Moved over to the appropriately named town of El Estor—The Store—where we anchored as close to shore as we could and I jumped off to paddleboard in to a little restaurant and then go off shopping for carb cleaner (dinghy), gas engine oil (new generator), and transmission oil.
I got to the restaurant where I was hoping to be able to leave the paddleboard. The smiling owner was already sitting there watching me come in. He asked me to sit and talk with him, let me leave the SUP with him, and told me exactly where I needed to go to get the stuff I needed.
At the auto parts store I gathered up what I needed, talking in Spanish the whole time. As I was checking out the kid looks at me and asks me in English, “Do you speak English?” Turns out he lived in Rhode Island until he was in his teens.
They didn’t have everything I needed so I jumped in a cab and had the guy take me to another auto store. Got what I needed and on our way back he asks, “So where are you from?” Seems everyone wants to let me speak Spanish until they’ve gotten to know me a little while. This guy lives in Texas but is down here taking care of his mom for a while.
It was kind of a funny outing in this small Guatemalan town in which everyone I dealt with spoke perfect English, but nobody apparently wanted to assume that I did.
With our town stop finished we moved a mile or two up the lake to a pretty spot that looked quiet and wild.
Anchor dropped and off they go.
The kids came back a little later to report that there was a lot of plastic garbage in the weeds near shore. Lately they’ve gotten into earning coins for doing chores—things like being kind that day, doing math with me, or reading with Ali, or setting the table—so we offered them a coin for each plastic bottle they brought back. They quickly put their math to work and calculated that they could make a killing on this job.
So off they went.
When they got back they were quite proud of themselves. Not just for helping the environment, but also because they’d earned the equivalent of two weeks worth of kindness points in just an hour or so.
While they were out and about having a good time, I was working on boat projects. I cleaned the dinghy carb, but still couldn’t get it running. I fiddled around with the transmissions, but realized I didn’t have enough oil to change them out. And then I fired up our new Honda generator to run the watermaker, but the watermaker went bonkers on me and I was pretty sure that we had a ruined membrane on that. Oh, and one of the engine room fans suddenly stopped working. All in all, I was feeling like I had had a pretty crappy shakedown cruise. Especially considering it wasn’t even thought of as a shakedown cruise when we left the dock a few days earlier.
With all that going on we decided to zip on back to the marina to get things squared away.
At least somebody was happy to see us come back.
13 Comments on “El Estor—The Store”
The boat is upset you left her for so long, and wants some attention.
She was getting taken care of during her time off. She should be more understanding. 🙂
Pat,
Pull the fuel line on the dinghy carb & fill with straight SeaFoam or carb cleaner, spin the motor to get the stuff in the carb & let sit for a few days. It likely will fire right up. It’s worked for me several times.
Slip
Yeah, I looked everywhere for SeaFoam but couldn’t find it here. Kicking myself for not having a couple bottles on the boat.
+100 for SeaFoam. We use it on engines that get abused with mystery fuel concoctions and it is just what the doctor ordered.
Photos of the kids bringing trash back on their SUPs are priceless!
Yes, they were pretty proud of themselves. Ouest all the bottles, Lowe all the shoes. So many shoes…
One thing that often works for me on my Yamaha 9.9s is to screw the idle adjust needle all the way in, then back it out the same number of turns. Also, to pump the throttle two or three times before turning the key: they have an accelerator pump that squirts a little fuel each time into the throat.
I love following your adventures. I can only imagine how happy I would have been to grow up as yours are.
Thanks, Stephanie. I look at the same photos and think the same thing as you.
Beautiful. Simply beautiful. Carry on! 🙂
We will! Thanks, Rex.
I have a Yamaha 4hp 4 stroke and the only thing that works for cleaning the carb is using compressed air to clear all the little ports. A bit of a pain but works every time.