Cruising and exercise have a difficult time mixing. People think we swim all day, drink Margarita’s at Sunset and just laze around.  Some of that is true!  But it’s not all day, everyday. We do get lazy. We hang out on the boat and read, do Sudoku, I play chess; we watch movies or TV when it’s available, check the wx, email and hang w/ friends . We (W/ actually) plays domino’s with other cruisers ashore (yeah, that’s a calorie burner LOL).  But  our bodies crave the adrenaline we once had.

Wendy Floating

When we can we play tennis (that’s been really thin as of late), we do; we  swim when we can; Chaguaramas is a commercial port with commercial (read dirty) water, and we walk. Plus just adjusting to the constant boat movement is always a plus and burns a couple :)  of calories. We’ve also learned to cut down on our food intake. So too we’ve reduced the calories we put down our throats. We eat breakfast and usually a later lunch, then W/ likes to have some cheese, crackers, sliced apples; and a little wine (beer for me) as dinner.

When we’re in at a Marina;  which we plan doing  during routine maintenance,  we generally add the  jump rope to our exercise routine. Currently we’re doing maintenance and thus we’re at a marina and thus we’re jumpin rope.  We begin easy when we first arrive and work our way up to 10-15 minutes 3 times per week. This gives us a pretty satisfying;  albeit, brief work out.

We started jumping a few years ago. Our tennis coach at the time pushed us to jump seeing

Jumpin In Paradise

that we needed to improve our footwork. So we did. We actually had started to jump in the dark before work in the am and those brief workouts actually allowed me to arrive at work without the drug induced alertness of caffeine.  So for the last 3-5 years of work we jumped. Now we’ll jump when we’re tied to the shore. And jumping in paradise certainly is beats the hell out of jumping in our old parking lot.

Go Slow
Sail Far
Stay Long

Yep, there is some progress. We’ve ordered all that we can afford. :)  We actually now have

Wooden Tops Warped

the butcher block tops replaced on the refrigerator and the freezer with Meganite. We came up with the idea of putting a “Star” in the top of the refrigerator and that turned out nice.

Star Inlay

We picked a light color for the Meganite and it is BRIGHT!  You might be able to get an idea from the before and after pic.  Right now they look a little “large” on the box but that may just be our getting use to them. We’re thinking of adding a border somewhere down the road.  Don’t know yet.  Since posting this blog I’ve discovered that some of the website info on our refrigeration system was never completed. I’ve made sure it’s all available now. The other pages relating to this subject are: Overview, Instalation, and Finished (not).  I’ve created a pictoral history of the various stages of the works: General Installlation, Insulation, Layout, and Liners.

New Tops

90% of the Varnish is completed. All the SS has been polished. We hired a local guy; Sean, for 400 TT / day and he did a top notch job. Of course no one does it like the owners but we were satisfied with his work and he did work hard.  With him sanding / prepping all the wood we just needed to add varnish. That’s still a bit o’ work. All we have left to varnish now is the starboard  caprail. We’ve been limited on how much we can varnish because most every day it rains.  It’s raining right now as I write this.  The Varnish we use (Signature Finishes - Honey Teak) requires about 2 hours of time to dry enough that rain won’t effect it. Hail would; but we’ve not had any hail here.  Once it dries to where the wx won’t effect it; the varnish is still soft and can be marred or scratch for another 6 - 8 hours.

Our new cushion covers are being made. Well; almost. Once at the marine fabric shop our upholsterer said we needed new foam. Damn!  So we said ok.  Then he bought the foam and we checked about foam for the dinette. Need new there too. Damn!  So we’ve now given him money to purchase that foam too. He has the cushions for our main salon and we’re close to sitting on  the benches  only. We’ve moved a couple of cushions so we have something under our bottom but it’s not like home; yet. We hope it will be soon.

