Bezoekers in the Land of the Dutch

Here in Curacao we are surrounded by the Dutch language.  Most everyone who lives here speaks it; some words sound a bit like German, and some words look like something we can suss out.  And it's the rare person who does not speak English as well.

However, this does lead to some times when we are left scratching our heads as to what a sign might mean.  And if food labels in the grocery stores don't have a picture, well, we're at a loss as to what the can or jar might hold.

Parking Lot Sign

Here's a good example.  Hmmm.... BEZOEKERS....some days that's exactly how I feel, Bezoekers!  Close enough to berserk.  Especially on days when we spell each other from diving down into the bilge, an airless, dark cavern, to do battle with the boat, as we have been lately.  What would we do without Google translator?  This really means "VISITORS" so I guess we are Bezoekers.

Bewaking!

Another example.  Camera Bewaking!  OK, Camera is easy enough, the sign has a helpful image as well.  BEWAKING.... looks a bit like English or German.  Beware?  I be waking, or walking?  No - it means "monitoring".

My favorite street sign

And here's my favorite.  LET OP!  DREMPELS  warning to motorists.  Let op!  take your foot off the gas perhaps.  Drempels, a good-sounding word that rolls off the tongue in a pleasing manner.  This sign never fails to bring a smile to my face.  This translates to "Pay attention - thresholds".  I think Google translator really means speed bumps.

We need some humor in our lives as we continue to struggle with the bilge pumps.  Both are still not working (the pumps have both been apart and test out just fine).  So - what we were dreading, the intake hoses need replacing.  This has meant major surgery, taking big pieces out of the bowels of the boat.  Yesterday out came one battery bank and its box, and then a large piece of the diesel engine exhaust system called a waterlock.  We have called in the professionals and a mechanic will be coming over tomorrow to take out the old intake hoses and install new ones.  We can see a rupture in one of the hoses.  As sturdy as they are, thirty years is a good amount of service from the hoses.

Way Down in the Bilge

You can just see the rupture in the hose on the left.  These two hoses go to our pumps up in the cockpit.  Hopefully tomorrow nice new clean hoses will be in place.

For Want of a Ground and Two Screws

I guess the proverb reads "For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost."  Our bilge pump and switch problems turned out to be minor, but crucial, pieces of the whole system.

Our old bilge pump automatic switch, out of the bilge

The pump switch, an Ultra PumpSwitch JR, was not working at all.  Which meant that our electric bilge pump would not go on if the water level started to rise.  We found this out after deliberately filling the bilge with water from a garden hose.

After a couple of days of dinking around with it, testing the leads, trying to figure out why it's not working, my eagle-eyed partner noticed - "Deb, what's that black ground line connected to?"  Aha - we had lost our ground!  It had been connected to a strip of copper, which is all disintegrating under our floorboards.

It was an easy fix, once we located the problem - find another spot to ground the leads for the pump switch.  We re-installed a new switch - and voila! - it works!

For Want of a Nail

For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the message was lost. For want of a message the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
 

New PumpSwitch - now installed in the bilge


 

Down in the lazarette, where our bilge pumps live

Our electric bilge pump

Next, we turned our attention to the pumps.  Why is neither the manual pump or the electric pump drawing out any water?  Unfortunately, both pumps live way down in the lazarette, under the cockpit, which Larry calls our "basement".  The problem here turned out to be two missing screws in the manual pump - causing an air pocket to prevent the necessary suction for the pumps to work.  Why were both pumps not working?  Because they share a common "Y" outflow.  This took some time to diagnose.  So now we have put two new, larger screws in the pump and are waiting for the goop bedding the screws to cure.  Maybe we will have this fixed too!

Ugly rust - unrelated but it must be addressed

As we dig deeper into the far reaches of the boat, we find all kinds of other problems or potential problems.  This electric junction box is filled with rust.  It leads to our stern light, a navigation light used while underway.  A jiggle might have caused it to go out - and cause us to be unlit underway.  So - fix up this too, while we are in the neighborhood.

Late afternoon at Kokomo Beach

Lest the reader think we spend all of our time working, here's a view from Kokomo Beach, where I spent a lovely day with some friends a couple of weeks ago.

Onward!

Oops...Houston, We Have a Problem

Close to the bottom on our to-do list was an item to check our bilge pumps.  These (usually) trusty pumps get water out of the boat when it makes its way into the far reaches of the bilge under our feet.  Normally it's fairly dry down there, but this is another safety item that MUST function when we need it.  Things happen out at sea, and a sudden on-rush of water into the boat is one of the events no one wants to think about.  But it does happen, and we have to have a plan for what to do about it.

Checking the bilge pumps was on the bottom of our list since we expected everything to work as it did the last time we used them two years ago.  The pickup hoses for the pumps also live in a neighborhood with almost total inaccessibility, way down in the bowels of the boat.  So, we put it off until we couldn't ignore it any longer.

We have a large capacity electric pump, set up with a monitor for the level of the water.  This pump is designed to be triggered and automatically go on when the water level gets to a certain point.  Then, we also have a hand pump in the cockpit to assist in water clearance.  We took a hose and filled the bilge, expecting the automatic pump to go on.  Nothing.  Nada.  So, we turned it on manually, and the motor kicks in, but no water is going out.  Then we tested the manual pump - same response.

The good news is that we are in a boatyard, and can fix anything that goes wrong.  This is a big problem and we must get to the bottom of it.  We've got three separate problems - why is the automatic switch not working, why is the electric pump not pumping, and why is the manual pump not working.  Oh boy.

The consolation to having one more show-stopping problem is that the weather is not good for our passage.  It will be blowing quite a bit above normal for at least a week.  So - we sit tight and fix our pumps.