On Friday, it was road trip day and Yoshi (the misbehaving Yamaha outboard) had an appointment with a mechanic. Trish and Robert joined us on that adventure as well as they had things they wanted to get done in San Juan as well. So we left the marina in Salinas at 0720 (we aimed for a 0700 departure) and we actually found the Yamaha shop pretty easily. The mechanic was there as promised and he gave Michael his full attention for most of the day. Of course Yoshi had been running for a few days - but our confidence was still shaken. The mechanic spent a lot of time and found lots of little problems. Some he could fix, others he didn't have the parts. He got it running and we are getting a new carburetor shipped to Culebra. We'll pick it up there and that should solve everything. Yoshi is running okay now - but we'll be grateful to have the new carburetor just in case. To Yamaha's credit - they did right by us - though the process ended up still costing us a lot of dollars including marina fees, car rentals, multiple mechanics etc. Not to say anything about lost snorkeling opportunities with our guests.
During the mechanics lunch hour we made a trip to the West Marine store in San Juan (finding that and getting back was another adventure!) But we picked up some supplies (a new accumulator tank - exciting eh?) and a "wahoo catching lure." Hope it lives up to its marketing promise!
We got back to Salinas just after 1700 but luckily the Hertz guy was still there and was very helpful in letting us run to fill up the vehicle and then take the four of us and all our stuff back to the marina. On a Friday night no less! We dined out at a real local place called Tamarindo - and it was Karaoke night at the bar and restaurant. Not being big Karaoke fans, we didn't last too long - but the empanadas were tasty!
Saturday (today) we did a few loads of laundry - the last of the guest towels - and because of a dryer shortage in the laundry - we hung it all out on the boat. It dried great and saved us some boat dollars! We then walked into Salinas. We heard there was a festival in downtown and the streets were closed off. We thought it would be a fun time so we decided to try to find it. It was pretty hot and we walked for several hours. We did find the festival - but unfortunately it was a nighttime event and nothing was going on yet other than set-up. We headed back and it was pretty tiring in the heat of the day.
We are planning to leave Salinas tomorrow and start making our way towards Culebra to get the part being shipped there. We'll do it in several stops - sailing in the late night or early morning hours before the trades kick in. The hops are short - only 20-30 miles each - so it should be comfortable and relatively easy.
One note, we have added some more pics to the picture page. Finding reliable and cheap internet access has been a bit of a challenge.
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