Thanks, Rick, for the detailed description of the drying procedure and
the ditching tips. I'm glad you came through the whole experience OK!
Hopefully I'll never go through it myself, but if I do I'll be much
better prepared because you taking the time to document it all. Thanks
again.

-John

On Jun 22, 7:50 am, av8 wrote:
To answer John’s question, the radio was a Becker, I don't know
exactly which model, but the less fancy one. It was never submerged
but I could see when it was in the glider, some water had wept out of
the lower mounting holes. It was the lowest instrument in the
panel.

But as a testament of using a vacuum chamber to dry stuff out, I had
my cell phone in my pocket when I swam to shore (you don’t think about
everything). I had written if off, as it had been fully submerged.
After the radio came back to life, I figured what the hell, and asked
Dave to try it on my cell. It was Palm Treo 700p cell phone, that had
a touch screen, and as we dropped the vacuum, you could see the screen
bulge, but in that I had such little hope in its recovery, we just put
it on a hard vacuum and left it over night. Amazingly it recovered.
Now by the same token, another cell phone I had did not, but that one
cost me, literally, $10 so no real loss…

Just as a side note, Dave’s "vacuum jar" did not look like the typical
glass bell jar. I asked him what it was, he said it was a "vacuum
desiccator". I think this was its first use as it's intended
purpose...

And as the last "drying" story, the only electronics that were damaged
(don't know if it will recover yet) was the one thing that was
supposed to be water proof. I thought I had found all the water, but
there is a spot under my battery that holds my elt. I found about 1/2
in of water there yesterday. Taking the elt out, you could hear it
slosh around. The battery side was dry, but the circuit board side
was "floating"... it was an ACK EO-1. it may have had some cracking
in the case from replacing the batteries and over tightening the
screws, but it is just kind of a funny irony...

RR
Commodore, Bota Blanco Yacht Club