January, 2012

La Ceiba, Honduras

Today is 1/1/12 and a New Year with new beginnings, fresh starts, resolutions, and goals.

We have been having so much trouble with our website the past few weeks, we were about to the stage of giving up on it.   I talked to another tech at GoDaddy this morning.  Not how I wanted to start my new year....but, he tried some test and continued to say, "Everything on our end is OK, it must be our FrontPage".  So, we decided to reload the website on our other computer.  I also deleted a Jib-Jab Christmas singing, and, it published.  How thankful we both are!  It has been time consuming and not fun, so, we are glad it is done and we are back in business. 

We even renewed our hosting for another year. 

So, for us, it has been a very good day.  Such a relief. 

Irma gave me a HUGE papaya for my birthday. We are eating papaya with our yogurt, in smoothies for breakfast, and froze a whole lot more.

We sanded our companionway steps today and put two coats of  West System/varnish on. 

After another walk around the resort, we played each other in bowling and ping pong on the Wii.  A fun evening, but we may be sore tomorrow.  Our bodies are not as young as our minds think we are.

I am still working on our companionway ladder.  The bad thing, when we install it back on Valentina, we will see more that needs done.  It is a never-ending labor of love.

Wow, there is much more room to exercise here, rather than on Valentina.

Sonny checked our thru-hull we installed last week and was satisfied with the results.

He wanted to check the diesel fuel in our 80 gallon tank, empty the fuel, clean the tank, then replace the fuel.  We have about 40 gallons left in our tank, since our trip from Cartagena, Colombia last May.

So, he found a big barrel at the shipyard we could transfer our diesel into.  Sonny brought it up the ladder to the deck.

Under our v-berth (our bed) cushions

So, we connected the hose, turned on the pump and waited for it to empty our tank. 

 

Then, took off the inspection plate and access the damage inside.

Thankfully, it was not bad at all.  It had been probably seven years since it had been cleaned, and we have taken on fuel in eight different countries since, some of which was bio-diesel.

There was a little scum on the side walls and a little at the bottom, but easy to clean up.

Then, we transferred the diesel back into our tank.

 Mission accomplished....Valentina is ready again for a while.  We thought this project would have taken at least, three days, but finished it in one.

Now, just need to fill the tank.

I am also sanding and re-varnishing our companionway ladder.  So, there is always plenty to do.

We went to the dance show tonight at the resort to see the dancers.  We are not awake that late often.

The weather here ranges from 75 to 80 degrees.  Very nice and comfortable.

We do plan to have the shipyard do the bottom for $10 a foot, or  $370 for Valentina.  You have to buy the paint (of course), brushes, rollers, tape, suits for the workers, safety glasses, gloves, etc.

 

We spent most of the day driving around La Ceiba to the different marine stores trying to find two new zincs to go on our our rudder.   Mission impossible!   We even considered buying a very large zinc, like the lobster boats use, and take it to a machine shop to have it cut down.  But, the steel in the middle was only on the ends.  It would not work to bolt it on.

Working again on Valentina and after a few hours of both of us sanding and using wire brushes on our anchors, we asked the shipyard to sandblast our two anchors.  They said it would not cost very much, the sandblasting is $65 an hour and would not take long for 2 anchors.  So, we thought, it may take, at most, 15 minutes,  $15, "OK, let's do it".

After they were finished, we went to the office to pay, it was a whopping $120.  They said they had to buy two bags of sand.   That did not make sense.

Needless to say, we will be doing our own bottom job on Valentina rather than have the shipyard do it.     Not too excited about it, but it fits our budget better and we have the time.

So, we arrived at 9:30 a.m. and were number 11.  We waited until 3:30 p.m. to see the doctor.  The seats get very hard and the air conditioning is on high.  Nothing like spending your day at Medi Centro.  But, the doctors are excellent and well worth the wait.  Their usual charge is $25 - $35 and they make sure you have their cell phone number, just in case you have any questions.   

House-sitting has been very good, but very interesting.  The backyard is a beautiful garden of flowers, plants, a palapa (with a hammock) and just a beautiful place.  We could spend hours just watching the hummingbirds fight over the feeder and other birds and geckos in the yard.   And, our view of the mountains out the front door, is a full-time job, just watching them.  A job we enjoy.

