Who'da Thunk It?

What would be your guess as to the one thing in someone's yard that would be among the items least likely to go kerflooey? Hey, that's spelled right - I even looked it up! Come on, take a guess. What do you think?

How about playing twenty questions?

• Is it Animal, Vegetable or Mineral? Other
• Is it used for entertainment? Partly
• Is it black? No
• Would you use it in the dark? Sometimes
• Do most people use this daily? Unknown
• Is it harvested? No
• Does it fold up easily? No
• Is it hard? Yes
• Is it smaller than a bread box? No
• Can it scratch? No
• Does it use numbers? No
• Does it have a handle? Yes
• Is it electronic? No
• Does it get wet? Yes
• Does it shine? No
• Is it white? Irrelevant
• Do you hold it when you use it? No
• Can you smell it? No
• Does it usually have four corners? No
• Do you use it at work? No
• Is it outside? Yes
• Does it move? No

The twenty-questions game I found on the Internet guessed it was a bidet. I'm not sure how many people would keep their bidet outside, but what do I know? Actually, bidet was a close guess... Give up? OK, it's a swimming pool filter, which sort of operates on the same principal as a bidet.

This story actually begins about two years ago. A small leak began inside the pool pump house, or I should say more properly, the pool mechanical house. Whatever. Anyway, that small leak caused me no end of hassle trying to localize it. First, I thought it was this, then that, and then the other thing. Mostly I was wrong. Oh sure, I did find several small leaks now and then. I think leaks go with the territory - piping, water, vibration - all lend themselves to creating leaks.

Anyway this one drove me to distraction. I would think I found the source, get it corrected and next thing I knew, more water on the floor. But, I could never really zero in on the source. It was always a mystery.

That is, till five days ago. I came down to the pool Sunday morning and noticed the water level had gone down two tiles. Uh oh, something's wrong. I went directly over to the pump mechanical house, opened the door, and there was no doubt. I could hear water running behind the filter, but I couldn't see or feel anything because the filter was almost right up against the wall.

I checked the small drain valve at the bottom of the tank just to make sure it wasn't leaking. Nope. It was fine. I felt around the top of the tank just in case I wasn't seeing the leak. Nope. Nothing there. Slowly it became apparent to me just what was leaking.

I shut off all the valves that would allow water to flow to the filter. That stopped the strong flow of water. It now became a trickle as the residual water in the tank drained off. I also now opened the small drain valve to help get rid of what water remained.

My next task was to see if there was any way to get a replacement tank in a hurry. The short answer was no. The long explanation was that yes, I could get one from one of several vendors up north. But after purchasing the tank, there was still shipping to our freight forwarder in Florida, their fees, then Belize duty and 12.5% GST, and presto, I would be into real money, not to mention the time delays till I could actually get my hands on the tank.

That took care of Monday. A little research, other daily chores, going out to lunch with friends, etc., pretty well filled up the rest of the day.

Tuesday, I checked with Island Pool Supply over in San Pedro. They could get one, but pretty much the same constraints as me ordering from up north would apply as they didn't have one in stock. However, Don told me they did have several TA-60s in stock (I was trying to replace a TR-60.). He told me I could get a complete TA-60 (tank and 6-position valve) for a bit less than the TR-60 tank alone.

That meant I could order it that morning and have it PDQ. Well, almost. First Wednesday, I had to go to Belize Bank and transfer money from our account to Island Pool Supply (If you're wondering, they don't take bank cards). Then I had to email them a PDF of the deposit slip to their account. That gave them enough time to get the complete filter down to the Thunderbolt water taxi so it would get up here to Corozal by 5:00 PM.

Since we went Jamrock for supper with Denis and Vivien, it was easy for Denis and I to slip away and get over to the Thunderbolt pier - about two minutes away and pick up the box. We were both amazed at how much freight came out of that boat, not to mention a boat-load of passengers. Shipping via Thunderbolt was very reasonable. It only cost $20.00 BZD.

