Bad news, and good

Our motorcycle trip to visit Copper Canyon was over and we arrived at San Carlos and Sea Turtle on Sunday, October 3rd - feeling so good to be "home" once again. Aaron and Dee left Monday to go back to work - I know, someone has to do it! It's very very hot and very very humid here. Now we know why Mexicans take a siesta. After about a week, the heat and humidity lifted making it much more bearable.

We finally got the opportunity to do an inside thorough check on Sea Turtle. Bad news. And good news. When we climbed up the ladder, we noticed that the door hatch was open about 4 inches. How could that be?? We would have never left her open! But when we entered, everything seemed okay. Nothing was missing (security is super at Marina Seca San Carlos) and nothing was damaged or wet, etc. from weather. After a few hours of work, Jordan decided to check out the bilge and discovered a few inches of water. But from where? And why don't we have any battery power and the solar boost is not working?

After much contemplation and checking out everything, we decided that somehow the latch must not have caught on the hatch door when we left Sea Turtle in such a hurry several months ago. Over time, the tarp wore through and rain must have leaked into the bilge (fortunately, no water damage was done to any surface areas). As the bilge was filling with rainwater, the bilge pump came on (the thru hull for such was shut) and ran continuously, draining the batteries. Once the drained batteries were re-charged, the solar boost came on. Yeah! Jordan has ordered new batteries as the old batteries cannot hold a charge anymore.

As Jordan was pumping out the bilge, he discovered that the water was soapy. Now what? Apparently, the excessive summer heat had caused a liquid Tide container to burst a hole and drain into the bilge along with the rainwater.

Bilge with soapy rainwater

So - no bugs, no cockroaches, no rats, no mice, no hurricanes, no major problems. All in all, Sea Turtle fared pretty well during the sweltering summer.

I think Sea Turtle needs a facelift!

Quick summary of some of the jobs completed so far:  soapy water pumped out of the bilge, batteries recharged, diesel leak fixed, stuck fishing line removed from prop shaft, dodger re-attached, things put back into their respective places, grocery inventory completed for re-provisioning, lower hull scraped and sanded, upper hull polished, toe rail scraped - getting ready for Cetol (a type of "varnish")...

We ordered our usual burgundy red bottom paint. When Jordan went to pick it up, he was told that our colour was not available and black paint would be in the next day. When Jordan went to pick it up, the burgundy red had arrived instead!! So today, we applied 2 coats of bottom paint and tomorrow morning at 09:00, Sea Turtle returns to the water!

Looking much better!