Friday 23-March: Selwin, the fridge technician, cannot come again until evening, so it looks like a lazy day doing admin. First job, putting the over-boom full sunshade back on. We had removed it while we were away with the hire car, as it was rather windy those days. It takes about 5 mins to install, and once in place the boat instantly cools. With the sides rolled down and attached to the top life-line it acts like a tunnel for the cool breeze to accelerate through. Spray hood is also stowed. So nice to have a free totally open cockpit. Again, we are glad not to have had the hard-top version which we had so yearned for originally. The hardtop is clearly perfect for Northern Europe … but we are too soft for those chilly conditions!
Then it’s out with the jobs list. Glen has what he calls his “Project-office” hidden in the newly created locker behind the nav seat. It’s full of items ready to install or replace.
First job, attaching quick connect buttons on the bottom of the windscoop, replacing the cheap metal original eyelets. But this also means drilling 4 holes in the wood trim below the fore hatch to attach the female parts of the buttons. We absolutely hate drilling into any of the teak woodwork, so we debate for a while before the first hole is drilled. As the drill goes in, Glen & Oana feel pain! But with windscoop now firmly attached we get a wonderful blast of air inside the boat too …. and we quickly forget our pain!
Next job, replacing those silly little round velcro buttons which are supposed to hold the back of the nav seat in place. Instead, thin strips of wood are added to the seat back with proper velcro stuck on. Now the seat back doesn’t flop all over the place.
Oana’s morning job was to re-organize Glen’s boxes of screws and washers which he managed to disorganize very well! There has also been a box full of odd sets of nuts, bolts washers and screws left over from the re-fit a year ago. Soon all are in their place and easy to identify, now lets see how long that lasts!
To get a view of where the gas lines and electrics enter the fridge box, we clean out the vegetable boxes in the bilge, only to find a stinky green mess below them. It seems the fridge drain may have been going into the bilge not the sump. Once cleaned, and the drain hose placed where it should be, Glen goes upside down into the bilge, armed with Oana’s hand mirror. But whatever angle he contorts himself to, he cannot see where the pipes and wires enter the fridge box. But he does discover there is a huge void below the fridge box. Why on earth didn’t HR make another cupboard there? And it’s the same story with the freezer at the other end of the galley. It’s not like you can have too much galley stowage, is it? Next time we find a professional carpenter, we’ll be making 2 new galley cupboards there …. maybe (hm…what were we saying above about pain due to drill into the teak? Oana very much doubts she will allow anybody to cut a new door into the galley wood!).
Next job is to tighten the twin fan belts on the Mastervolt 150A alternator which runs off the Volvo engine. Tricky, because if you drop a spanner here, it’s a gonna. As usual, there is barely enough space to move the spanner even 1/8th of a turn. Mental note to buy a 26mm spanner and cut it down specifically for this job.
All this Houdini style work in tight hot spaces has gotten the captain quite sweaty – so he’s in for a dip to cool off. While in the water, a long thin bottle brush (60cm long by 7cm wide) is used to clean out the 3 galley sink drains which also house the fridge cooling coils. It’s always amazing just how much crud comes out of these pipes. But now, with an underwater touch, the sea-side of the cooling coils are clearly visible for inspection. We’ll see if we get bubble from them when we next pressure the system.
While down there, Glen spots more barnacles growing. So the new wide scraper we bought the other day is now put to good use. Hmmm, this hull cleaning is clearly going to be an on-going battle in these nutrient rich warm waters.
Meanwhile, Oana has found a reasonable Wi-Fi signal (via our Wi-Fi “Bat” booster) and is working on the website, cleaning up the script, adding photos and replying to messages. It’s a lot of work to maintain this. We can post to it via email, but somehow the text is reformatted to one large block with no paragraphs, which is not exactly easy to read.
We also need to extract the Atlantic crossing summary, to send to HROA who would like to publish it in their Blue Line annual magazine. There are quite a few comments coming through with regards to our website. So very nice to know it’s getting read by more than just family. We encourage readers to let us know how we can improve, to make it more interesting to read.
5pm comes and goes but no sign of the fridge mechanic. And his phone is on answer machine. Very annoying. By 8pm we give up and go ashore to drown our fridge-sorrows in a rum punch …. or two.
For a Friday night the marina bar is quiet, and all the locals tell us the place to be is The Tree House. So, at 11pm off we go in a taxi. There are lots of locals hanging around outside but not too many inside. Maybe it’s the 10EC entry fee, or maybe just too early. The music is good though, and we start to jig away, enjoying the atmosphere that is building as more people enter. At first, we are the only white people there, but soon there are a few others, all of whom clearly live here.
As it starts to fill the DJ changes to the usual “I’m the most amazing DJ ever” type person and it all goes downhill from there. The music turns very local, the DJ is changing the songs every 15-20 seconds and worst, he has a microphone which he shouts inaudible rubbish into every few seconds – clearly extremely proud of himself. It’s obvious to us that the number of people dancing has reduced – but the Lion-King with the mic thinks he is doing a wonderful job.
By 12:30 the place is full and has quite a buzz to it, full of skinny afro’d men and large women squeezed into clothes several sizes too small for them (the fashion seems to be “reveal it all”)! But we have totally lost our dancing-mojo by now, all we can think of is our hands around the DJ’s neck! We hang out till 1:20am then head for home. We took a taxi there but decide to walk back … it was a bit longer than we thought.
Finally, we are in bed by 2am along with our own bedtime music, slapping and banging on the stern. With ear plugs in, we are asleep in seconds. Maybe we should take our ear plugs next time we go local!
