they walk along the docks shutting off everyone's boat that isn't occupied. This is something they've started doing and it really is the only problem I've had with the marina so far. Power is such a rare commodity here that the folks will do anything to reduce their load. Unfortunately, it killed my battery. I've plugged everything back in and started charging it again, but it isn't clear if it will come back. I've decided that batteries are like small infants. They will die unless constantly attended to.

Beyond that, and being unbelievably tired, things are good. I trust the same holds for you, and hope everyone is enjoying themselves as much as I.

Cheers,

Robb


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