Saturday 20 Apr, Puerto Rico day 16: It’s been one of those days when we seem to have been busy but wondering what exactly we achieved and where the day went.
We start leisurely on board after our late night. We run both engine and generator for a while to check everything runs well after the servicing marathon last evening. Meanwhile Oana is sewing some of the dresses she bought the other day, making minor alterations to fit her unique body 🙂
Then we go ashore to meet Jose, the Marina Pescaderia manager, who is just as helpful as he was on the phone. And like his attitude, the marina and facilities are impeccable. Which is very rare thing in these islands. He will hire us a car tomorrow and also agrees to hold the spinnaker for us until it is picked up for shipping to its new owner in St. Martin.
After another quick run to dispose of the old engine oil, it’s back on board for some pampering time. Oana gives me a haircut, which she is getting very good at now – and so much cheaper than any hair salon 🙂 Though we could have done without the breeze blowing through the cabin distributing the hair! Then I return the favor and trim the bottom of Oana’s hair. (I ask you: how many wives would let you do that?!). Oana then gives herself a pedicure and ends up with bright blue painted toe nails to match some of the new dresses.
After some admin on internet where we book our first marina in Dominican Republic, it’s already late afternoon, so we set to the task of packing the spinnaker. Currently it’s packed about 7ft long, 2ft wide and 1ft high, taking up 1/2 of the forward double berth. Yes, that’s why it has to go! We put it on the floor in the forward cabin and drag the foot of the sail into the saloon where we roll it as tightly as we possibly can, with us both lying on it each roll, to compress and get the air out.
It took a while, but in the end we manage to get it 1/2 the previous dimension: 3x2x1. The smallest it has ever been packed! Then tie it tight before it enlarges itself again, put it in its sail bag and wrap in a plastic sheet. There, all ready to ship. Let’s just hope it does actually fit through the main hatch now!
By 8pm we really feel we should stretch our legs. So we go ashore and have a drink at the closest bar, Bodeguita del Puerto. Quite an interesting place, funky decorated and few people in there, but all locals and most of them concentrating on drinking rather than socializing. So after our drink we move on, attempting to find the next best bar. The village is tiny and our stroll though it takes only a few minutes. There are other bars and restaurants but none look inviting to us, so we retire back to Cloudy Bay.
Last task of the day is to find out where a mysterious 2amps of DC power is going to. Last night I turned off everything on the switch panel and saw that we were still drawing a steady 1.9A. That is 48watts at 24V, which is not insignificant over time. So I go to each of the 11 Empirbus remote switching boxes (each one controlling 24 individual circuits) and turn off each circuit one at a time. Meanwhile, Oana watches the current meter on the Mastervolt Easyview-5 display for any changes.
We manage to nail down 3 culprit circuits, each drawing about 0.6A. The watermaker flush switch, the power to our fancy “Pacific” radio antenna on the top of the mast, and lastly one of the lighting circuits. Nothing that can be done for the first 2 just now (other than turning them off) but will have to investigate why a lighting circuit is using power even with no light bulbs switched on.
Then some more Ebay-ing, where we buy another head torch. We have a few torches on board (“few” being an understatement!) and the best by far is our head torch made by Exposure. We are steadily coming to realize the things that we just cannot do without on board, and we are gradually doubling up on them. And we cannot miss the opportunity of the cheap and easy US market we are about to enter for the last time. While this torch is made in UK, the US Amazon price is 50% less than UK price. Go figure that one!
A gentle but reasonably productive day.
