Spanish Lookout

For all that follow our blog, we have one motor running again. For anyone that dreams of sailing with out a motor, we have done it and for some time now we were worried we were going to have to do it again. Sailing the old way. Today you really need a motor. A few months ago we were sailing back to Guatemala, the wind would blow and stop, it would rain and stop. Pam was watching a ship coming at us and here they don’t seem to have a shipping lane, They just go where they feel they want too. It stared to rain hard and the wind changed when out of the rain came another ship bearing down on us. By this time we had our motor running. I changed coarse and headed to the stern of the ship. Was it a near miss? No but it had Pam squealing saying “That was too close. Where did he come from? Our motor problems stared over a year ago when one of our motors was slinging oil and getting hard to start. For people that don’t know we built our boat ourselves because we have very little money. When it came time to power her we still had very little money and I found two old at the time VW car motors out of VW diesel Rabbits. Made a home built adapter for the marina transmission I found and we have been traveling for most of 17 years babying them along. At first the adapter wouldn’t work and left us sailing motor-less a lot. That’s fixed now. Most of that time when we first stared sailing our old schooner we were sailing in the sounds of North Carolina and Ships weren’t a problem and we used and old 6 HP Johnson outboard to push us in and out of tight places. By the way our schooner is 61 feet over all and weighs 26 tons. We are way under powered. Sailing like the days of old in our home built top mast schooner. I rebuilt the motor that was giving trouble and it wouldn’t start so I quit messing with it because the other motor was running. We stared about a month ago to go back to Guatemala again and the good motor was running good when it stared running like and animal chocking and it just died. Our son was coming down from Kansas to see us and he said he would find the problem. After he was here and checked all that I had done he said we needed help. Help here in Belize is the Mennonites. We call the Mennonites here that live the old way with no running water no power and live like they did many hundreds of years ago a good Mennonite. We call the Mennonites that live with power and cars bad Mennonites. There is a lot of bad Mennonites in Spanish Lookout and they do all the best welding, car repair anything that requires great skill. We rented a car and went to Spanish Lookout to find a bad Mennonite using electric power in their lab for diesel fuel pumps and injectors to help us. With in a short amount of time they were telling me the problems with the pump was some valve inside the pump had quit and some of the injectors were bad. We had the head reworked while we were there too just in case. We brought the good injectors back with us they had checked and stared the motor that was giving trouble starting and they promised to send the head, pump and fixed injectors when they had them fixed by plane back to here. We are still waiting but they sent us word by email they were on the way. Belize is a country of great diversity.

A Mennonite still living the old ways

That diversity can be seen there in Spanish Lookout for sure with the Mennonites that still hold on to the past and the ones that have in-braced technology and are the most skilled workers in Belize.

Hand operated cable ferry.

We turned around in Spanish Lookout and crossed the cable ferry, ate at a Mennonite dairy ice cream shop along the way. Maybe they are bad Mennonites too using refrigeration to make ice cream at there beautiful dairy but it’s so good and all there farms are so pretty.

