This is a rather long weblog, so I've separated the
technical issues to the end to allow the uninterested reader to skip them.
Since we've been launched, we've been only 200 metres from
the haulout slip, anchored in rather green water and working rather hard on
various things. Our social time, when it
occurs, is usually around a happy hour at either the Timbers Restaurant
(formerly De Big Fish) beside the haulout slip, or across the bay at the Tiki
Bar Restaurant at the little marina. At
these places, we've met some of our old friends - most of them met either at
past Hashes (organized hikes) or through Denis' morning weather radio nets. One night, after I made a couple of trips up
a neighbour's mast (Deja Vu, a Seawind 1000 catamaran, with Captain Lloyd
Price) we were invited to dine out with them at the marina. The food was great, his guests from England
were interesting and pleasant, and it was a very pleasant night.
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| Laurie helping out a fellow cruiser. He's a lightweight to put up to the top! |
Dawn and I also walked to another bay, to the True Blue
resort for 1/2 price pizza; only to find that the deal only starts at 7
pm. Well, "drink til' Happy
Hour", so it too was an enjoyable date for the two of us. We also were at the True Blue resort Thursday
afternoon, after a long walk through an upscale residential area, to take a
cooking class. It was absolutely
entertaining, with the two cooks doing their best to keep us laughing while we
did the learning. The menu that was
assembled and then eaten included a fried plantain salad with onions, peppers,
chives, tomato, kidney beans and sweet chili sauce, and fried chicken covered
with chicken-nutmeg gravy. Beautiful and
simple, if you have some gravy lying around.
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| Omega & Esther doing their banter while teaching us how to make a dish! They kept us in stitches the entire hour! |
Also Thursday, we looked up Steve and Maria from s/v Aspen,
and had supper at Timbers with them. We
were loud and excited to see them again, and it might have been less enjoyable
for those at other tables. They were
launched yesterday, and toddled around the corner to the major marina in St.
George's harbour; where they will put the boat together at the dock. It should be easy-living for them, although
we can't be too envious this year after spending both lunch and the end of
every boatyard day in the air-conditioned room of Cool Running Apartments.
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| Maria, Dawn & Steve. Aspen is back! |
Grenada has a fantastically large cruising community at its
south end, covering many small and large bays.
Although many, like us, use the area like a base of operations for
cruising, there is a significant nucleus in each bay that never moves, and even
a portion that seldom even ever go back to their home countries. As a result, the islanders have many
supporting businesses around the cruising market. They have set up a morning net on VHF every
day, and use a repeater to ensure they include cruisers well north of the area
- clear to Union Island in the Grenadines.
The net includes many social activities, technical assistance, and a
buy/sell/swap section each morning. We
hear about dinghy drifts, noodle drifts, dinghy concerts, organized tours,
busses for groceries, traveling bands, and the comings and goings of yachts.
Most of the bays are influenced by freshwater runoff and by
mangroves, so seldom do you see the bottom under your boat. This is not to our particular liking - and
really makes great organic messes on your boat and bottom tackle. We will likely go to the anchorage outside of
St. Georges within the following week, where the water is cleaner, if our
problems all get addressed.
Brian and Lorna of s/v Peace and Plenty are expected to
catch a weather window of Tuesday to start heading our way from St. Lucia. We are staying in these waters to show them
around. We may go up to Carriacou and
all spend Christmas together there, before returning to show them Grenada.
Today, Saturday, we have made use of the morning net to make
contact with Patrick of the taxi "Shademan", who is taking a bunch of
us to this afternoon's Hash. The run
starts in downtown St. George, so should be rather unique. All others have been rural, with mountains,
forest, streams, and orchards. St.
George will still have steep hills, but maybe we'll run through the ancient
streets, fortresses, and churches.
Technical Issues
So, what have all these problems been?