That brings us to Thursday morning. Bright and early. But first, an aside. Wednesday evening, I had been searching YouTube to find a video on easily removing sand from the filter. I already had experience with doing it the hard way and the mess all over the floor that resulted. Dianna suggested trying to borrow a Shop-Vac to speed the removal up. My Shop-Vac is in pieces as I'm currently trying to get the motor rehabbed so that it will work again.

I called Graham Thursday morning. He had one and I could borrow it. I jumped into the Isuzu (did I mention we have the Isuzu back now - after about two-months in the shop?). Ask the doggies about that. They think they've led a deprived life with no rides for all that time. Anyway, I grabbed the doggies and we ran over to the house where Graham is house-sitting (Jim and Melanie's old place for those who remember them, or Don's place for those whose memories are more recent) and picked up the Shop-Vac.

Back home, I got to work getting about 325-lbs of wet sand out of the old filter. After a couple of hours, all the sand had been removed and I was then able to disconnect the filter from the piping and remove it from the mech-house.

Finally, I was able to see the extent of damage. As you can see below, the rip runs almost a whole foot vertically in the fiberglass of the tank. Plus, the discerning reader will notice some discoloration indicating a smaller leak that had existed for some time. How about two years? There's the source of the phantom leak. Finally!

Rip in the Fiberglass Filter Tank

Here's the sand that I took out of the filter. Almost got it all into the plastic bin, but just ran a bit shy.

Sand Ready to Go Back In

Looking at the wall inside the mechanical house, you can see easily where the leak had been going for quite some time. But with the filter right up against the wall, it was impossible to see where it was located.

Showing Leak Traces

 Here's a shot of the new filter, this time with the valve on the top of the tank instead of the side.

The New TA-60D Filter Mock-up

And in this shot, I'm adding the sand back in to the new filter tank. Since it was only a few months ago that I replaced the sand, reusing the sand made perfect sense. Even though wet, it still vacuumed easily and also went back in the same.

Adding Sand to the New Filter

Late Thursday afternoon, the new filter is in place, completely filled with sand. All that remains now is to rework and connect the piping. I'll start of that project tomorrow.

New Filter With Sand Sans Piping

Now, I'm not even going to ask what could possibly break next or go wrong. I'm ready for some uneventful mornings and afternoons - at least for a while.

Oh, I almost forgot. I put the old filter (minus the side valve) in the large cardboard box the new one came in, labeled it conspicuously 'BROKEN' on three side and put it out beside our trash bin. Around 5:00 PM, or so, some Mexican scrap metal scroungers stopped and loaded the whole thing onto their already overloaded pickup truck, and away they went. I just hope I don't head out tomorrow morning and find the filter and box lying beside the highway somewhere, after they discovered 1) it really was broken, and 2) there was no metal in the thing. I really don't want to bring it back.

So, What Else Is Gonna Break?

This is about a couple of broken things. Both happen to be the control head or valve for the pool filter. You can see the thing in the photo below.

The Broken Filter Valve

In this photo, I've removed the head of the valve to show the first repair job I did. A part of the ridge that holds the spider gasket (the black rubber in the photo) had broken and I super-glued it back into place. You can see, if you look closely, where the screw driver is pointing, a faint outline showing the break, which is still holding good. It broke right before our visitors from up north came. Thankfully, I was able to repair it and it held throughout the time they were here.

But, you can also see the other arm of the gasket is slightly bowed where water flowing through the second break, caused this effect.

Repaired Older Break and New Problem

In the photo below, you can see just how large a piece was dislodged. Of course it washed right out of the filter and down the backwash pipe and away, so there was no chance of repairing it.

Showing the Large Broken Bit

I don't know what caused the breaks in either case. Perhaps chlorine aging the plastic, or maybe not being careful enough moving the control head arm when changing valve positions. Either way, it means replacing the valve entirely. There's no way to get just the valve body.

Luckily, Island Pool Supply (http://www.poolsuppliesbelize.com/index.html), over in San Pedro on Ambergris Caye, has a valve that will fit. They'll ship it to me either by Tropic Air or the Thunderbolt Ferry once the money is deposited to their bank account... But, that's another story entirely.

