Aug 6 - Chaos

The last few days have been chaotic. There have been way too many things happening at the same time, so I'll try to give a rundown of what I mean. With help from Chris (Rumrunner II), the liferaft and portable A/C units are now on the deck in their proper places. Down below, when I turned on the fridge and freezer, nothing happened. The thermostats were both toast, apparently having gotten water on their circuit boards at some time during the refit. I called one of the local refrigeration repair vendors, and both systems have been undergoing testing, one new thermostat has already been installed, and the other is being shipped from Bangkok and should arrive in the next day or so. OK then....The engine, which had taken us from the slipway to our berth when we were launched, decided to not start. Diesels are, essentially, simple creatures. They need clean fuel and an air supply; that's about it. In our case, we also need a source of current to the starter and solenoid, which originates in the starting battery. Our battery was pushing on in age, and its resting voltage was only 12.2V, so the first thing done after checking the fuel filters and making sure diesel was being delivered to the injector pump was to search out a local battery distributor and purchase a new starting battery with similar specs to the original. Done....The engine still wouldn't start. At first, there was a slight sound coming from the solenoid, but that stopped and the sound of silence ensued when the start button was pushed. Hmmm. Well, they say most solutions are simple ones, so I decided to go over (again) all the wires, traced and cleaned the connections, and found one loose wire at the back of the push button (to the starter) and one wire that had fallen off the relay that goes to the starter/solenoid. Ya think? The engine fired right up and ran just fine. It's been pretty rainy and cloudy these last few days and half our solar capacity was keeping up with the 12V refridge and freezer systems, but it sure was good to see 90 amps coming into the house battery. By way of saying thanks, I changed the oil and oil filter and continued to clean up the engine and wiring. What else...one of the local Thai guys has been helping us; his assignment was to polish all the stainless on deck, sand the teak at the bow platform, and sand and put two coats of Interlux Brightside LPU paint on our caprail. Done. I've wired up the new Simrad autopilot but had to wait for the local distributor to return to Phuket (today) to arrange for him to commission the unit (tomorrow). Another local guy is resewing our old bimini sun awnings to make them fit the new boltrope track that has now been fitted on the very outside of the hard bimini all around the cockpit. That project should be done this week....As should our moving out of this rental condo....As should the return of our rental car....We've also visited our friends in Ao Po and had another wonderful dinner with a small crowd of folks there as well as sharing Chris' birthday dinner with him here at Boat Lagoon. We're going to have to go anchor someplace just to chill out. Unfortunately, the forecast is for more heavy rain, strong winds, and flash flooding (in town) most of this week, so we and everyone else just have to accommodate and do what we can when we can in spite of the downpours.