Last week, when we were asleep at night, we were awaken by a noise in the backyard.  Sonny jumped up, grabbed the flashlight and headed outside.   It was a possum that was interested in roaming around the outdoor kitchen area.

Then, today I found a small crab crawling around the floor.  About 30 minutes later, we found another one.  Let me tell you, they can crawl  (run) fast.

On our morning walk, we ran across this...

I think it is a suchomimus!

Our highlight of the day was watching the football games.  Of course, it was in Spanish, so we turned the volume down and tried to find a radio channel on the internet in English.  Just have to be creative sometimes.

But, a perfect place, with great medical  doctors.   He is scheduled for a colonoscopy on Thursday.  The total cost, (with our discount for being  old), is $80.    Did I type that right?  Is that a typo?  No sir.  SpellCheck  done and the correct price is $80 U.S.    I checked online, and it averages around $3,000 in the US.

When we had blood work done for preparation for his colonscopy, we also had his PSA checked, as it had been 1  1/2 years.  The results are received the same day as tested.  When we picked up our results, his PSA was extremely high, four times higher than 1  1/2 years ago.  So, we immediately went to the urologist and waited for our turn to see the doctor.

The urologist requested more blood work and other tests.  These tests did not return with good results, and he wanted to do a biopsy of the prostate.  It worked out, that while Sonny had his colonoscopy done, the urologist also was able to perform the biopsy.

Some more costs comparisons:

Prostate Biopsy in surgery center in US - $1559

Prostate Biopsy in surgery center in Honduras - $150, plus  $40 for pathology report.

We woke up at 5 a.m. to get ready to head to the clinic for Sonny's colonoscopy.   They open at 6:30 a.m. and there are no appointments.  First come...first served.  So, by the time we arrived at 6:30 a.m. .....there were already three ahead of us.

We were finished by noon and ready for lunch.  We stopped by the grocery store and headed home.   It was a very long day, but we are glad it is over.   The results of the biopsy will not be available for one week.   It will be one  l-o-n-g  week for us.

To help keep our minds busy, we sanded and varnished the table from our settee and our cockpit table on Valentina.   Then, we went to the pool to cool off.

The security guard was outside their house clapping, so, maybe we did not sound, all that bad.  It was a very enjoyable evening.

As we picked up our results and slowly opened the envelope, we both about fell to the ground with relief as we muddled through the Spanish report to see the words at the bottom of the page,  "Resultados: negativo malignancia".

We were so relieved and thankful, we asked three different people in the clinic to help translate the page into English before we waited our turn to see our doctor.   All confirmed....good news.

Our doctor, Carlos Hernandez, is superb.  He is so caring and is a prostate cancer survivor.  We have his cell phone number and email, just in case we have any questions.  

Sonny has antibiotics to take for one month, then we will test his PSA again.

Words cannot describe our previous week, it was the longest one in our lives....and how thankful we are for the good results.   We could not wait to get home to call our family to tell them the good news.

We have always said, "As long as we are healthy, it is fun, and it is safe", we will continue to stay cruising on Valentina.   We both feared our time had come to an end.  But, again so thankful for our health, we plan to continue our cruising lives together.

With very thankful hearts.....

Now that we have access to television, we watched the Presidential debates and all of the ads.  Would rather be watching football games....

We have finished varnishing our companionway steps and ready to install  them back on.  I have to say, "It does look good, but it sure makes the cover for the engine and the additional two steps look really, really bad".

So, you guessed it......now we are going to work on them.    A little varnish makes such a difference.   It is truly a labor of love.

We scraped on the bottom again today.  We have probably one more days work and we should be finished with one side.   It is a slow process.

1/31

Today, we started early with our morning walk, ate our fruit for breakfast, and started with the epoxy on our project.  We were able to apply three coats of epoxy today, even though it rained most of the day.

In between applying coats, we made some oatmeal/raisin cookies and some no-bake cookies.  It is so nice to have a large oven for baking and a freezer to be able to store them in (or we would eat them all). 

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