Lesley's new puppy

We got some pictures from the breeder yesterday - think this could be Lesley's new puppy.

Old San Juan

We are still playing tourist - have been exploring Old San Juan and the Forts Castillo San Felipe del Morro and San Cristobal.  We followed the old walls for about 2 miles then had to stop for lunch at the Old Harbor Brewery.

Today we went back and explored some more and had a nice lunch at St Germaine Bistro.

The old town looks and feels like a really old town.

Arecibo

We drove out West yesterday with the intention of touring the Arecibo Radio Observatory and then the Rio Camuy Caves.  We had originally planned to visit Old San Juan but the place we wanted to have lunch only has brunch on Sundays so we are doing that tour later today.

We stopped at Arecibo and had a nice tour.  This thing is very large and even the feed point is larger than many dishes I've seen.

View of the feed area as you approach the visitors center.

Dish - wire mesh.

One of three pylons that support the feed point assembly.

Feed point - this thing is steerable and is really really big.

We then headed over to Rio Camuy Caves but the crowd was so large and the traffic was so bad we turned around and headed back to the boat.  We think we have already seen the best Caves - Karchner Caverns State Park, Cochise County, Az.

On to Old San Juan after breakfast.

Tourists

Tomorrow we are headed in to old San Juan and will play tourists exploring the old Fort and Castles in the area.  Plan to take the big camera with us tomorrow so will have more photos to add afterwards.  We also plan to visit Araceibo (huge radio telescope) and Camuy caves early in the week.

We hit Costco this morning and bought a few things and also a stop at Home Depot.  Pretty much set now for our departure from PR - weather permitting, 4 Jan with day sails around the South Coast and then clear out of Mayaguez for the Dominican Republic and a planned stop at Ocean World.

Fridge is working again

The guys from Mayday Marine showed up yesterday morning as promised at 7:30.  We spoke briefly about our problem and then they asked me what I wanted to do.  I asked them to vacuum the system and then try a recharge.  After about 4.5 hours on the vacuum pump and a recharge the freezer is working again.  It appears that there may have been some small amount of moisture in the system that was freezing and blocking the capillary tube.

Just in case though I have a new evaporator and add on filter dryer on board should the problem reappear.  Coastal Climate Control sent me the new parts on the 24th and I had then by the afternoon of the 26th.

We moved all of our frozen items from the beach house back to the boat and are now ready to move along on the 4th of Jan.

Working on a boat in Exotic Places!

We were happy to get the boat back together and move her back to a slip yesterday.  After finishing the battery equalization I turned the freezer back on but it did not seem to be acting correctly.  This morning the freezer was only down to 38 so it wasn't.  I'm assuming that we have enough moisture in the refrigerant to freeze at the capillary tube or even worse have a chip blocking the capillary tube.  Have a reefer man coming to look at the system Friday morning.  Hoping he can vacumn the system and then recharge to fix the problem.  But, just in case, a new evaporator and filter dryer are on order from Coastal Climate Control!

I must say it again, so glad that we have the use of Mike and Martina's freezer through this!

We picked up some stuff from the beach house so we are all set for Christmas dinner aboard.

Back in the water

We splashed today at 1:30 PM and stopped by the fuel dock to replace the fuel that we had burned on the way here and also that we had pumped into the emergency reserve fuel bladder.

I ran the engine hard, up to 3200rpm and no noise or vibration, so success on the bearing replacement.  Nice to have things back together and back in the water.

We will go over to the beach house in the morning and move our frozen meat back to the boat.  Right now I'm equalizing the batteries while we get ready to head into Fajardo for dinner.

Merry Christmas