5,000 liters!  =  148,000 pesos                        1321 gallons =  $3586   @ $2.71per gallon     Lots of money in either language. 

2:53 pm We’re sitting here at the fuel dock waiting to have 5,000 liters of fuel pumped into DoraMac’s gas tanks. I took a few photos before the fuel official said, “no photos.” First I thought he was posing, but he was waving to tell me no photos. Randal said that it will take over an hour to load up. This is the first time since Hong Kong that we put in fuel and there we took on 1600 liters. The tanks will hold 2,000 gallons.

It’s about a 15 minute “cruise” from the SBYC to the fuel dock. But that makes it all sound so simple. Motor on over and fill up. That’s not how it works. We had to get a letter from the SBYC Marina office certifying that we are at the yacht club. Then Randal had to go to customs. Then he had to make an appointment to actually come to get the fuel. ( All of that is so we could buy the fuel duty free) Then Randal had to get the boat close enough to the dock so Ruth could attempt to throw the line into the wind to the fuel man on the fuel dock. It took a few tries, but by then the wind had blown our stern too far away from the dock to get the other lines tied off. So Randal had to make a second attempt and this time Brian, our present boat helper,  threw the bow line and I handed off the stern line since we were that close to the dock I could hand it to the fuel man.  Now we just wait. I did open the manifold levers to all of the tanks and learned how to do that. The fueling process is a bit more complicated than learning to fill your car with gas;  it is so much larger and the wind is an issue and later you have to redistribute the gas in the various tanks so the boat doesn’t list to one side. You do pump your own gas though and clean up any spilled fuel.  And you need to load up a large container with money to pay for it all, literally!  It’s 3:17 and we have already loaded 1,100 gallons! Not bad. Now Randal and Brian are switching the fuel hose to the stern tank.  

It’s 3:39 and Randal is off with the bucket of money to pay for the fuel. Too bad that we couldn’t deduct our fee for the day we spent biking from fuel office to fuel office trying to arrange to buy fuel and no one knew or the person who knew was at lunch or in the bath room or, or, or. Yesterday our  boat surveyor, friend Ray Wolfe helped both us and Dave and Jamie Fritsch get through the hoops. Randal went with Dave to fuel up this morning and now we have come back this afternoon. Having lots of fuel is a very secure feeling.

Now we are back at the SBYC and really for such a cumbersome process it doesn’t feel so bad now that it’s done and we won’t need fuel for a while.  At 2 gallons an hour we have a lot of hours to go with today’s fuel.

Tied to the fueling dock.  Brian and Randal

    The levers that open the tanks are under the saloon floor. 

You can see bits of our lovely teak floor.                 

       The levers have a lock that needs to be slid to open the tanks for the fuel which I didn’t know but did finally figure out.

Fuel dock

Some of the offices and fuel tanks

Vasco’s where we bike to have lunch sometimes. 

We sit under the tent-like roof by the water and watch other boats fuel up.     

Other boats were there too, just like a gas station where you wait your turn to get to the pump.  Here you make an appointment and they tell you where to dock the boat.

Fuel man turning the valves to let the fuel flow.

Fuzzy photo of fuel man waving no, NO! No more photos. 

ps  any errors in facts or explanations are the fault of the author.

Just another day in Paradise.