Treasure Cay – Dec 16, 2021

Ron nearly figured out how to make our water heater with solar work and we both had a nice warm (not hot but hey) shower this morning.  This meant, things were just too good.  As my calls were spaced out enough, he wanted to get out to the water maker and make water for the first time.  Since he had already fixed the generator and two feet have rusted off, he was concerned about the corosion he had seen on the water maker a while back.  He brought it inside when we “hurricane proofed” the boat in an effort to keep it as good as possible.  The prior owner had stored it outside which exposed it to the salt water a bit too often.

Now, the motor was seized up on the water maker.  A nice and expensive $5K+ fix this could be.  Being that sailing hubby is incredibly capable and extremely mechanically inclined, he set to work on taking it apart to see what our choices were and we were crossing our fingers it was fixable.

In an attempt to get it running, he tried with the generator and had no luck, then tried with the inverter.  He nearly killed the inverter and now, while the inverter comes back on…only one half of the boat does…interesting.  That is a fix later thing now and our list of getting things fixed keeps going the wrong direction.  Glad I have a fully charged computer and phone at the moment.  It should last me through all my calls this afternoon and I was planning to have peanutbutter for lunch anyway.  

He has decided that while the engine has oil in it, it has to be the pump.  Now, I don’t know diddly about water makers but, I do know no pump equals no water.  I have decided the perplexed look he has on his face when looking at anything mechanical is not good.  He has now gone to the keeper of all knowledge, Father Google, to determine next steps.  And after some knowledge and a verbal beating of himself, sailing hubby was successful and we are making water!  It would not have been an end to our sailing season, just an expense of either fixing/buying another watermaker or buying water and interupting our long offshore anchors.  So this was excellent news!

On another note, we do have very cool solar outdoor lights for our evening regardless of if he fixes the power on the other side of the boat today or not.

Lots of stuff needed to make water.

This impeller explains the non functioning water maker.

The missing spare impeller needed to make water.   Sadly it took two days and 6 trips to my spare parts stash to find it.    I was ready to give up hope and only drink beer, who really needs water anway.