Marina Carenero
Bocas del Toro, Panama
Testing New AB Dinghy
Hooray! A brand new, 9.5 ft AB RIB dinghy arrived in town today. We ran over with the Marina Carenero guys in the big lancha, and stood by the back of the truck to manhandle the box to the boat and back across the bay. We offloaded the dead Danard and donated it to the marina for use as a weed barrier and planter box, hung the outboard on the new AB, then set off for a test zip across the bay, only to have the outboard die. The chief doesn’t work on any engines smaller than a greyhound bus, so after learning how to dismantle the lower drive unit, an exercise of several new words and sweaty grunts, he found the impellor had been stripped. Then the adventure started. Where in town to find a $12 part for a common outboard. Checked both hardware stores and both Yamaha dealers, and found replacements could be ordered from David (and put on a plane, and delivered to the store…jeez…) so we bought one the right diameter but a few millimeters too tall. Ole sliced off the excess, fitted it into the housing, wrestled the motor back together, re-hung it on the dinghy, but alas, now the motor sounds like a motorcycle without a muffler. Rats. So we’re going cruising with a great new dinghy that floats, using muscle power to row it.
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