Odyssey to San Pedro

No, it wasn't on the Thunderbolt. It was aboard Bob Carpenter's twin-engine cat. Yesterday at 6:15 AM, I rode my bicycle over to Bob's place, the soon-to-be Almond Tree Hotel and Resort, where His wife Lynn was kind enough to ferry us up to Tony's Inn and Beach Resort, where Bob keeps his boat moored.

Here it is, ready to cast off and head into the rising sun. It started out as a simply glorious morning. Just a few more things to do before we get underway - warm up the engines, connect the chartplotter, and retrieve the anchors - used to keep the boat from chaffing against the concrete pier.

Just Another Ho-Hum Day

Here's a shot of Bob hooking up his chartplotter in the wheelhouse. Pretty cool tool. You can get weather images (with good reception, that is), which can be overlaid on charts, you also can view all the pertinent data, water temp, depth, course, speed, distance to turn point, etc., etc., etc. It will even double as a DVD screen after you've anchored for the evening.

Hooking Up the Chartplotter

We got underway about 6:45 AM. That's important as the Thunderbolt Ferry, which runs twice daily between Corozal and San Pedro (with the occasional stop in Sarteneja - by request) would be leaving on it's morning run to San Pedro at 7:00 AM. We planned to fall in behind them and bird dog them all the way to San Pedro, taking advantage of their local knowledge for the shortest route there and navigating in to San Pedro.

One of the necessary things aboard a boat is keeping things clean and properly stowed. Here's Bob, after we hoisted the bow anchor, which had been set in deep mud in the moorage basin, cleaning the muck which had splattered on deck from the chain and spring line.

Housekeeping

We're underway and on our way up to meet up with the Thunderbolt. Unfortunately, there was a slight problem with the plan. Oh, we got to the vicinity of the Thunderbolt's pier in plenty of time, and saw them take off. That all went quite well.

Leaving Tony's

What we hadn't anticipated was water in the fuel. The starboard engine decided that was a good time to choke. This caused Bob to have to go back to the engine, remove the cowling and drain water from the final fuel filter, and the main or primary fuel filter.

That put us behind more than we had intended. But, anyway, we managed to get underway and were able to follow them on out of Corozal Bay into Chetumal Bay and swing starboard around to Sarteneja.

Just past Sarteneja, Bob had to drain the filters again. And again. And again. About the time we were approaching Rocky Point, south of Sarteneja, we lost them as the Thunderbolt, using it's local knowledge, took a shortcut through the rocks. We were far enough back by this time that it would have been dangerous for us to attempt the same maneuver. So, we swung wide and continued on to San Pedro.

The sky also became darker as we went along. We got a little drizzle and a bit of wind, but nothing too bad. Every so often Bob had to venture out to the fantail to drain the filters, but by then we were on our own, the Thunderbolt having left us in the swirl of its wake.

Navigationally, at this stage, we were doing fine. The chartplotter, with it's GPS and autopilot, kept us on our track with no problems. As we approached Ambergris Caye, it became a different matter. As you might guess, there's no good, detailed charts for San Pedro harbor. Not only that, but navigational aids - something almost taken for granted in the States, thanks to the US Coast Guard Aids to Navigation teams and other government agencies at all levels. Well, that doesn't exist here.

What passes for NavAids here is the occasional stick, literally, sticking up out of the water, which may or may not indicate a passage, shoaling, or maybe just a good fishing spot for the guy who stuck the stick there. You just don't know.

There are a couple more formal navaids, like in the blurry picture below. At one time, these had lights and probably had been painted as well. We're not sure what they were supposed to indicate as there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary where they were positioned. It certainly couldn't be to mark shallow water.

Local Navigation Aids

I had always hear that Corozal Bay was very shallow, and it is. Judging from Bob's depth sounder, it looks as though the average depth of Corozal Bay is around 10 to 15 feet. You certainly won't get any cruise ships pulling in there.

But, what really surprised me is this. Corozal Bay is some of the deeper water around. All the way down to San Pedro, the average depth was anywhere from 5 to 9 feet. Having flown over it several times, I just assumed that due to clarity of the water in the channel, that you could see the bottom. Well, that's part of it, but mainly, it's just damned shallow. You'd be hard pressed to not see it.

