A Week of Water Woes

With my friend and shipmate Jim arriving this evening, my efforts this week were focused on taking care of the last few items on “The List.”  Both had to do with the fresh water systems.  I spent one whole day trying to track down the source of the overflow leak on the top of the water tank.  Never found it, although I found a good prospect.  Unfortunately the area involved is not accessible without cutting up the floorboards, something I don't want to start here and now.  I can live with mopping up some water every couple of weeks if it comes to that.  I also tackled the watermaker issues, hopefully more successfully.  Following written and verbal instructions, I tried disassembling the pressure vessel that contains the possibly bad membrane and possibly faulty o-rings.  Couldn't do it without risking doing serious damage.  I brought it to Tom Brown at La Paz Cruisers Supply who installs and services Cruise RO watermakers.  It took him six hours!!  Clearances were abnormally tight and an o-ring had rolled and had probably been bad out of the box.  He had to destroy the old membrane in order to get it apart.  He'd done 60 or 70 units and never seen one like it.  Just my luck.  He was a good guy about it though, and only charged me $45!!!  Certainly explains why I had problems from the get-go.  Well, it's all back together now and hopefully will work problem-free for some time.  Won't know for sure until I use it once we're out of La Paz bay.   On the good-luck side of the equation, while pumping the head yesterday I felt something shift or change in the mechanism and suddenly it was pumping more and more powerfully than ever.  Sweet!!!  Hope it lasts!   The rest of day I'll be cleaning up and preparing for my crew and an upcoming departure-probably to the islands, Muertos and Mazatlan.  The weather looks good for once!