A Visit to the Rays

This morning, we took an early morning 5 mile dinghy ride inside the lagoon to a place known for its "friendly" sting rays (i.e., the local hotels' dive boats feed the rays there).  We arrived at 8:00 am, before any other boats, and Jennifer hopped into the shallow water to tie us off ... and was immediately and somewhat disconcertingly surrounded by rays.  After some teeth-gnashing and squealing, she managed to get Kate to join her,. and I followed shortly thereafter (having allowed the women to test the safety of the waters).

They are rather amazing, and lack real eyesight, so they tend to nuzzle up and check you out ... we're off to Huahine in an hour, but thought we'd get these pictures up before we left.   More diving and exploring to follow!

Kate Rides to the Rescue

Birthday Boy Greets His Fans

Jennifer Surrenders

Kate and Jennifer, At Ease

Jon's Birthday

Today is July 30th and we are in Moorea, anchored in the lagoon just outside Baie d'Opunohu (a place where Captain Cook also anchored in the late 18th century). Every view is breathtaking, whether looking toward the volcanic spires and mountains that make up the island, or looking out across the lagoon, past the ocean crashing onto the outer reef, and seeing sailboats coming and going. The sunsets are long and beautiful and the evenings are cool. We are at peace.

(I'll try to add pictures later, but we're busy with Katie and the internet is slow AND expensive and it takes a long time to upload them....we haven't had a rainy day yet to keep us inside.)

Jon turns 53 today and it will be celebrated in Glaudemans tradition. A morning snorkel to swim with rays. Then crab cakes. Yes, I brought canned crab meat from home and Old Bay seasoning. You can take the man out of Maryland, but you can't take Maryland out of the man, especially on his birthday.

In the late afternoon, we'll raise anchor and leave Moorea for an night sail to Huahine (prounouned wah-heen-ee). It's about seventy miles away and with the predicted winds, we expect to arrive in the morning.

The Vacation Within the Vacation (V-W-V)

Kate arrived last Friday, and it marked the beginning of a vacation for us – within, of course, the general feeling of vacation-hood we’ve been feeling since we left the States in January.  True, as readers know, we’ve had our share of projects, heartbreaks, and delays, but let there be no mistake; we’re having the time of our lives.  A bad day on a boat beats a good day most anywhere else.

ile de Grace's stern, with solar panels, wind generator (upper left),
and Jennifer tending the line that keeps me aloft!

With Kate’s arrival also came the leaving of so-called civilization (i.e., Papeete, Tahiti) so I made a long-overdue trip up the mast to check the lines that either terminate there or turn there on blocks as they come back down the mast.

Working aloft, in the bosun's chair
(present from Number One Son!)

A good thing; the line holding our genoa (front-most sail) had chafed halfway through, so I was able to trim and re-tie the line.  Not unexpected after about 10,000 miles of sailing!  The view from the top was nice – and on the way down, I also changed the floodlight that illuminates our froint deck when we’re working at the mast at night.

I guess the V-W-V began when I got a chance to play a round of golf – there’s one course on Tahiti, and it offers some spectacular views (to make up for the rock-hard greens, I suppose).

Readers may recall my post on mulligans; I tend to be a purist, and took none – and thus eeked out a barely-respectable 49 for nine holes – all in all not bad after a year’s hiatus,  wearing boat shoes, and relying on a slightly-gnarled left ring finger, My baseline game is rather feeble to begin with, as my friend Billy Moore will attest, but I had a lot of fun.  My playing partners were Francois and Cristal, a couple we met in Taravao (they live on a catamaran, and teach high school), and Francois’s sister, Alixe, a well-regarded young Tahitian golfer.

After meeting Kate at the airport, we proceeded to Heiva and an island tour (see earlier post); some pictures of our sojourn:

Walking back from Les Cascades

At Point Venus, Tahiti

Papeete, Tahiti, with Moorea in the background

On Monday, we tossed off the lines from our mooring and set sail for Moorea.  As we left the harbor, we were followed closely by a local piroguer, who matched us stroke for stroke at 5.5 knots.  Even though Heiva is over, the nightly practices continue ...