Of course, then we come to San Pedro. We finally decide that the vague line of stakes we see must indicate a channel of some sort. No indication of left or right of the markers or what. Every now and then you might see a stick with an orange plastic 5-gallon paint can lid tacked to a stick. What that indicates is anybody's guess.

Naturally, once in a while, we'd find a white PVC pole stuck into the bottom. Again, we weren't sure if that indicated a channel, a turn, or just a piece of debris. Flip a coin.

And talk about shallow! How's 3 to 5 foot depth sound? In several places, it's even less. We could hear and feel the bottom being scraped clean several times as we ventured in.

We made a wrong guess on a couple of the channels we tried, turned around and headed for another likely looking channel. Eventually, we did make it into the San Pedro Harbor, turning what should have been a two-hour voyage into a four-hour exercise.

As we came in, I recognized a couple of features right away. First was the Sunset Grill (http://www.sunsetgrill-belize.com/), with a public dock. At least we assumed it was public. Bob asked the restaurant staff if we could moor there if we bought lunch later. "No problem, Mon," was the answer. And right behind the restaurant is a large three story condo still under construction by Weibe and Camara Construction. That is noteworthy as they are the guys who built our Mennonite house and finished off the downstairs. Franz Weibe, a Mennonite, and Jose Camara, a native Belizean. Franz lives in Shipyard, and Jose lives in Guinnea Grass, neighboring villages.

So, after we moored, we trucked off to Front Street, so Bob could find the Immigration Department to renew his cruising certificate for the boat. Since it was 11:20 AM, they tried to fend Bob off till 1:30 PM. Not wanting to spin our wheels for that long, Bob offered to buy the Immigration staffers "lunch" if they would process his renewal right then. There was enough time, before stopping for the noon meal, to process his application after all. Strange how that works sometimes.

Then it was back down to the Sunset Grill for lunch. As we were waiting for our food, I looked up to see Jose grinning at me from the awning of the condo. I trotted over and shook his hand and we got caught up on what's been going on. Jose's a great guy. He'd do anything for you, and it'd be "no trouble" to do it.

I need to back up for a bit. You noticed the last picture was blurry... and I mentioned "last picture' right? Guess who's camera decided to lose it's mind for the rest of the day? Not one photo came out after that. In fact, I couldn't zoom the thing, nor would it even operate the shutter most of the time. Arrgghhhh! I couldn't take any pictures of the huge (4+ foot) tarpon cavorting pierside at the restaurant. Nor could I take any shots on our return of the three bottle-nosed dolphin who appeared alongside us, cavorting and riding the bow wave for a bit, before they headed off on their own adventure.

All-in-all, it was a fun day. We made it back to Corozal about 5:00 PM, got the boat moored properly, with Lynn meeting us at Tony's, for a ride back to their place to retrieve my bike and head home.

Next adventure, Bob wants to go up the New River to scout out some possible hurricane holes for the boat. That'll be fun too. I'll have a camera along that works next time. And, Bob should have the water in the fuel problem solved as well.

More adventures await however. Today (Thursday) we head off to Belmopan with Doug and Twila. Seems some progress on the way to getting our residency. We have to bring in our passports and full copies (so they can see we've kept up with our monthly tourist visa payments, fill out a security form, and then, well, who knows. Perhaps another trip or two before we actually get our residency stamps in our passports.

I'll let you know. I'm borrowing Dianna's camera for today's adventure. This will be the camera that went for a swim last year in the Macal River and managed to resurect itself after several weeks drying out. I hope it works.

Men's Group Weekend Away - Roughing It

By the time you read this, the members of the Corozal Men's Group who could or were healthy enough to make the journey, have all assembled at the Thunderbolt dock in downtown Corozal, and are now embarking on an epic journey of 15 or 20 minutes to Sarteneja, a small fishing village down the coast from Corozal.