Ice Cream Place

54 Years

There is nothing like birthdays and anniversary to remind us we are getting older. Today (March 20) is Pam and I wedding anniversary. When we met she had just turned 15 and I was turning 17 in a few days. For Christmas that year I gave her a friendship ring. It was a ring with a flower with a tiny little diamond looking thing in the center and made of silver. Let’s just say it was affordable. This sent her parents in to orbit and 3 months later as we were seeing each other a lot more. Then we were forbidden to even see each other at all. A couple of weeks went by and I was desperate but what could I do. She was 15 and not allowed now to answer or even use the phone anymore, she had brothers to make sure she didn’t. I was told not to come to church and try to set with her there. By accident her mother let her ride up town with a friend that had just got her driving licenses and she found me. Finding me was the accident part. We were only together maybe ten minutes. I told her how desperate I was and she said. “I don’t know what to do but I know what I want to do. Marry me.” Of all the unexpected words to come out of her mouth over the years that has been the most unexpected words so far but I said okay and she said, “ I have to go. I may can call you near midnight next week. Mama and Daddy are working a weird shift for one week only and I have to stay up and watch the house when Mama leaves and Daddy is coming home and all my brothers will hopefully be asleep.” She would call me and hang up when she saw lights coming in there yard. We made a plan. We needed a blood test, she skipped lunch at school, I picked her up and we went to see a doctor. No school calls home if a girl skips lunch. To my surprise Pam ask the nurse not to put our age on our blood test and she didn’t. Now we had to wait for the test to come back and this meant after her parents went back on there regular shift, we could not talk to each other for a whole week. We would just have to wait, stick with the plan and hope the other would not back out and would be there. On Friday morning just before school took in I pulled in beside the gym at school and she was there. She had gained maybe 20 lbs but whatever. We went on to Georgia where if you were 21 you could get married the same day you got your marriage licenses. We put 21 on our blood test and it did the trick. We were married. When we came back to my parents house I found out the 20 lbs or so was clothes she had on and she told me it was the only way to get clothes out of her house with out them knowing. I ask her why we didn’t go by and let her take some of her dresses off before we went to get married, she said she wasn’t taking any chances. Now the big thing was who was going to make the call and tell them what we had done. Pam is smarter and braver than me so she made the call and got her baby brother that was not a baby and he told all her brothers why she was not on the bus on the way home from school. Her mother was not there. She told them to spread the word and tell her mother, we would be back Sunday evening. On Sunday night when we came back in their yard it was full of cars and people including her parent’s preacher. The drama of a girl running away with a bad boy was in full swing. I was threaten with jail time “I was just 17 and they couldn’t” and Pam with a private school. After a lot of shouting and crying Pam told her mother she was going where ever I went and we were leaving, we would be back the next day to check on them and we left. They were saying we couldn’t go and the preacher was saying our marriage could not stand because it was not blessed. Pam was saying as we walked to our car now, not my car any more, “Don’t run.” As we were driving to my parents house and the crying had stopped I ask her what was with the “don’t run thing.” She said, “ It’s like dogs barking at you and have not bit you yet, if you run they will.” By this time in my life I had quit school, lied about my age and with changing the date my self on my certification of birth to get in I was working in the mill running a man’s job. We rented a house and a year and a month later we brought home a baby. Now here we are living in the Caribbean on our old home built sailboat we built ourselves. She is still smart and brave, maybe a little bossy and I’m just me but we are still together 54 years later. Would I do it again? In a heart beat but I wish we had met when we were really young but if we had I’m sure we would of been always in trouble and they would have been trying to separate us a lot sooner.

This picture was made in April 1964

 

We are planning another motorcycle trip in the US early this summer.

This picture was made in the Rio Dulce, Guatemala at our slip in Calypso Marina

 

Island Time

The adventure goes on as we try to get our motors running again here in paradise. Beside doing battle with our motors we have the officials here to dell with and as always, island time. As for the motors I rebuilt one last year and couldn’t get it stared so I bough more parts and just let it go with the other motor running good and didn’t get back to it. We were leaving last month with every thing we needed to make the trip to Guatemala, one motor running good when that good motor just quit. I ordered parts and Pam went to see the officials again. There they were nasty saying they could fine us for being here over 90 days in Belize but didn’t. Our extension they gave us then is now up and the parts are not here yet. That is the island time part of this. Nothing is on time here except closing time and time to get off work. Over time is not looked on here as a good thing. We got the motor I rebuilt stared and it ran good for maybe 2 minutes before it quit again. We checked the fuel filter before we stared the motor and it was fine but now the filter was full of water. Water all the way in to the injector pump. We drained the fuel tank and no more water but after 18 years the tank was dirty. With every thing clean we will try tomorrow and see if it will run again. As for the good motor that has never given any trouble before now that we ordered parts for over a month ago, how do you speed up island time. In Mexico it’s “Manana” . In the Spanish dictionary manana means tomorrow but there it means “Not happening today.” Here they say, “It’s coming so chill man.” So at this time we are planing to leave and go on to Guatemala as soon as we hear a motor run. Telling the officials here to just chill man I have tried. Let’s just say they don’t live by the same advice they give. There is a cold front coming through and the weather is fine. Our son has come down from Kansas to help with the motors and stay for a few weeks, that is making Pam very happy. We went out for supper with friends tonight and I’m still working on the just chill thing. Maybe I will try that again the next time we do battle with the officials another way. Maybe I can learn to say that in Creole. Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe it will work better if I just learn to say “Chill” in Creole.