Then, to perhaps herald our V-W-V, we passed one of the legendary Tahitian floating bars – essentially thatched huts on a pair of floats that serve as drifting bars for the locals’ weekend parties on the flats adjoining the pass into Papeete.  Let the (more) fun begin!

And here's a teaser of our time in Moorea; Kate and I snorkeling ... more pictures from Moorea forthcoming ... we are anchored tonight in 15 feet of water clear enough to see the turtles, rays, and needlefish drift slowly around and below the boat, and the waning full moon shines clear to the sandy bottom.  Magical Moorea!  

Westward Bound

Kate arrived Friday night, and we went straight form the airport to the closing ceremonies for Heiva, the month-long celebration that Jennifer has written about previously here and here.  On Saturday, the three of us took our first dive in Tahiti, diving a 100 meter wall just a little south of our mooring.  It was rather incredible to look down into the blurring blue, with a sheer wall of coral on one side, and the ocean's depths on the other.  Highlights included seeing shrimp cleaning a moray eel, a huge grouper, and many small schools of smaller fish.  We got down to 80-90 feet (Kate to 97 feet), all record depths for us, and all went well.

Today, after a relaxing breakfast of crepes (thanks Jennifer!), we visited downtown Papeete, drove up to the Belvedere (the lookout over the harbor), and then around the island to our old haunt at Chez Loula and Remy, where we presented our Coupe du Monde hosts with a soccer scarf from the University of Maryland -- team scarves are de rigeur for soccer fanatics, and the ceilings of the restaurant are festooned with scarves from French teams.  We thought we'd express our appreciation for their opening their doors to us (sometimes at 4:30 am!) as we followed the World Cup.  A big thanks to Didier and Phillipe and the entire staff!

Tomorrow, after an early morning trip to the marche to buy fresh produce, we will be setting sail for Moorea, and from there, on to the other Society Islands -- Huahine, Raiatea, and Bora Bora, where Kate leaves to return home to nursing school in Denver, and we continue westward on our circumnavigation.

Internet access becomes a bit more sporadic for us, but we'll be updating as we can ... hope summer is treating everyone well, as we enjoy winter in the South Pacific.

Update

The work on our engine was completed last Thursday. Seven weeks to the day of waiting for 2 and half days of work. So we left Baie Phanton Friday morning, for a nice day sail up toward Papeete. We're in Punaauia at Marina Taina, about 15 kilometers from Papeete. Our daughter Katharine is arriving on Friday, so we will hang out here until she arrives.

Papeete is the last place to stock up on harder to find food items for a while so I'll do some re-provisioning. There are a few small projects left on the boat, but by the time Katie comes to Tahiti, we will be ready for 3 weeks of R&R. We plan to do a lot of diving and snorkeling as we see the rest of the Society Islands. Jon and I did some snorkeling off our boat yesterday.....it's so nice to be back in clear ocean water. (Baie Phanton was brown because it was so inland; fed by several rivers; and local construction projects kept a steady stream of dirt running off into the bay.)

It's expensive here compared to the US. A liter of soda costs about $5. Watermelon costs between $15-20. Yesterday, Jon had an $18 cheeseburger.....not significantly different from one in the US. A hundred dollars goes about as fast as ten dollars. Mostly it's easy to avoid the high costs while staying on the boat, but here in town it's different. Oh well. It's hard to complain when the weather here is so nice, people are friendly and kind, and there's always nice music playing somewhere in the background.

We wish everyone well.

Happy Bastille Day

Or Bon Fete, as they say for short. Today is the French national holiday; like our July 4th. So there is no work going on here at the marina. It's very quiet and Jon and I think we might be the only ones here today; except of course for the ever present free roaming roosters and hens who rule these islands. It is a day to be with families and friends, bar-b-q, and who knows, maybe there'll be fireworks here tonight.

But July 14th is also a very special day for us. It's our wedding anniversary! Twenty six years of bliss and happiness (and the occasional blood, sweat and tears)!