Last year, we were pumping our dinghy up each day, and still
pushing a soft old dog through the water each night. While in the boatyard, I disassembled one of
the fill valves, and reinstalled it in a puddle of 3M 4200 caulking. Since filling, I have not repumped, and it is
doing well. It was scary to do, as the
interior piece sometimes disappears inside the dinghy and is hard to locate.
The engine, once we were in the water, refused to start -
even though I got it running in the yard.
Since we immediately needed to get to Customs, I started rowing upwind,
and got 2/5 of the way there in 1/2 an hour.
I was wearing down, when we got a "pity tow" from another
dinghy that was not even headed that way.
Rubber dinghies row like pigs fly - the oars are only to provide hope,
upon which humans often thrive. We got
our Customs business sorted out, got some beer for the boat, and began to row
back. Down wind was a
"breeze", and Dawn suggested I continue messing with the engine while
she rowed. The engine finally started
within a hundred metres of Cat Tales, suggesting that the "varnish"
from the old mixed gas had softened up in the carburetor. It continues to provide stellar service,
especially now since I cleaned the spark plugs as well, and topped up the old
gas with some fresh stuff.
We thought the fridge and little freezer were both faulty,
but it was me who was faulty, when I did not throw a key battery switch and all
appliances were not fully connected.
What is scary is that they got any energy at all - gotta look at that
one. Now all appliances are doing
better. We got another scare when we
could not get the batteries up with solar, and thought our solar controller was
faulty. To bypass it, I began taking it
out of the panel; and a butt end electrical connection fell apart in my
hands. I also found a battery sensor
which needed tightening. I reconnected
the thing, and all was well again. The
butt connections were there to allow the large wires from the panels to be
changed to small wires that could fit the tiny screws in the panel. I have since rewired it with a terminal
block, that does the same thing, but will allow much easier troubleshooting,
appliance renewal, and bypassing. Still,
the issue cost more than a day.
I had some trouble with the toilet - it would not stop
leaking. I tightened the bolts between
the components just a little, and in almost every case, the plastic
cracked. I reassembled the whole thing
with silicone caulking and hose clamps, and we were back in business. Since we could not get new parts for the old
girl, a Raske & van der Meyde 69 (we've since learned they went out of business
last year), I purchased a new Jabsco head and installed it - another full day,
making at least two full days on toilet work.
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| Nice, shiny, new toilet!! Sorry about the angle! |
Dawn, quite aware of the delays we were having, made the
best of them by hiring the sail and canvas company, Turbulence, to make us new
window shade coverings for our salon windows.
They were installed yesterday, and are allowing me to stay in a seat by
the computer that is usually uninhabitable for 3 hours per day minimum. She is very happy with them.
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| The fabric over the window is slightly see-through. These really help keep the boat at a reasonable 30 degrees during the day! |
Our watermaker (Echo Marine), as a result of some new parts
and some tightening, worked successfully two days ago, and we hope that
continues.
We have some of the usual maintenance jobs that always haunt
us, but our final big issue is the batteries.
The 12 volt, 100 AH Trojans that I purchased 4 years ago, no longer
start the day above 12.2 volts, so yesterday, we put a down payment on 5 new
battteries from Budget. These will be
100 AH Exide 31MDC batteries, and we expect to see them before next
Friday. After that, the Caribbean will
again be our oyster.
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| Laurie removed the salt water tap and is now filling the hole with epoxy. He'll later gel-coat it to match the countertop. We thought we'd really use this salt water to pre-wash dishes, but Dawn found that it was rusting her pots and pans! |
Not mentioned are all the little jobs that have required
cleaners, paint, degreasers and dielectric grease, screws and bolts, and a few
different epoxies. Anyway, Cat Tales
looks good on the water, mostly as a result of Dawn's hard work cleaning and
waxing. I thought she would kill
herself, she worked so hard.
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| Meet 'Captain Ron' who will be on duty during the overnights and while we're off the boat. He will give the impression that someone is up on Cat Tales and hopefully any unwanted visitors will pick another unoccupied boat! |
