Long letter - fetch yourself something to drink! Dear Friends, A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you from Marlene and Benno on Diesel Duck. Our boat is presently tied to our own makeshift mooring consisting of 25 ft 3/4 Nylon line with a 15 ft chain leader attached to a concrete block on the sea floor just off Water Island, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. St. Thomas is starting to become something like a home port to us. A place where milk and honey flows so to speak. A duty free port with the essentials of the modern western world. We got here at the end of October to lick our wounds after a 14.446 nautical miles trip finishing our circumnavigation of South America. On Aug. 13th we had crossed our outgoing track in Grenada coming from Ile du Diable, French Guiana (Devil Island). This is the follow-up of the letters in PUP on May 16, Feb. 15 and Jan. 15 which ended in La Paloma, Uruguay, where we were tied to the harbor wall awaiting the end of a howling 50 knots "Pampero". The storm stopped after 18 hours and we actually never felt much of it, as the harbor is half fishing and half military and very well protected. Just 50 yards across from us a mine sweeper was tied up. A donation from Germany and acquired during the unification of East and West Germany, which included a complete Navy from East Germany (Communist). So the Armada of Uruguay has now a mine sweeper to play with. In front of the mine sweeper sat a confiscated larger ocean going trawler which got caught smuggling drugs. During the "Pampero" a Brazilian Coast Guard cutter came rolling in and almost every crew member on board was seasick and green in the face. This did not matter, because the next day the Brazilian crew played soccer against an Uruguayan crew. This was the most hot headed soccer game I every witnessed. A good thing they had no side arms close by. But the asado (barbecue) grill-fest after the game with all the beer turned this into a big buddy party. All the way from La Paloma to St. Thomas we had fantastic weather, no ordeals. From Uruguay coming we checked into Rio Grande, Brazil and moved onto Paranagua, then Paraty and Angro dos Reis further onto Rio de Janeiro. Every stop we did our tourist thing. Brazil is huge and has an incredible long coast line. Further stops were Vitoria, Caravelas, Santo Andre, Morro de Sao Paulo and Salvador. A very interesting city of a few million people. Charming, but with a high crime rating. Our flags were up and we had to look over our shoulders. An international sailing race called into Salvador and every boat had tales of mugging and robbing. The patrolling policeman at the harbor carried three handguns in holsters. One strapped to the leg, one in front of his chest, tied to the bullet proofed vest and one on his belt, looking like Rambo. We stayed a week and moved onto Recife and further Cabedelo-Jacare, Natal and our last Brazilian port, Fortaleza. The port captain will chase you into the marina of a fancy resort hotel with swimming pool at a price of one dollar/foot. Not as cheap as in Puerto Montt, Chile, where five dollar/day for our 41 foot boat provided us with a finger dock and beautiful facilities. Here in St. Thomas you could loose $120.00 for the same deal a day. Fortaleza was a nice place and we even found a Wal-Mart store there. A week's stay went by and DD left for the trip to French Guiana, crossing the mouth of the Amazon river but staying far offshore to miss the flotsam debris the Amazon discharges and to pick up the Guiana current, which sometimes runs up to four knots. We did 1100 miles in five days which is 220 miles/day or 9 plus miles an hour. Not bad, isn't it? French Guiana, in our case the town of Kourou, with the space center and Devil Island in the mouth of the Kourou river, French style supermarkets, easy officials, good wine, cheese, baguettes and croissants are a lure to the sailors and which we, too, enjoyed. A space launch was too far off our time table, so DD moved on to Grenada, arriving there on the 13th of Aug. 09. Marlene had to fly to Toronto to see our first grandchild, Heidi, while Benno did chores on the boat. In September and October DD spent a month in Venezuela's Porlamar to fuel up with diesel. In French Guiana we paid for 160 liter $200 US and in Venezuela $30 US for 3000 liter. Wow! Marlene took the opportunity again to fly to Germany to see her parents for a couple of weeks before leaving Venezuela. It was an easy and relaxing trip from Venezuela back to Grenada, onto Carriacou, Martinique and then St. Thomas. All sunshine, easy sailing, good fishing and wonderful sunsets. We feel now like old salts and see the Caribbean as pure pleasure and the world's finest cruising grounds. Now here are some of the technical kudos and boo-boos we encountered on DD. Whale Gulper 220 waste water pump: A true performer, never quit, activated by a Bosch automotive 12V relay which is controlled by a Rule mercury switch in a sump tank for shower drain and sink. This pump I used in a makeshift shower installed in an industrial condo between 2003 and 2005 while finishing DD. In May of 2005 the pump got reinstalled into DD and has been in constant use since. SHURflo: Thank you, never anymore will any of their products be installed on DD! We started out in May 05 with the water pressure combo, a stainless steel accumulator tank with Shurflo pump mounted on top of it. Every 6 months or so I had to change the micro switch inside the pump. Even installing a Bosch relay with heavy 40 Amp contacts did not improve the situation. The culprit was always the switch. When in Nov. 07 the accumulator tank started to leak, I replaced the whole package with the new Shurflo, Extreme series smart sensor 4.0 gallon water pump. A year later, down in Chile, the pump started to never shut off completely and got extremely hot. I exchanged the pump with a spare one of the same kind I was carrying along just in case. A year later that pump stopped pumping in French Guiana. I had to switch the breaker off, relieve pressure on the tap and then switch the breaker back on. A pain in the neck when using the toilet (freshwater flushed on DD) or the washing machine, or be in the shower by yourself on board!! Now we installed a Jabsco Senor Max VSD 5.0 gallon. Thetford Tecma Prestige electric toilet: A wonderful, quiet and powerful performer. Our best companion. This toilet can shoot 60 ft. Here is our story: Just getting into St. Thomas at the end of Oct. this toilet was getting sick and started to labor while flushing. I thought we need a new pump motor and got one from Fishery Supply in Seattle. Working on a toilet is a character building exercise as you know. No fun. Okay, the pump was installed, the toilet was tested and sh.t it didn't work right, still laboring. I looked at the volt meter, taking the reading at the 12 VDC supply wire AWG #8, it had only 12.2 Volt. Quick and smart like I am always, I thought I get this in a snap by firing up the generator, switch on the Trace 2.5 KW inverter/charger, which will pump quickly 150 Amp into the system. A thought and done. When I pressed the toilet flush button, the pump made a noise like a moose in heat. Oh my God, I could hear real power in action. I felt so proud in my heart, but then came what sounded like an explosion and before I could scream: "Marlene shut the generator off", it was over. I was soaking wet and so was everything around me. I remember very well when the salesman at the Miami boat show said it can shoot 60 ft. What was the problem? The hose had popped of the new pump discharge port !!! The problem was the 1-1/2 inch discharge hose, 13 ft from the pump to the Y-valve and 4 ft from the Y-valve to the sea cock. These hoses were totally caked up in 4-1/2 years of use. From an actual inside diameter of 1-1/2 inch were hardly 1/2 inch left. Pulling out and replacing these hoses is another terrible heartbreaking story ( but in the end I ended up shortening the run down to 4 ft from pump to seacock. Hooking up the holding tank I will do when and where it is required. Now the toilet works again like a charm. A real sucker. I have to mention, that I installed two Whale duckbill valves into the now 4 ft. discharge hose and I did not needed a new pump motor. This is it for now! Happy holidays to all, Benno and Marlene