So we, too, are taking the day off and wish everyone a gentle day, especially our kids, our family, and our friends.

... and no jokes about Bastille Day and marriage, please :)

The God I Asked

As faithful readers are aware, I occasionally post my newly-written poems here.  A few days ago, we drove out to Tautira, one of those delightful "end-of-the-beach-road" towns (literally -- the road stops at Tautira, and what is beyond is Tahitian jungle and the walls and caldera of the ancient volcano whose continuous eruption created Tahiti Iti, the eastern side of Tahiti).  All these kinds of towns -- whether in the Outer Banks, Cape Cod, Kauai, or here, possess the same kind of look-and-feel -- a sense of easiness (distinct, if credible, from the generic sense of easiness on this island), and a palpable sense of temporary-ness, as if the sea could wash it away.

As we drove, Jennifer shared with me her fascination about the process of island creation, where volcanos rise from the sea bed and eventually breach the surface to create an island.  There are over 5,000 of these so-called "submarine volcanos," and many of them are here in the Pacific (Rim of Fire).  In fact, when we sail to Tonga, we will make a point of sailing over one, and when we get to Vanuatu, we will anchor on the windward side of a active (emitting steam and ash) volcano.  Hot stuff.

Her musings took the form of a request to God to let her see an island form, and her musings led me to play around with the concept ...  (for earlier poems in this continuing series centered on our sailing, see here, and here.

The God I Asked

When I asked the God I asked "Let me see the mountain erupt from the sea,"
The God I asked rolled back the centuries and revealed the lifting mountain peak.

So I asked the God I asked "When did that mountain first come up from the sea?"
And the God I asked counted the layers of stone like rings on a tree
Until the God I asked lost count of the days and months and years.

So I asked the God I asked another question maybe easier this time:
God I asked, "Before my time is done,
Will you lay me down on that mountain top and let me rise up through the sea
So that I can count each and every day I see the sky above me?"

Jon Glaudemans
July 2010

Solar Eclipse

Today was almost perfect. Had The Netherlands not broken our hearts in its 1-0 loss to Spain, it would have been. But seeing 98% of the solar eclipse was one of the more amazing events Jon and I have witnessed in our lives.....it was a first for both of us.

With one engine removed from its mount, we could not take our boat, ile de Grace either back to the Tuamotus or 60 miles south of Tahiti to see the total solar eclipse as we had originally planned to do. On the eastern side of Tahiti, just a few miles from our boat, however, 98% was (in)visible and that was more than good enough! We were with a crowd of Tahitians, all enjoying a beautiful Sunday morning facing east across the Pacific Ocean. They've been selling special glasses for the eclipse since we arrived in late May.

Jon and I got up early this morning and headed to a fishing jetty not far from Taravao on the eastern side of the isthmus. The eclipse began around 7:15 am here and reached 98% at 8:30. The special glasses we bought made it possible to look at the sun for about 2-3 minutes at a time.

As time passed by no faster or slower than it ever does, we were transfixed by the slowness of the sun's passage behind the moon. As the surf pounded the jetty just yards away, we watched the sun slowly disappear behind the black shadow of the crossing moon. The light slowly got softer and the air slowly got cooler. We had a brief moment when clouds filled the sky, but everyone blew air out of their mouths, and the clouds moved on. By 8:30, it was not dark as night, but it was so dark, cameras required a flash, and the channel markers began flashing their red and green marks, clearly visible against the darkening reef.

We feel lucky to have witnessed it.

Another Project Crossed Off the List

Last Wednesday, we got news that not all of our engine parts had arrived in the original shipment and the repair could not continue until delivery of a second shipment. I was immediately bummed and disheartened and fled to Papeete to watch Heiva and stay on some friends' boat. Jon took the news in stride and set about working on a project for which we had decided to do ourselves and not pay the outrageous labor charges.

On Thursday and Friday Jon sanded down and prepped Grace's hawse hole (where the anchor chain exits the boat) so that it could be reinforced. When we were raising our anchor in the Tuamotus, we noticed that the hull joint for the hawse hole was flexing. Jon had to remove the stainless steel frame and sand down to the fiberglass.

