Wednesday 13 Feb, St.Maarten day 16: Finishing up ready for sailing.
Last day of jobs. Tomorrow I have arranged to go out for a sail with Alex and Rob who I met on Ineffable. I need to give the refurbished vang a good hard sailing test before we leave this island. There is huge swell out there and the wind is now a steady 20 knots. Perfect conditions to stress test any vang!
After breakfast the hydraulic fittings are finalized with their canvas sun protection put back on (to protect the pipes from degradation by UV, not the metal fittings). Then it’s back into the water to continue the search for the swim ladder part that I dropped overboard last evening. On the third dive I spot it, already slightly covered in sand. Phew, glad about that. What I also spot is Mr. Baracuda again, gently swimming around. Was he waiting there all night hoping to say “boo!” to me again? Of course, I can’t be sure it’s the same one, but I swear he winked at me as if to say “gottcha last night didn’t I ?”
Then the usual morning trip ashore. This time to drop off the new swim ladder parts at FKG for modification (I’ll give up trying to grind them myself on the swim platform!) and to pick up the bimini at North Sails. Where I see there is still no progress on the spinnaker hoop. On the way back to the dinghy I spot some locals with scaffolding. I stop and ask them where best to buy small pieces of plywood, not a whole sheet. They kindly offer to give me some that they have, but I don’t have the dimensions I need. So I head back to Cloudy Bay to measure up. What I want to make is a two tier storage for oils and spare diesel jerry cans, deep in the bilge. I want to lay a simple plywood floor over the keel bolts then another plywood shelf one level above, sitting on the water tank supports. So it’s up with the floor boards again to get dimensions then back ashore to cut and take the plywood on offer. Surprisingly they really do seem intent to just give it to me, including cutting it to size. But I do give them something anyway. It’s good 3/4” exterior ply. A bit rough but nothing my sander can’t fix.
Back on Cloudy Bay again it’s time for a major sawing session. 2 jobs, one rough’n’ready (cutting the ply) and the other highly refined (cutting out holes for the instruments in the new perspex).
By the time I’ve jigsawed the ply and sanded it on the aft deck everything, including me, is covered in sawdust. But with boards installed in place I’m quite pleased with our new stowage. This is likely the last piece of the boat interior that we have not utilized for stowage yet. When we finally move off this boat we will likely need a 40ft shipping container for all our stuff!
Then to the instrument perspex. I’m quite concerned that I will damage the perspex while cutting so this operation is done inside, but still not helped by the major rocking of the boat, which really is pretty bad today. As I carefully saw the cutouts, the plastic dust from the operation gets static and sticks to everything! So after I’ve finished it took quite a time to clean up. The installation of the perspex itself, installing the instruments and doing some re-routing of wires, took me most of the evening. But finally it’s done and I’m pretty chuffed with the new appearance of the nav station control panel. Much better than before.
By midnight I’ve cleaned everything in the boat and all shipshape again. Alarm is set to 6am and off I go into a very rolly bed. Not sure how easy it will be to sleep tonight 🙁