After the varnishing I get to redo the aft head and the plumbing there. (Can’t say I like plumbing - plumbers deserve their pay). We’ll see about scheduling a haul date for the boat. Once hauled we’ll do some tourist stuff while the boat is out of the water;  then we’re outta here!

Too, we’ve been getting back into shape. Exercise on a boat is rather limited. W/ began  running in Grenada and doing some Yoga. When we pulled into the marina here in Trinidad we began to jump  rope in the am (only 3 days / week).  Also we’ve added some stretching to our workouts. She’s been trying (and it isn’t easy) to stretch my legs and hips (straight leg hamstring stretches). I lay back on the floor and she lifts my leg towards the ceiling. At first I could only point my toes towards the door, but now I”m getting a little more movement in the lower half of my body! Then too W/ has been making me do the yogo “Tree“. The good news is that I can actually do it!

Go Slow
Sail Far
Stay Long

If I was rich and had a lot of time on my hands I would challenge the US government. Yep!  The idea of holding tanks on vessels is just plain “shitty”. Pun intended.

This would be my tact. I would surely get arrested for not having a holding tank on the boat in the US. (For those that don’t know a holding tank is where all the food goes that we’ve consumed when it leaves the body). I see that municipalities get fined a few hundred thousand dollars for millions or billions of gallons discharged of effluent into public waters. (The one referenced in the link cost each resident 1 cent / incident - not even 1 cent / gallon. If we figured the per gallon cost it would be so small as to be ludicrous - well actually it is ludicrous).  I would expect the same fine; that is the same fine / person that the sewage treatment plant received. It would most likely be a few cents. To fine a boater thousands of dollars when they discharge such an insignificant amount is IMHO tantamount to “cruel and unusual” punishment.

But; I’m not rich, nor do I wish to spend my time waiting around in the US for them to find me, fine me,  and then navigate through the courts to the Supreme Court.  So, we have a holding tank.

Today; or maybe yesterday, I don’t really want to remember, W/ decided that we needed to “clean” our holding tank. One does that simply by putting fresh water into it, shaking it up, and pumping it overboard.  The tank was empty when we started and any effluent in there has long ago expired, but there was still enough left to create an “odor”.  We successfully filled the tank. I changed all the valves

Plastic Valve

so the fresh water went into the tank and not the toilet. Then we went to pump it out!  OUCH!

The pump wouldn’t work!  What the (expletive deleted), is going on. I followed the route of the valves, all looked right but obviously something wasn’t. I changed one valve and wouldn’t you know it, now the toilet was backing up with effluent!  As long as I put weight on the seat (it’s a sealed seat) the contaminent was contained. Note: as long as I maintained weight on the seat.  Starfish open clams by making the clams hold  tight longer then they can. I kept weight on the seat as well as I could as I tried to change the valves to where they wouldn’t let anymore backflow into the toilet. Oops!  That wasn’t all W/ said when I slightly let some weight off the lid.

After cursing and swearing enough to make blue words blush I finally discovered the problem. We had a plastic valve that broke!  I had been able to close it off; but when I went to open it up the fingers that grab the ball that rotates broke off. So while I thought I had opened it up, all I had accomplished was turning the handle to the correct position. More blushing blue words!

Attacked with Pliers

W/ grabbed a channel locks and I didn’t have enough room to grab the plastic extending out from the  ball so she ran (I’m being quite literal here) and found a nice large pliers for me to muscle the valve into the correct position. And luckily I was able to open the valve up. Viola!  The pump now works. Pump a few strokes and the tank begins to empty. But we’re not through yet!

For some reason W/ checks on deck and discovers that we left off the deck fill cover; so while some was going in the water as it should, a great deal was now washing out onto the deck. Luckily that could be washed down with a bucket, then we put the cover on the deck plate.

