We awoke early this morning and Dave started trying to finish the air conditioner installation. He hooked it all up, turned it on, and NADA. Dave about tore his hair out in frustration… if he has to rip out the whole unit and return it that would be a major disaster because it wouldn’t be at all clear when or where we could get a replacement unit. This one took weeks to get here and we are leaving Costa Rica for Panama before a new one would arrive. Not to mention all the work that went into getting the dang thing into place to begin with. Ug.
Fortunately after a couple of hours, Dave was able to diagnose that it wasn’t the compressor itself that was bad. It was the new controller for the unit. So he pulled the controller off the old one, and put it on the new one, and voila! It works. Thank goodness we purchased a new unit identical to the old one - it made troubleshooting possible. Now the question is how the heck we are going to get the controller replaced. Fortunately it’s small enough that it could be shipped to Panama if worst comes to worst.
The bad controller:
The old controller hooked up to the new air conditioner unit:
Then it was onto diagnosing the freezer. Melissa defrosted the freezer yesterday and ever since its just been running round the clock but not getting fully cold. The intake screen disintegrated a while back, and it turned out all sorts of stuff had gotten into the pump. Clams, muscles, the occasional small crab. So Dave cleaned it out, and then realized that the outflow must also be blocked. Using a universal household tool - a straightened out coat hanger - he managed to dig another bunch of crap out of the through hole from the dingy on the outside of the boat. And then voila! Suddenly the freezer compressor is working more effectively and stops having to run continuously.
We decided to head for town, but alas after cruising up and down the beach in the dinghy's we couldn't find anywhere to land where it looked like the surf was small enough to guarantee not flipping over and getting wet. So we returned to the boat for the afternoon. A while later we heard a "knock knock" on the side of the boat. It was Mike and Holly. Some guy flagged them down and gave them a bucket full of fish. So they offloaded some on us. Melissa cleaned them, but we couldn't decide how to cook them. So we invited ourselves aboard Wanuskewin because Mike was planning to fry some in beer batter. Melissa whipped up some fresh tartar sauce and a salad. And there you have dinner! The only problem is that we are now out of wine. Gonna have to fix that tomorrow!
While aboard Wanuskewin for dinner, we watched a big fireworks show on the beach. We weren't sure what it was for - maybe the fact that Costa Rica plays in the final 16 of the world cup tomorrow? Nah, they are probably celebrating the fact that Apsaras' forward air conditioning works! We know we are!