LAST MINUTE DISASTERS
Bahía de Caraquéz, Ecuador, Thursday, November 08, 2007

Setting the date seems to be the most difficult but the most critical step in starting a voyage. Once that is established you stop making other appointments and focus to make the departure happen. Our original departure date had been set for 30 October. The tides for crossing the bar were the highest of any date remotely possible.

We had even picked an advantageous tide to put Vilisar up on the makeshift grid to inspect and clean her bottom and propeller prior to the trip; we planned out our maintenance (painting especially) and re-rigging work to be finished in time; we notified the local ship’s agent so he could arrange for the Zarpe (ship departure documentation); and we picked a date to travel to Manta to check out of the country with Migración. Soon we were getting excited about leaving now and we checked the weather forecasts daily for our voyage from Ecuador north to Panama. October 30th!

“The best-laid plans of men and mice oftimes gang awry”, to misquote Robbie Burns. Three days before departure, we start the engine to move over to the grid for cleaning. While I stand on the foredeck to pull in the anchor, Kathleen calls from cockpit near the stern that the engine is making strange noises. Irritated, I go below to take a look. Sure enough, there is oil spurting about the engine room and the oil pressure is dropping. I shut down the Lister engine. The silence is unnerving as I stretch in over the engine to assess the damage.

I suspect it is the soldering on the new copper tube for the new oil pressure instrumentation that we had recently installed. I put in a call on the VHF for the electrician. No response! It’s a weekend and Joe may be out of town.

Meanwhile, I see Wacho’s blue Russian stake truck parking ashore near the yacht club. Wacho is an engine mechanic who knows Vilisar because he spent a few days looking over and spray-painting our diesel so that it looks like new. I jump into the dinghy and row in to talk to him. He says he cannot visit us till Monday but will be at the dock and ready to go at nine o’clock.

In the bizarre world of national bureaucracies, if we had not yet checked out with Migración, we would probably now be delayed and have to pay an over-stay fine of $200 each. But, since we did in fact check out yesterday (Friday), basically we are now wetbacks. Probably nobody much cares. Our agent says the authorities only want their paperwork to be correct. What actually happens on the ground, on the other hand, seems to be irrelevant. He will not say anything to the Port Captain for a few days while we assess the situation. Meanwhile, our chance to use the makeshift tidal grid to clean the bottom will have passed by the time Wacho gets any repairs completed, so we shall now have to pay someone to clean the bottom for us.

On Monday, Wacho susses out the problem in short order. It’s not the oil-pressure gauge tubing at all. He reckons instead that a felt oil gasket in our 35-year-old engine has failed. The gasket is probably no longer made but he reckons he can fashion one locally without having to rely on a worldwide internet search for a replacement or a trip to Guayaquil junk yards. The big problem is how to get at the seal: it lies at the back of the engine in front of the flywheel. The engine will have to be pulled to get at it. But how? Wacho is confident about his diagnosis and can easily repair it. But he has never pulled an inboard diesel engine and certainly not on a sailboat at anchor. There is no crane in Bahía so any solution will have to be makeshift. Don’t ya’ just love the sailing life?

We radio Karl on S/V Muk Tuk. He is a very experienced sailor and an expert motor mechanic. He himself has recently pulled his engine to clean under it (believe it or not). He comes down from the anchorage in his dinghy almost immediately and confers with Wacho. No problem! Just drill a three-inch hole in the bridge deck right above the engine and use the mainsail boom to lift the engine off its mounts. Wacho thinks, if he can turn the engine 180 degrees in the engine room, he can work at the back of the engine from the cabin. He immediately starts disconnecting everything from the motor: exhaust, fuel lines, oil lines, starter, electrical lines, fuel pump, etc., etc. He then unbolts the engine from its mounts. Those bolts have surely not been touched since the engine was installed in 1973.