Finally, we begin the job of emptying out the tank. As she pumps I slosh it around to get everything out. Don’t forget that most of the plumbing  connections in boats are with hose clamps.  And as some of the hose clamps were put on in haste; some maybe a bit too big, some had a part of the wire hanging out beyund the screw. Sharp.  Hose clamps love to hunt down bare hands and naked skin. This one; while I was moving the tank about, made a nice clean cut on the backside of my thumb!  Now I’m bleeding all over, we have towels absorbing any of the waste that entered the boat, W/ getting upset enough as it is with my liberal use of language, and my chert attitude wasn’t making for a pleasant afternoon in paradise.

Somehow we manage to gain control of the situation, a large bandaide, lots of Bacitracin, a few minutes to calm down and we’re back to the job at hand. The tank is successfully pumped out, we refill it again to do a final cleaning, and pump that water  out again; all the while I”m shaking the tank so nothing remains behind. And in my opinion nothing did.

We begin to clean up and put stuff away. The aft head plumbing  is on my list of things to re- do here in Trini. One thing new I’ll add to my list is to replace the plastic valves with Bronze ones!  I’m not interested in having anything like this ever, ever, happen again!

Go Slow
Sail Far
Stay Long

We’re here in Trinidad and we’re starting to work on items from our list. First and foremost was getting all our ducks in a row.  We’ve been running around ordering supplies, and making commitments to pay local contractors. We’ve hired Shawn at Cruise Inn for a few days. He cleaned and polished the Stainless Steel for us and did an awesome job so we’ve hired him for two more days to sand / prep all the teak for us to varnish. We use Signature Honey Teak Varnish and it lasts for a good year in the tropics, a year before we need to re-coat.  Thank you Don and Terri on Salty Dog (they’ve since sold the boat) for pushing us so hard to use Honey Teak.

We’ve ordered a new battery charger (Victron 80 amp) to replace the damn lousy Prosine 2.0 we have. The inverter still works on the Prosine so we’ll keep that in place  till it craps out too.  I was always leery of having two critical units (inverter and charger) stuffed into one package but ended up being talked into it at the Miami Boat Show by the now defunct Jack Rabbit Marine out of Annapolis.  I guess live and learn is what I need to say but I don’t seem to be learning fast enough to outlive all my mistakes.

We ordered a new larger holding plate for our freezer. Here too I had gone to a local refrigeration company to discuss with them the refrigeration / freezer setup we were interested in installing. (That company too isn’t in business anymore but Seafrost the company that manufactures the parts still is).  They (both Seafrost and the local company)  talked me into two plates in the freezer which was a good thing; but, the second plate is just too small. We don’t have near enough holdover in our freezer. So we’ve ordered another larger plate,  twice the small size that I’ll be able to “drop” in (meaning very little plumbing work).  Of course I’ll need to recharge both systems (the DC side and the engine driven side)  but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

We’ve ordered a new WiFi setup. Can’t seem to have too many of those as options no matter where we’re are it seems like one setup works better then the other. What this new one will do is allow W/ and I to be online at the same time easily, and we’ll be able to connect our iTouch and iPhone to the internet too. We’ll see if my dreams equal reality.

I bought a torque wrench. When I redo the gasket on the generator I need to accurately torque the bolts down properly. I bought new stronger then SS bolts for the job. I bought some new gasket material so I won’t be using the cork.

Bad Place

W/ and I redid the exhaust / cooling plumbing for the generator. If you’re an active reader of our blog you may  remember the water pump  was dripping on the electrical connections for the regulator and the temp sensor. The salt water would short out the temp sensor and I would get a “hot” idiot light lit.  I shot the engine with the infrared sensor we keep on board and the engine was running at the correct temperature so we  continued to use it, but I hate, Hate, HATE, when things aren’t working right. So the sensors are moved and in the process we’ve moved the heat exchanger higher  so hopefully no air can be trapped in the cooling chamber of the engine. I’m not real fond of plumbing and electrical work yet  it seems that to cruise I’m just going to have to accept that curse!

