For those of you who are familiar with The Turtle V and its European-style Tortuga Expedition Camper, you may recall that to maximize use of space, the shower and Thetford Porta Potti are in the doorway, a space that is always there. The Porta Potti simply slides out when needed. The problem was that the sliding drawer tracks were far underrated. The solution was to replace them with a Kwikee heavy-duty slide with ball-bearing action. The new slide has a 350-lb capacity. I hope we never weigh that much 🙂 Jeff Paddock at Nautilus, (www.nautilusconstruction.com), in La Pine, OR did the complicated retrofit. To folks who question the idea of not having a 3-foot X 3-foot X 6-foot room to pull your pants up a couple times a day, we say: “If you’re traveling in third-world countries for months or years in a small camper, and you can’t go to the bathroom in front of the person you’re traveling with, you may have more problems than we can cover here.”

Our three-burner Amana/ Magic Chef, (www.magicchef.com) propane stove was wonderful. Talk to serious blue-water sailors and overland travelers who really like to cook, and they will tell you propane is the way to go, and despite misconceptions, propane can be found anywhere in the world, and it is totally safe when properly installed. Yes, forget diesel cook tops. Word from the road is that they have trouble with good German diesel, and in Africa, they are a joke.

Our problem was the large-capacity oven with its built-in broiler. Great design, but we never used it. Cooking over a grill outside is infinitely tastier than broiling, and Monika can bake great cakes on the stovetop.  We needed the storage more than an oven.

It was a ten-minute job to replace the combo range/oven with a new Amana stove top. Same 9,100-BTU Superburner with infinite heat control plus two 6,500-BTU back burners, which are lit by modern Piezo Spark Ignition. A slanted control panel with easy-to-read graphics and a heavy-duty one-piece grate are all the same.

Now we had this huge hole under the stove. A trip up to visit Jeff Paddock in La Pine, Oregon was the answer. We met Jeff at the Overland Expo 2009. He owns Nautilus Construction, (www.nautilusconstruction.com), and he is a master finish carpenter. That hole under the stove now holds two grain-matched cherry wood drawers with the same full-extension roller guides and marine stainless latches used on our other cabinets. As long- distance overlanders know too well, storage is a premium, and now we have more.

Yes, we have hot water again in The Turtle V. VERY hot water. The Espar D5 Hydronic, or the engine if it is running, pumps heated coolant through the heat-exchange plates of the FlatPlate double wall brazed plate heat exchanger. That means the engine coolant can be as hot as 210°F. The D5 Hydronic has an on/off range of 167°F to 187°F, but even when it reaches its maximum temperature, it continues to pump coolant through the FlatPlate.

The interesting thing is, with both the engine and the D5 off, if there is hot coolant left in the FlatPlate, it’s just sitting there, waiting to transfer heat to water passing through. That means that with everything off, we can still have a couple of gallons of hot/warm water.

At its maximum level of heat using the D5 Hydronic, (187°F), we will need to install a Watts thermostatic water temperature control valve. At a conservative 120°F you can still burn your hand. Fortunately, the temporary solution is not to use water turned to full HOT. We already have a Watts thermostatic water temperature control valve in the outdoor and indoor showers, and it works great.

Into hot water again. Yes, the luxury of having on-demand hot water in The Tortuga Expedition Camper was addictive. Our Seaward marine hot water heater took heat from the engine coolant or our Espar D5 Hydronic coolant heater. The problem was, we were carrying around 6 gallons of water that could not be used unless we pumped cold water into the tank to push the hot water out. The solution was to install a FlatPlate double wall brazed plate heat exchanger. This little piece of 21st-century technology, about the size of a loaf of bread, will give us endless hot water as long as the engine or the Espar D5 Hydronic is pumping coolant through its plates. The diesel-powered Espar D5 is even smaller than the FlatPlate, and can also preheat the engine on cold mornings, thanks to a system of valves and distribution manifolds designed for us by Espar. More on this after we’ve taken a hot shower.

Out with our old leaking compressor box! K&W Tool Boxes in Bronson, MI is building a custom box that uses a leak-proof seal design. K&W specializes in custom aluminum boxes. www.customtoolboxes.com. We will be completely redesigning the compressor system using twin Extreme Air compressors by Extreme Outback Products, www.extremeoutback.com, a 5-gallon ACCUAIR aluminum tank, www.accuairsuspension.com and a new air management system designed by Hellwig www.hellwigproducts.com and Extreme Outback Products.

Wandering down to the local boat ramp in Cholla Bay, we found a fisherman cleaning buckets of fresh sea scallops. At $8 a pound for cleaned bite-size scallops, you can guess what we had for dinner that night.

Puerto Peñasco is full of cute restaurants and gift shops. We had to stop at El Sombrero for a few fish tacos. Later we scored kilos of fresh fish, shrimp and clams in the local seafood open market. Punto Peñasco is a dune buggy friendly town, no special license required.

Beach combing along Puerto Peñasco Bay, we spotted this turtle shell. It’s drying on the roof of Neil’s house in Cholla Bay. When it stops smelling, he’ll hang it on the wall.

On a side trip around Puerto Peñasco Bay, Neil Johnson showed us the dunes and the long beaches along the estuary. Even his 330-horsepower buggy was tested in the soft sand. Backing back down, he made it the second try.

As the sun set over the Sea of Cortez, we watched other dune buggies and four wheelers climb Competition Hill. Neil Johnson’s 330-HP 2.5L Subaru-powered four-seater had no problem rocketing up the soft sand.