Home Improvement

We have stayed at the dock for the past several weeks working on projects to improve life on board Echo while also enjoying the amenities here at Palmas del Mar Yacht Club.

The yacht club is part of a large “luxury resort community” so there are shops and restaurants within walking distance along with a nice beach and plenty of paved pathways. It’s not necessarily a place that we would choose to stay but the marina is working out quite nicely for us. When the marina was developed there were high hopes for occupancy but at the moment it’s about 30 %.   While there are a few boats near our size, many are very large.

The marina pool is seldom used during the week so we have it to ourselves, weekends bring a few other people but we’re willing to share. The marina is well staffed and the people are quite friendly and helpful. Our biggest drain on their time is accepting packages for us then delivering them to the boat. It’s great to have an address for a while. There is a car rental office right at the marina so we have done a few day rentals to get out around the island for various reasons.

Projects accomplished

– Replacement of the lexan glass for a few hatches that had become “crazed” over time. Since we had one actually crack so it was time. The new ones are great, they came with new hinges and handles.

– New screen/shade fixtures for some of the hatches. After the bug issues we discussed in the last post we started rethinking a product we didn’t think would work for us but under duress Jeff came up with a solution and we now have a few cool Oceanair screen/shades. this is great in so many ways; no gap around the edge to allow bugs in, self storing and it solves the inevitable discussion that occurs when the hatch over our bed is open at night and it starts to rain. Someone either had to go up on the deck to close the hatch or you had to un attach the entire screen then close the hatch – cumbersome either way. The new ones just slide open to allow access to the hatch.

– Relocation of the valves to switch between our fresh water tanks to a much more accessible spot. Once a tank runs dry we no longer have to move all sorts of things to get to the valves to change to a new one.

– Cleaning all lockers and bilge space in addition to rethinking what is stored where now that we have been through a year on board. Jeff has also built a few new shelves around the cabin to allow for better storage.

– Purchase of a Hooka Max, it’s a machine that lets you breath under water with a hose. We will use it for hull cleaning and diving. Rather than donning all the dive gear (BCD, tank and regulator) we can just set up the hooka and get in the water. We can also put the hooka in the dinghy and then have up to 50 feet for exploring from there. This also relieves the need to refill the air tanks so often.

Don’t worry that it’s all work for us, we usually end up at the pool or the beach by early afternoon. Evenings have included watching some of the many videos we have collected from other cruisers over the months. With our power hookup here at the dock we can run the air conditioning, watch movies, take longer showers and use the washing machine as often as we want, nice change for a bit. We have also met several very nice people to visit with here at the marina. It’s a different group than you meet at an anchorage, many are crewing on the several large yachts docked here and have great stories and advice to share.

We are planning to head out in the morning to start exploring some or the nearby islands. There is a tropical depression brewing at the moment but all forecasts predict that it will pass well north of us then dissipate at sea but we do watch weather daily and will make plans accordingly. In the mean time we hope to explore the islands of Culebra and Vieques over the next few weeks. We are looking forward to being back on the water and hear these are amazing places to visit.

Jeff and Mary