Not sure if I mentioned this; but the wooden cutting boards we had installed as tops on the freezer and refrigerator began to warp! In Antigua we had removed and re-glued the freezer top and about a month later it began to bow upward. DAMN!  So we’ve contracted with Same Crew a woodworking company that does Meganite work and they’ll be making two new tops for us as well as repairing the damage the cruise ship caused us in the US and the damage we had from the trip to Trinidad. I would have done most of the woodwork myself but on a boat one just doesn’t have all the tools needed. It is one of the extra costs of cruising.

Port Of Spain

We’ve also contacted and contracted with Alpha Canvas products to make another set of interior cushion covers, to make new covers for our cockpit cushions, to make a new forward awning and to do some repairs to our main awning.  Yesterday we went with Julie from Sea Otter to the Port of Spain to look for fabric for the interior cushions.  In the past we’ve been in fabric stores

Rolls N Rolls

and they’ve  had 1,000’s of samples to choose from and always said “We can get it”.  Here in Trinidad  they didn’t have the samples, they had the bolts of fabric, there wasn’t any “We can get it”, it was, “We have it” and if that’s not enough I’m sure we have more upstairs.” What a delight; what a pain! A delight that indeed they we wouldn’t have to wait; a pain in that there are TOO MANY TO CHOOSE FROM. Fortunately we had Julie and believe it or not I tried ( I swear I did), I tried to stay out of the decision as much as possible. We’ve chosen a bold (bold to us) floral pattern for the new covers inside

10 Percent of Store

and possible a third set of with a party favors pattern. The party favors pattern may or may not get made here; we’ll see what any extra cost is. The new forward awning is going to set higher giving us better use of the foredeck and hopefully reducing the sail effect of any wind catching it. The new covers on the cockpit cushions will be out of a close weave Textilene. This fabric is PVC coated and will breath so we won’t have to always move and dry the cushions as it rains. And it still is raining quite a bit. It will be I believe a Moss Green; similar to our interior cushions that you never see!

We’ve ordered another March Pump. I’ll use the pump as replacement parts. I don’t remember if I mentioned a screw that came out of one. It’s I believe Al and I can’t get a replacement here. The screw slowly worked its way out and actually ended up wearing on the ends and looks like it’s tapered!

We’ve ordered spares for our Obendorfer waterpump that’s on the generator. It’s where I was so frustrated in Rodney Bay having to rebuild it there. It still leaks some so now I’ll have all the “correct” parts and be able to stop the water entering the boat! I don’t like water in the boat. I don’t like water in the boat. I don’t like water in the boat!  I’m saying that 3 times like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz hoping my dream of no water in the boat will come true.

We hope this weekend to begin some of the varnishing. W/ and I’ll do that. Then we’d like to be finished varnishing  by next week.

Next week I get to see about having some bronze bases made for the Lavac Heads. We’ve cracked both ours (guess I’m a little too heavy)? I’ve fixed them with JB Weld (a great boat product) and they seem to be holding fine but I would like a permanent fix. Then I need to begin re-plumbing the aft head and making a shorter hose run from the head to the pump and overboard.  Remember in Antigua one day it stopped pumping and when I finally found the clog it was all the calcite from the urine saltwater mixture that had created a solid; well almost, blockage in the lowest part of the hose.

I’m expecting to have the boat hauled for a couple of weeks and during the time of drying out any  moisture that made it to  the laminate from the nick we put somewhere around Antigua, we’re looking forward to doing some of the Trinidad tourist stuff.

Anyway; talking to Julie we too discovered that the main VHF on the boat isn’t functioning as it should. We can send and people seem to hear us, but we don’t hear their reply. The AIS is working fine, power to that unit is good and I’m getting information from the antenna, but I’m not getting any voice to the VHF unit. I’m now adding that to our “need to do now” list. I’ve gone and ordered a piece of  VHF coax to see if taking the AIS out of the loop doesn’t solve it. Then I’ll try an emergency antenna to make sure the unit works fine.  Oh well!  As they so often say and I’m doing my best to not believe it: Cruising is simply working on your boat in exotic places!

