Don't Drink the Water

I have to write?  Couldn't this wait until Diane gets back?

It's common advice about visiting Mexico. Don't drink the water. In our case, it's the water in our tanks we're concerned about. Our water tanks are integral with the hull of the boat. With the bottom and sides of the tank there is no worries - the hull is all the fiberglass. But the top of the tank is plywood covered with fiberglass. 25 year old fiberglass. Which is now starting to rot (we see little chunks of wood fiber in our taps). So our latest boat project is replacing the rotting tank tops. Good thing we have a carbon filter on one tap to filter out the chunky bits.

We purchased a sheet of plywood in La Cruz, cut it to shape and gave it a quick coat of epoxy, prior to our passage to La Paz. That was a clever idea because it was a wet upwind ride for the plywood which lived on our foredeck for the trip. Now the 3 week old epoxy needs a sanding before we cover it with fiberglass tomorrow. (epoxy older than about 24 hours needs sanding to get the best bond before other layers are added).




Getting new eyeglasses and finding some fiberglass cloth was today's big errands. The glasses were easy, and were going to be ready in about 6 hours. For somebody used to the rather slow pace of Canadian eyewear that was a pleasant change. The fiberglass cloth took 3 tries before we found someplace with the right stuff.  But Maia and I did discover a place that sold 1 L smoothies that cooled us off after a lot of walking in the hot sun.