VW engine parts every where.

VW Head

Always flowers

VW Parts?

Living in paradise you need to learn to “just chill man” as they all say here. Our parts for our motor are out there somewhere. We ordered them two week ago and had them shipped by ship from the US to here. We order the same parts again and they maybe are in the mail coming here and our son is flying here in a week from the states and if the parts don’t get here before he leaves he is buying more and bringing the same parts I need with him on the plane. It’s just a simple head gasket and what we need to change it but in paradise nothing is simple. We need those parts. We are living in a working marina where every one here is a mechanic when there not washing boats or taking up garbage. You can buy simple tool here like vice grips but if it is made by another company you have never heard of and you buy them you may find out why you have never heard of them. The other day a mechanic that is trying hard and doing good working here ask me for a pair of pliers that would open up over 3 inches and I ask him why. He said he was working on a packing gland on a rudder and couldn’t get a wench that big in where he was working. I said you don’t have a packing gland wrench then I said why did I ask. We went over to where they have a drill press and with a metal cutting hold saw off our boat I cut a hold in a piece of scrap metal, cut out the wrench with a handle then cut the sides off the hole to open it up leaving jaws the right size to fit the nut. I finished it off with a flapper wheel, that’s a wheel made up with rows of sand paper you put on a grinder and can not buy anywhere here in Belize to polish it so it looked good and feels good using it. My Granddaddy used to say that if you left your mark somewhere in life you were doing good. Maybe the mark is showing some one how to do something here. When we first started coming to this boat yard there was a lot of hammers laying around with no handles. I showed one of the guys here how to cut the end of a peace of round pipe splitting it and then you can drive it in a square hole. A little weld inside and you have a hummer with a metal handle. There favorite pipe here for this is a piece of Stainless Steel tubing off old boat tops. Hammers are here every where now with Stainless Steel handles. If fixing our motors were only that easy. If you keep up with our blog you know we have two old VW car motors out of VW rabbits cars in our boat. There old now and getting hard to get parts for. One of the motor I rebuilt and it won’t start. To tell the truth I haven’t tried hard to see what’s wrong with that one with the other one running good. Now that one has quit and we have a little over a week and we have to leave Belize. We have been here over 90 days now and we may just have to sail to Guatemala to Puerto Barrios and check in there. We can get there sailing and using our little 5 hp out board to get to the anchorage there. Sailing here is like playing pool or maybe I should say living here in this part of the Caribbean is like playing pool. We may sail the Pamela Ann back to the US next May but this May we plan to leave her in the Rio Dulce and fly back to the states to make a motorcycle ride across the US again. We can if we are here in Belize this May and go back there then. We can only stay in Guatemala one year and then we have to leave there. This would work out great but it’s hard to make and keep a plan going in paradise. We love the simple living you have to do here some times and our life is getting simpler sailing with no motor I guess To make life even simpler the washing machine here is in parts. Pam is back washing clothes out by hand now and grapefruits are getting hard to find but the moon is bright and the warm breezes are coming off the Caribbean sea tonight as I write this. Life is still good in paradise.

Clothes wringer

5hp Frankenstein motor made up of lots of boneyard parts