Go Slow
Sail Far
Stay Long

When we hiked the Appalacian Trail one summer we heard tails of true altruism. One such tale involved a hike along the ridge in the White Mountains. We heard this from the horses mouth; oh, I mean hikers mouth. The hiker was walking along on a beautiful clear day and 5 minutes later the weather had changed to a  white out. A cloud had ascended and made visibility  almost nil. Nothing to do but continue on. He was following the cairns and an hour or so later slipped and was about to go sliding down the very steep side of the mountain. Out of whiteness reached a hand, hauled him back up the the trail and the hiker that had saved  him simply kept on walking, while he caught his breath and took a moment to calm down. He never met that hiker, the hiker never stayed to be thanked. That IMHO is altruism.

In Grenada, friends of ours on Passport had gone on a day hike. Having completed their hike  they arrived back at their boat, paid the driver, removed all their gear and retired for the evening.  A few hours later, the driver came by the marina asking where Passport was. He had their wallet.  Somehow, IB had paid the driver and the wallet fell out of his pocket into a seat in the Taxi while they were removing their stuff.  He received  the wallet back with everything in it. And I mean everything!

In Trinidad we’re ordering supplies. There are 3 girls that do the work at a place called MarineWarehouse, they have contacts all through the US and we order what we need, then they combine the items and ship it to Trinidad by ocean freight. One day a cruiser had come in to pay for his supplies. He charged them on his credit card and during the transaction began to ask about a health club he could go to before he flew out of Trinidad the following day.  Unbeknownst to him, after the transaction was completed his  CC had worked it’s way under some papers on the desk and off he went to sweat and pack for his trip home.   The girl at the desk came upon the card 30 minutes later and knew the owner wouldn’t be a happy camper if he ended up  at the airport and discovered it missing and not even close to a happy camper should he have made it back to the continent and found it gone.  She chased him down at the health club, returned his card to him and I’m sure made a life long customer out of him.

Now we’re not hiking on any trails. But I would call either of those stories  “magic”, selfless acts of islanders making sure visitors experience their islands  as a little bit O’ heaven.

Go Slow
Sail Far
Stay Long

Yep, that’s my score. I went on 3 trips or tours in Grenada. Zero wins for me, Two losses, and one tie.  The trip to Guave was pretty mediocre, and the Turtle watch IMHO was a bust. The last one I went on was to Carnival  was the Pan (Steel Drum Bands) concert and that was just ok.

See me...Way Back

We all crammed into a bus / taxi and rode the 5 miles like Tuna to the National Stadium. The steel drum part was excellent, the venue implementation was horrible!

Some of the bands had almost 100 steel drums! The sound was quite good, the players were excellent, but the organization was miserable. It was held in the National Stadium and the bands played  out in the field on a stage under a canopy. Part of the Pan experience is being close and seeing the musicians work the music. We could have walked down and stood in front but only for a short time. Each Band played two or three songs, then they moved all the equipment off the stage so the next one could move on the stage. And to move they basically had to wait for one band to clear the stage and then the other came on. They didn’t move their instruments on and off in the same direction; thus a traffic jam. During the intermission (if that’s what you want to call it) they had a singer come on the stage and perform one of his songs, (if the band wasn’t yet ready and the never were)  they played the song agin without him on stage, and if they still weren’t set up yet, they replayed the same song a third time.  Overall it ran about 30 minutes / band setup and take down of which the band played for a max of 10 minutes.

So that’s my score. Of course Grenada has much more to offer then simply tours and Carnival, and that’s what we loved. The people were great, the anchorage comfortable, services and supplies were available. But like any good thing it all must come to an end. It was time to leave and get our summer boat work done down in Trinidad, get hauled out and then begin our trek west.

