Watch Repair 101

A crazy thing happened on my way home from Banana Bank Lodge yesterday. After Kenny dropped me off to catch the bus – I stopped to buy some snacks for the ride to Belize City at the market stalls in Belmopan. I saw a guy was selling watch straps so I stopped to get one. The only one that would fit my watch was a leather-looking one which I was not really happy with as it is a diving watch and I wanted a metal band. Since I do not dive and in the interest of getting the watch workable I decided to go for it – also had him put a new battery in as well.

The guy fixing my watch was in another room and I could see him through a large open space in the wall. I knew it was taking a bit to long for this job so I asked what was up – he said that the battery was in but the side pins in my watch were to wide for the strap. I immediately told him leave the strap put pins in and I will just pay for the battery. I thought that would be the end of it but he was still moving too slow so I told him I had to go catch a bus. That’s when he admitted that he lost one of my side pins. Right away I told him I was coming back there to help him look and when I got in the back room he had pulled bunches of jeans off the shelf underneath his workspace and was looking for the pin I knew at that moment it was a lost cause and I told him I really had to go. He put in a cheapie side pin that was much thinner and I paid for the battery and high tailed it out of there.

The bus ride back was uneventful and quiet I almost found myself missing the bad country music I had on the ride there but not quite. On the way to Belize City I was thinking about my watch and figured no point in getting pissed off. I should have known better that a guy in a stall in Belmopan would not likely have much dive watch repair experience. I would just try to find a watch repair on my way to Caye Caulker water taxi.

As I started weaving my way down different roads towards the harbor area my feet led me right to Castillo Watch Repair and I was able to get a metal strap and a slightly better pin. He was not able to get the other original pin out to attach the band on that side  and time was running out so I told him that was good enough for me and I would sort it out later.

Cost of Battery $7bzd – cost of new pin and cheap metal band $13 bzd – watch still not fixed – whole experience priceless. Anyone happen to know of anyone in San Pedro who does dive watch repairs and have a proper watch pin for a dive watch?

I made it to the water taxi in time to catch the 4:30 express to San Pedro – ran into Vicky on the boat the new Hungry Monkey sub shop is doing great. Texted Paul on timing so he could pick me up and was thinking I will be back in an hour and have time to freshen up before dinner. Not only did the boat end up stopping in Caye Caulker but the made us all get off the boat and get on another one – luckily it was a faster boat so not to much of a delay.

Picked up Erin and Liam at Exotic Caye – they are treating themselves to beachfront for the week and loving it. They scored a great special there book 4 nights and get 3 free.

We headed off to hummingbird for some yummy sushi – sashimi – tempura shrimp and pork dumplings. Food was tasty and it was nice to catch up – they all wanted to hear what Banana Bank was like and how the workshop went. Afterward, we went for frozen custard.

I almost forgot to mention while I was texting back and forth throughout the day to Paul he told me our power was out and it was the same issue we had last month. Between Belize City and San Pedro BEL office, they both verified our account being up to date and they said there was no disconnect notice on our account. He finally got them to turn it back on again. When we got home there was a bill in our door that does not look correct so now we have to backtrack and figure out where the accounting error is and cross our fingers this whole thing does not happen again next month.