The guys plan to stay at Backpacker's Paradise (http://www.cabanasbelize.com/), a nice little hideaway on the Sarteneja peninsula. Of course, the guys will be roughing it... cabanas aplenty, a well-stocked bar, and are you ready? A French restaurant! I sh** you not. Here's a sample from their Website:

Le restaurant de Backpackers Paradise

Derrière les moustiquaires paisiblement...
Notre restaurant vous offre un choix de plats français et américains pour le petit déjeuner, repas de midi et du soir. Plusieurs produits de la ferme sont utilisés au restaurant, comme œufs, légumes et fruits.
Exemples de tarifs :
spaghetti Végétarien : $ 9 BZ
(soon) Végi hamburger : $ 4 BZ

Backpacker's Paradise could even be the sort of place Frasier Crane might stay at. Well, perhaps not. But, he might eat there... maybe.

There were a few of us unable to go. Myself, down with a cold. I thought a couple days of festivities with the boys might slow my recovery. Infections, grieving, yard work, the economy, and sundry other reasons kept about half of the membership away.

I'm looking forward to seeing these intrepid voyagers when they return. I'm sure there'll be plenty of stories of the adventure. I'm envious.

Every Day is Saturday - Some More Than Others

Hoo boy! I should have written up last night's game between the Mariners and the Athletics. What a barn-burner! The lead changed several times, with lots of exciting plays and, best of all, the M's won 7 - 5! Yea!

Our daily walk into Corozal showed the carnival was about ready to start up, just in time for the weekend. Strange how that seems to work. There wasn't really anything exciting to take pictures of this morning, so I'll leave the carny up to your imagination. Don't forget to include palm trees, warm weather and water, really loud punta and reggae music and a huge crowd. There, I think you've got it. Don't eat too much cotton candy.

Along the seawall as we were heading toward the carny setup, the girls and I passed some folks getting set for a day of fishing. Here they are loading the beer - er, I mean bait, into the boat. Looks like it's going to be a sunscreen day, for sure, on the water.

Loading the Boat

We continued our walk on down to the Thunderbolt Ferry pier downtown. I don't think the boat leaves for San Pedro till 8:00 AM, but by 6:30 AM, there were quite a few folks bringing their luggage and freight down to the pier.

It's a two-hour trip to San Pedro, and on a day like this, should be just fantastic. It costs about the same as the plane, but with sun and smooth water, would be much more pleasurable.

Loading Up the Thunderbolt

We left the Thunderbolt pier and headed into downtown, to the Central Park, where we looked at the trees and some of us checked calling cards on the trees, if you get my drift.

The park has quite a few benches all around the park. Pretty fancy cast benches with wood seats.

Central Park Benches

Each has the national seal and the words "Donated by the Corozal Town Council" cast into the backrest along with a small plaque saying who actually made the donation. Several are in memory of friends or family.

Park Bench Detail

Right beside the park is the Corozal Town Hall, seat of government. This is where I go each month to pay my garbage bill. The cashier knows my name. In fact, as soon as I come in the door, she usually has the receipt about half made out by the time I get up to her counter.

Corozal Town Hall

We crossed 5th Avenue from the park, by the taxi union stand and walked over to the post office and checked our mail box. Dang it. Empty.

From there, we walked past the market place, which was the only area at that time of morning that was bustling with activity, as all the vendors were beginning to set up their shops and stalls for the day.

After that, we turned south on the highway, working our way back out of town and heading home. About the time we hit Cannon Corners, Secret was pretty pooped and was beginning to drag a bit. I think Cindy, on the other hand, would go and go and go, probably till she dropped.

As we turned back onto Ferry Road, I snapped a picture of Doug and Twyla's house, which is nearing completion. I know they're looking forward to moving in. Like our house, the streetside of the house is the backside of the place - which is what you see here.

Doug and Twyla's House

As we got home, I wanted to stop and take a little better picture of the door. So, even though by that time, both of the girls were ready for a rest, we strolled on down past our place, so I could take a shot of it again.

There used to be a house there, as there is still some bits of a concrete pad behind it. Now, all that remains is the door.

The Door Into Paradise - Again

After we got home, and I released the dogs, I saw Dianna and Miss Blue out walking, mainly so Blue can eat some grass. Here Miss Blue is exploring behind the house.

Miss Blue, Out and About