We looked at the GRIB files (Weather predictions put out by the NOAA), we looked at the radar from Guadaloupe, and we looked at satellite photos of the southern Caribbean.  Since the Sun was almost directly overhead, Monday looked like a day we could motor to Trini.  When the Sun is on top of you we have no wind and thus what most people call the Doldrums. We checked out of Grenada in the am and began prepping the boat, storing stuff, putting the dinghy on deck, getting the self steering ready, etc. We checked the radar and GRIB files again, it all looked good. We pulled up anchor at about 4 pm, said goodbye over the VHF and motored out of the harbor.

The seas were benign and the wind; if you could say there was any,  was quite light. With the light breeze off  the beam, W/ talked me into putting up the staysail with the hope that it would steady the boat. It did a little so we motor sailed south.

I tried to rest for a bit while W/ took the first watch. After my hanging out below unable to sleep but having laid down for a couple of hours I replaced W/ on deck and she retired below. She’d been watching a good light show (lightening)  her entire watch. The moon wasn’t up. It was pitch black out  and the horizon would could only be seen by the  flashes of electricity every few seconds. I thought it would be a good show and a boring motor.

How wrong I was. About 30 minutes after W/ retired the wind hit. Fortunately the Staysail is rather small and it handled the winds fine. The autopilot however is setup  and designed  up for a calm windless passage. Inside of 5 minutes we  went from calm with little wind to  lots of winds and building seas. I took the autopilot off line and started to hand steer. Remember; we’re going S and I’ll bet you can guess where the wind was from!  Yep from the S.

I’m now hand steering and we’re still motoring. The seas are building and fun is not the best description of my  watch. W/ was going to come on deck and I let her know she wasn’t needed. I was simply driving the boat S as best as I could. I would motor sail off course but in southerly quadrant as much as possible. Generally, these squalls that move through last less then an hour before the wind settles down but this was different. This one lasted over an hour, the seas built and had short wave lengths. On several we actually crashed down into one off the bow before the last one had cleared the stern. The “Boom”  of the water slamming into the bottom of the bow sprit was frightening and we had that happen several times before the rains came and the wind

Missing Teak

died. (Once in Trinidad I saw the damage the slamming into the waves did!  However; the piece of teak that was knocked off had already had one screw broken loose by the anchor!) Another boat we met in Trinidad had blown out their mainsail and felt the winds reached 50 kts. I however didn’t feel it blew over 30 kts. The rain stung like 1,000’s of small needles pricking my face at short  quick random intervals.  Eventually the wind abated, the rain stopped and W/ replaced me on deck. My watch ended up 3 hours later and I had hoped W/ slept some. We set up the autopilot again, I retired below and W/ stayed on watch for any problems. The motor sailing had pushed us to a better path to Trinidad and we were now East of our rhumb line. This was a good thing as the current moves SE to NW through this opening.

We arrived at Trinidad approx 10 am so  great we won’t have any overtime charges for Customs and Immigration. We pulled into Chaguaramas and motored through all the trash in the water.  Trinidad has had some horrendous rains with rivers flooding and so we had tide lines filled with so much debris that when we motored through one I heard the prop hit something. I hope it was soft enough that we didn’t damage a blade. Overall the propulsion system sounds fine but we’ll eventually see if there was any real damage when we haul out.

Go Slow
Sail Far
Stay Long

When sailing or cruising you read a lot. If you’re not a reader and you spend much time on a boat you will become a reader.  How many times can you watch Waterworld or Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons (a really fine movie BTW)?  So you read.  We heard tell of a fight that erupted on an extended ocean passage. A thousand miles from any land one of the crew threw out an empty cereal box!  The crew member on watch went ballistic!

“Why did you do that” they yelled?

“Because it was empty!”

“But I hadn’t read it yet!!!!”

When we were in the US for a wedding a few months ago we ordered over 30 books. Now that’s not all we’ll read because cruisers have an active trading community whereever we go. But when we find an author we like by trading we’ll often fill in the missing books by purchasing them. So we did. And once we have the books I’ll go and read all from the same author. I’ll read in the order published because sometimes authors like to keep characters active in newer novels and I enjoy having the knowledge of what’s happened to that character in the past.