The next day, Tuesday, he shows up with two helpers. Cutting the hole takes some time because the hand drills soak up all our battery power and the second half of drilling through the 2-inch plank has to be done by hand. Once accomplished, however, a come-along is hung from the boom with the hook down through the hole. With one man on deck to operate the come-along, with Wacho inside the engine room to push and shove and one helper in the cabin to help, the 300-pound engine is lifted inch by inch off its bed and, with a lot of grunting and puffing, it is shifted around a half circle and set down again at the entrance to the engine room. Wacho can now sit in comfort at the bottom of the companionway and start taking off the large bits and pieces. Kathy and I move onshore to hostal Coco Bongo to escape the oil and grease.

Wednesday he is back with only one assistant. Within a few hours he has all the very large chunks of metal laid out on a plastic tarp on the cabin sole including the flywheel and it housing. More importantly, he has the oil seal and the bronze fitting that contains it in his greasy hands. He rapidly comes to the conclusion that he can refashion this same fitting locally to accept a modern rubber oil seal. We row ashore and start travelling around town to get this done. The seal costs about $4. The machine shop work on the bronze retaining ring costs about $6. We dash back out to the boat in the dinghy to make sure that everything fits well. Wacho is beaming. “Tomorrow we will have to find gaskets for everything we have removed”, he says. He plans to drive forty minutes up the coast to his home down of Jama. “I’m sure I have the gaskets we need from an old Lister engine we once worked on.”

We are on the 0630 (Wednesday) car ferry across to San Vicente and soon on the bumpy road to Jama. All the roads in this part of Ecuador, by the way, are bumpy. Some roads are straighter than others but they are all poorly engineered and badly overdue for repaving. We shake and rattle along. Arriving at his parents' house, we find his dad, also a motor mechanic, working on a gasoline-driven water pumpo in front of the house with a group of other men watching him. We head upstairs to greet his mother who starts cooking for us. Meanwhile we begin a fruitless search for the gaskets we need. No deal! After a home-cooked breakfast with Wacho’s Mum hovering over us, and after a discussion with his Dad, Wacho announces that we are heading to a gasket-maker in Perdenales.

An hour later we have crossed the equator by car surrounded by a herd of about 150 cows being driven along the Pacific Coast highway by one lone vaquero (cowboy) and have reached Perdenales. The gasket-maker sets right to work to fabricate anew by hand the various old gaskets that Wacho has brought him. I woak around this little provincial market town set on a hill overlooking the Pacific. It is dusty but looks mildly prosperous. Its economy is based upon ranching and fishing and the people in the shops and on the street reflect this. At the engine repair shop next to the gasket-maker –all the work is done on the sidewalk or in the street – the little truck being worked on is carrying a load of piglets in the back. A man rides past hawking a large fresh sea bass that he has hanging from the handlebars of his bicycle. Three hours later we are back in Bahía after a second stop at Wacho’s parents’ house and another meal with his mother.

Thursday Wacho and his two helpers re-assemble the engine. They also swing the block around in the engine room in the opposite direction and remount the whole thing on the mounts. Replacing it in its initial position turns out to be an even tougher job than taking it out. Exhausted for the day, he is nevertheless back the next morning (Friday) to reconnect all the umbilicals. Within two hours that old Lister is purring away as if it had not just open heart surgery and Wacho is beaming with pleasure. I could have kissed his greasy feet!

When I meet Karl of Muk Tuk in town he asks me how it is all going. He’s amazed that everything is completed and that we have not been held up for days waiting for engine parts to be sent from England. He just shakes his head in amazement at Wacho’s ingenuity and skills. “You can thank your lucky stars!” And we do.

So, if you are ever stuck for a mechanic in Bahía or anywhere in the region, get hold of Washington (“Wacho”) Moreira (cellphone no. ) You will definitely not regret it. Almost everyone I met in traveling around with Wacho told me out of his earshot that he is the best there is in the whole province of Manabí. And the most honest too.