The satellite phone system (FBB 150, for those who care) continued to be a source of frustration and on- going angst. Javier, with Falcon Electronics, finally personally came to the boat and spent the entire afternoon Saturday trying to find what the problem was. With no resolution in sight at the end of the day, it was decided that he would take the entire system to his shop and bench test it, with the hopes that that would finally reveal what was wrong. He felt sure he could repair/provide whatever resources were necessary to get us up and running and on our way.
More provisioning and stowing!
So, because hope springs eternal, on Sunday John and I did, what was supposed to be, the last provisioning run before our departure for Galapagos/French Poly either Tuesday or Wednesday. In a last minute fit of wine anxiety, we both bought a couple more cases of wine. Everything went well, although we also had tortilla chip anxiety, beef anxiety, canned fruit anxiety, ziplock and paper towel anxiety (thank you Idyll Island), and last but not least, toilet paper anxiety. One more time, got all the stuff back to the marina, down the ramp and onto Mystic Moon and stowed.
Monday morning, John was not looking so good, and he tells me that he thinks he’s gotten a hernia from lifting the cases of wine on board the day before. In fairness, he’d had twinges before in the same area, but it had always gone away within a day or so. So, because we are so good at denial, we said let’s give it a day and see what happens…..Maybe this too will pass……
In the meantime, Javier had called to say that it is, without a doubt our BDU that is the issue. That would be the “Below Deck Unit” as opposed to the ADU (“Above Deck Unit”) that we all were convinced it was. Now why Inmarsat cannot call it the transceiver and the antenna, which is what it really is, is beyond me……But, be that as it may, we now had an answer to our issue. John emailed all of our stateside contacts, as well as Tyrone at Starlight Marine, from whom we had bought the original unit.
Tyrone was able to quote us a price for a new unit from Thrane and Thrane (hex spells on KVH for their poor customer service), and Javier had a friend in another electronics company here in Panama that happened to have a refurbished BDU for approximately half the cost of what a new one would cost. Great….We decide to buy the refurbished one, ship the broken one back to the states and have it repaired to carry as a spare. But wait! The refurbished price was based on them keeping the old unit and if we wanted the old unit back, the refurbished one would now be more than a new one. WTH???
Meanwhile, back at the boat it is now Tuesday morning and no, the hernia did not magically disappear overnight, so we pick a general practitioner out of the most current cruiser’s guide to Panama and see him Tuesday afternoon. Yes, he says…..Get it fixed….He recommends a surgeon to us at one of the private hospitals here in Panama City, and calls and gets an appointment for us for Wednesday afternoon. We return to Mystic Moon downcast and depressed……
Admission – Centro Medico Paitilla
Wednesday morning is spent trying to understand why a refurbished unit in Panama would be more than a new unit shipped from the US, but there seemed to be no ‘splaining……So, finally…..we said screw it. Get everything fixed….Fix the sat phone properly by ordering a new unit from the US, and just suck it up and do the surgery.
Cue Bob Marley……Every little thing, Is gonna be all right…..Don’t wor-ry…….
Well, you gotta love Central America…..Saw the surgeon Wednesday afternoon, John had surgery Thursday morning at the Centro Medico Paitilla, and we were home by Thursday noon. Done and onto recuperating! Things seemed to go well, though, so we have hopes of getting out of here in a week to 10 days…. (knock wood!!) We’ll see…..Frankly, I’m afraid to get my hopes up too high anymore!
And, the new BDU is supposed to be at Arturo’s on Monday afternoon, thank you Tyrone at Starlight Marine, and Marine Warehouse! The technicians here with Falcon have agreed to install it for us, since there’s no way John needs to be doing that stuff right now. But, just getting them onboard can require jumping through hoops, so we’ll see on that one, too…
Do I sound cautionary, unsure, superstitious, perhaps a little bit depressed? Think we both have a bad case of the What’s Next syndrome…..And in the meantime, I will need to go reprovision yet again, because we are busy eating up our stores….
But, for now, no more cases of wine!
Getting things done…..Blinds now work, pillows stuffed (more pillows! heads cleaned…
And, on the plus side, John’s on his second book and I’ve gotten all of the blinds in the salon restrung and all of the broken clips holding the rope lights replaced…..Oh! And my mola pillows stuffed….Think I’ll scrub the head and reorganize the cruising guide books today……Don’t tell me cruising isn’t exciting!!! 😉
At home, comfortably recovering and recuperating! Got ‘er done!! 🙂
Addendum……John did quite well with the surgery, although he’s sore as all get-out….Final cost – all hospital, anesthesiologist, surgeon fees included….approximately $2000. Amazing……Try to do *that* in California with your Anthem Blue Cross card!
And finally……Our family and friends have kept us amused with various email witticisms and hahas, thank you very much, and while I won’t entertain you with all of them, I will share our son David’s comment (the paramedic and workout enthusiast)…… “O the irony of a sports hernia lifting a box of wine… I hope you feel better… I hope you lifted the wine to a point that you can drink it now that you’re in pain….” Ha! Amen to that……
Oh boy… does this bring back memories. Sounds like you were much better off in Panama than we were in Mexico. What a nightmare. Hope you had a good buddy with you like we had you with us when we went through all of that in Mexico.
Well, better now then later.
In your previous posting when you were describing the provisioning I kept thinking that you are going to be looking back and saying those are the good ole days, or the easier days. Well….
Have heard that the best time to make the crossing is in March – so hoping it will all work out for you. When are they having that Puddle Jump meeting in Panama? Maybe you’ll be able to attend.
Oh… I feel your pain.