Proof of Life -- El Salvador, July 2015

It Lives!

For those who have not already received our happy news, here's a video of Abracadabra's Westerbeke 33 purring away in the shop at Paradise Fishing Lodge on the Estero Jaltepeque in El Salvador. 

We would send you a video of us doing a happy dance but . . . well . . . some things are so embarrassingly goofy even we won't post them. 

To put this happy news in perspective: This is the engine that faded to black somewhere off the coast of El Salvador resulting in our rather ignominious entry into the estero in May of 2014. How long can it take to fix a diesel engine, you ask? A very long time when the engine is 30+ years old and parts are no longer on the shelf. And of course during this same period we have been busy getting parts installed in el Capitan who will be taking a spiffy new high-tech hip back south with him, which didn't inspire us to put any pressure on our Engine Saviors. 

We have also seen a picture of the engine back in Abracadabra: 

View To The Companionway 

and have been told the engine is installed and waiting to be tuned once the chief mechanic - John Carey of Carey Diesel in Delaware (and owner of the Paradise Fishing Lodge) - returns to El Salvador. That final tuneup should happen some time later this month. 

Next . . . 

At the moment, we are in Sacramento, California. We have been catching up with our:

• rental house - appliances don't live for ever, apparently, even with the best of care; 
• health care providers - sparkly teeth, updated contact lenses and x-rays that show Bryce's new hip is joining nicely with his more organic skeletal system;
• storage locker - some very unhappy teenage thieves found zero electronics after rifling several boxes of Christmas ornaments ("How many f*%#@ng nativity scenes do these lame people own?"); and
• friends and relatives - who we charge with direct responsibility for our recent weight gain . . . perhaps that's the basis for the term "land lubber?" . . . 

Soon we will depart for a three week trip to visit friends and family in Canada.

Then, mid-September-ish we plan to fly to El Salvador to return to Abracadabra. 

Once there, we will:

• Pay the government of El Salvador the whopping sum of $1 a day for Abracadabra's time there (really, a bargain!). 
• Spend some time taking care of things that have inevitably deteriorated during Abracadabra's 16+ months of inactivity - the dock guys at Paradise have been taking good care of her and we've been getting good reports about her batteries and such, but every sailor knows "rust never sleeps" and every sailor who has spent time in the tropics knows that mold doesn't either. 
• Take some time to acclimate to life aboard. 

When both Abracadabra and her trusty crew are ready to go we plan to venture south to . . . places beautiful and interesting - though being mindful of the old Chinese curse, we hope things will not be "too" interesting. 

Sounds do-able, no?  More on all of that as things unfold.  

But first we'll blog more about or time in Mexico.