It is Wednesday, December 3rd, and Cat Tales is sitting
behind a hill outside of Spanishtown, Virgin Gorda, BVI. She was launched at noon yesterday after a
pretty tough week of preparation.
In many ways Virgin Gorda has been kinder to the crew: We worked on average from 8:30 until 5:15
each day, but locked her up and walked 10 minutes to a lovely apartment in a
little complex called Bayview Apartments, operated by a lovely local lady,
Nora. We would arrive at the apartment
just as the mosquitoes would start circling us, forcing us to go inside or risk
Chikungunya, the newest virus to hit the region. Showers, quiet, lack of dust, no mosquitoes,
and air conditioning in the bedroom certainly helped us to revive for another's
day of battle.
We found Cat Tales in good condition, and quickly worked
through the basic steps of reinstalling the Flex-o-fold propellers,
recommissioning the engines, and checking the basic systems. Dawn outdid herself this year, cleaning and polishing
the whole boat herself, while I attempted to install some new electronics and
fix some other deficiencies. She was
motivated by last year's boatyard bill of $450 for some cleaning and
application that amounted to $60 per hour for the most basic manual labour. Frankly, Cat Tales has never entered the water
looking so good, and Dawn deserves most of the credit.
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| Here is a shot of the old equipment which was working just so so. The screen to see the charts was located inside the boat and was much smaller than the new and it was in black and white. The screen had developed a few lines across it indicating that it was on its way out! |
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| Here is the new screen. Notice on the right hand side that Laurie moved the auto pilot to its new location. It should be great once it gets fully functional! |
Since yesterday, while bouncing in the bay, we have stopped
the toilet leak, got the problems worked out of the refrigerator cold plate,
and got the depth and wind instruments to provide us with some data on the new
screen (that's right - we got launched without a working depth instrument). Data from the old Airmar speed sensor still
eludes us. I just spent two hours
working on the Tohatsu outboard. After
tearing her down just a little further than a layman should, the inability to
start was traced to the safety cord that connects to the operator's wrist. From some twist of fate, we have two aboard,
and the part that fits under the stop switch is thicker on one than the
other. Of course, the thinner one would
not lift the spring-loaded switch enough to remove the short-circuit that stops
the spark from getting to the spark plugs.
I feel stupid, but if I were any "stupider" I'd still be out
there pulling on that cord and whimpering.
We were stressed but lucky at the launch. The boat got in just as the crew took a
break, both engines started and spit water (well, there was a minor problem
with a loose belt on a seawater pump, but I sorted it out immediately), and,
with no launches during lunch, we took up space in the launching bay while I
filled the spare diesel tanks at the pumps nearby, and we had a fun lunch with
Steve and Maria of s/v Aspen, who arrived just as the bottom of Cat Tales touched
water.