So I’m currently reading all the Steve Berry books we bought. They’ve been for the most part fun reads although it seems like none of the stories start till almost 100 pages into the book.  Fortunately the books are narrow tall and thick so one hundred pages of those books is really somewhere about 50 pages in a real book. (Must be a new marketing tool to make consumers think they’re getting real value for the buck).  I’m on my 4th or 5th Berry book; The Third Secret, and  just getting into the story. I finish chapter 17 and read the fist page of chapter 18 BOOM! On the next page the sentence doesn’t match. Nor the next, nor the next.  I figure; hell, they’ve added a section accidentally and skip ahead to find where my sentence sees the light.  I go from page 130 to 83, then count up to page 130 again and BOOM!  Page 179.  Where are my missing pages.  Currently I’m not a happy camper. I’ve looked on Amazon’s site and find a couple of my missing pages in their book teasers but not 25!  So what do I do. It’s Sunday.  I can send off some scathing emails, they won’t get them till tomorrow, I can buy  (again) an electronic version  - that may tick me off more; I can see about finding a site to download it; that takes too much time; or I can just skip 25 pages and continue reading hoping I’ll be able to fill in the missing pieces. Damn!

Notice I didn’t link to any  sites related to my dilemma; not Berry’s not Amazons, and nothing on The Third Secret. It’s my big act of defiance today.

Go Slow
Sail Far
Stay Long

Every place seems to have it’s own special ambiance. Dominica - rainbows and boat boys; Antigua - classic yachts and a sense of style; the BVI’s is best described as Disney World for boaters.

As we’ve gotten closer to South America the natural world seems to be changing. Around St. Martin, and Antigua  I don’t recall Butterflies,  certainly not in any of the abundance I see here. Also we saw very few seagulls and no pigeons or doves. In Grenada the Dove  is the Grenadian National Bird and while Doves in general seem abundant the national bird is on a precipice for survival. Today I even saw a hawk. Not sure if any hawks are in any of the islands north of here.

White on Yellow Sweet!

But the butterflies grabbed my attention. They’re all over, by the thousands!  They’re the  small variety

A sweet Chocolate Butterfly

Pieridae. Some yellow, lots of whites and a few chocolate mixed in. The most difficult thing is trying to grab them in a photo. I’ve shot almost a hundred pictures getting these few butterflies posing! They move as I move. We walk by a stand of flowers or pasture of grass and they’re all about. We stop they stop ( and then my pictures show nothing!)  We move they move (then my pictures show a small colored blur!)  We walked a trail cut through the National Park by the Four Seasons Corp (Check in the middle of the page for the story). The Four

Butterfly Walk

Seasons had been working on developing the area for homes and while there is a controversy over their methods, the economy has effectively slowed their work to a standstill.  However, they’ve  left a nice road - path  through the park and we walked out to the bay to the East of us. We were alone on the path, alone except for the 1,000’s of butterflies, 6 horses, one bull, and a few birds.  We walked past a bog (most of the mosquitoes had settled back down for the day) up over a ridge and to the next bay.

If butterflies are the place where the soul goes when you die, then Grenada is obviously a slice of heaven.

You know, one thing about cruising and being retired is that you have time to do with what you want. Not always, but quite often.

The other day I actually opened up my FaceBook act. I really don’t have a great deal of love for Facebook but so many people like it that you are almost dragged into using it. Almost. I opened it of my own free will. Then, there was a connection from my tennis coach that I hadn’t seen in a few years. He has my email, we’ve  Skyped a couple of times (texting) and yet he seemed adverse to using just plain ol’ everyday email. So I accepted his “friend” offer and now we’re slightly more connected. He’s currently in Austrialia, getting  married and if we’re lucky; when we get there, we’ll be able to see them again. But I wonder.

I then replied to a couple of other communiques I had on facebook and the flood gates were opened. When I told W/ of all the requests we had (don’t get carried away it was only in double digits ) she commented that it’s like a Virus. And that is so.  Facebook gets hold of one friend and tries to tie them all together! But I digress.

W/ decided that if I was there she should be too. I helped her set up an act and off she went. I think she now has more “friends” than I do which for any of you that know us is to be expected. But she’s gotten so carried away that she put up a bunch of pics that I’ve neglected to show. I was going to get around to it sometime!  So she’s been addicted the last few days putting up the pics in Facebook. Since they are public and it saves me the work of posting the pictures elsewhere here is the list: People we Met, Shopping, Our Elysium, Me and My Gal, Cool Stuff (W/s opinion ), Anchorages, Beaches, Wendy, Volunteering, Ocean Rowing, Gals, Tours, and Animals. 

Go Slow
Sail Far
Stay Long

We’ll, not me, at least not physically. The boat is injured and I feel the pain. I feel the pain cause so much of me (us) is in this boat that when something doesn’t work it’s like I’m injured. And I feel the pain cause I’m physically bent over, reaching, cutting a finger - hand or my arm, squinting, trying to hold the light and get a wrench on one end and socket on the other end of what ever I need to fix.

It started out as a couple hour job. That’s what I estimated.  W/ usually doubles that time but ok; it’s a morning job. It’s Sunday; day of rest. Boats don’t rest.  I had two things to do. I was going to tighten a plate down on the top of the Aquagen (it was leaking coolant) and I was going to put a new gasket (made from a glossy magazine cover) on the water pump (it was leaking saltwater), and I didn’t have a spare gsaket.
First I pulled off the water pump; I needed to loosen the belt running to the water pump so I could pull off the refrigeration compressor so I could get to the bolt (that appeared loose) that was under the compressor.  Done!  I find the bolt laying on top of the plate. So I gently try to restart it in the hole. Damn!  It won’t go. DAMN!  (that’s not really all I said). So I pull off the other bolt holding the compressor on and now have clear access to the hole. Words can not fully describe my feelings here. And if you remember the 7 words that years ago were not to be spoken in public you might have heard them all. The bolt had sheared off!

How to get it out. I called Serge on Spirrare  and he came over to help.  He’s younger with better eyes; and has as much or more experience with engines. Besides; it’s always easier breaking someone else’s boat rather than your own.

So from a job that was to be a couple of hours we’re now to a job that may take us to the marina and I’ll have to pull the engine out; take it to a machine shop and have the stud removed.  We discuss some options. But right now it comes down to; let’s see if we can get it out. We look for the Easy Outs. I know I have some. Can’t find any. We do however find some of the screw extractors. Gently Serge punches the center of the bolt and drills a small hole. We try the extractor. Nothing. Serge drills a slightly larger hole. We try the extractor. Nothing. I connect the extractor to the drill and I try using the drill to remove the Bolt.  Viola!  It’s coming out, it came out!  Whew, an am job turned into a month job which turned back into a two day job!  Today is Sunday. Nothing is open. Tomorrow I’ll go to the marine store and get some “metric” bolts so they’re all good, I’ll also go to ACE Hardware (yep there is one in Grenada) and see if I can get some strong metric bolts. Put it all back together and hope the leaks are fixed.

After we got the bolt out, we reminisced about my good luck,  and  Serge took off. After all; there was an afternoon of the Dominos Train Game for cruisers planned at the marina.  I would miss it (I’m not really a big fan of that game) and W/ too decided to stay and assist.  After lunch I raised up the heat exchanger (one of the things on my Trinidad list and that should make sure no air stays trapped in the top of the cooling system).  That done, sweat rolling off me, we picked up and called it a day.

What a day. Aren’t Sunday’s to be a day of rest?

Go Slow
Sail Far
Stay Long