While in Papeete, I picked up 3 meters of two-directional carbon fiber fabric (twice as strong and half as heavy as fiberglass). Having been here now for 6 weeks, I have my connections! So on Saturday, we "borrowed" a work bench from the Marina and Jon set about applying 8 layers of ever expanding sheets of carbon fiber with expoxy glue.

The reinforcement looks great and we'll see how she holds. It must now be repainted, but we're crossing this project off the list.

Vaka Arioi Videos

This is my first attempt at publishing video, so please be gentle in your judgements of the videography, the minimal editing, and piecing together. But, as promised, here are some clips from the Heiva reenactment of the Vaka Arioi.

Four women dancing for the court:

A woman dancing solo for the audience:

A man and a woman dancing for each other:

They begin young: Jon and I attended a May Day celebration at a primary school in Taipivai, Nuku Hiva, Marquesas. In this video, the younger children sing and 9-12 year old boys and girls demonstrate their traditional dances. While not exactly part of Heiva celebrations, we hope you enjoy this sampler:

Heiva and Vaka Ariori

Heiva (pronounced hay-va) means festival. And the Polynesians have never needed much of a reason for a festival. Traditionally, the change of seasons, harvests, marriages, births, and other social rites would spawn a heiva. There would be dancing and singing, canoe racing, heavy stone lifting and javelin throwing. The dancing in particular was well known for its sensuality and sexual overtones, as fertility was (and is) very important in their culture.

After the Christian missionaries arrived in the nineteenth century, much of the native culture was suppressed. Tattoos were banned. Worship of pagan gods ceased. Women were no longer allowed to go topless. Cannibalism was prohibited (a good thing). And heivas were also suppressed, particularly the sensual dancing.

Just as we have our Fourth of July to celebrate our independence from Great Britain in 1776, the French have their Bastille Day, July 14^th, to celebrate the storming of the Bastille in 1789 and the beginning of the French Republic. Well, since this is French territory, it did not take the Polynesians long to turn Bastille Day into a great big heiva. Here, it begins in June and runs through late July. This year is the 128^th celebration. These are definitely a partying people.

But Heiva is serious business too. It has become a way for the Polynesians to rediscover and preserve their culture and maintain island-to-island connections, as well as island-group-to-island-group connections. The competition between the groups and their islands is quite intense. When we were in the island groups of the Marquesas and the Tuamotus, we saw canoe teams practicing nightly for their competitions in Tahiti. Even here in Taravao, we saw a canoe team from the island of Raiatea practicing in the Bay, just meters from our boat. We also saw dance troupes practicing for their competitions in each of these groups, so we knew what awaited us if we were in Tahiti in June and July.

On Saturday June 26^th, the day our dinghy got a tear, we joined a Dutch couple for a special Heiva event in the town of Paea. There, the ancient Marae Arahurahu has been restored and was the site for the reenactment of an ancient ceremony; the Vaka Arioi. (See blog post Ma'ae Iipona, Hiva Oa, April 17, 2010 for a description of a marae—ma’ae in Marquesan – they are the ancient temples of the islands’ original inhabitants.) Back in the day, as it were, the Arioi were an order (or brotherhood) of initiated singers and dancers who traveled from island to island and village to village to entertain the people during their annual rites. They are believed to have originated on the sacred island of Raiatea and existed only in the Society Islands (i.e. Tahiti and the surrounding leeward islands.) This tribal group had license to give visual representation to many of the deeply-felt urges and inclinations of the various other islands’ tribes or peoples, and were able to mock the gods (after paying them obeisance) without retribution. In other cultures, these might have been called vaudevilleans, and they exist in various forms throughout history (like jesters in a court).

In the reenactment we experienced, a Vaka Arioi (group from the Arioi order) have come from Raiatea to pay tribute to the Arii Nui (High Chief) of Tahiti and to present him with red feathers which were the highest form of adornment. Food and gifts are offered. A special drink made from ‘ava roots is presented to the royal court and also offered to the tiki god at the highest tier of the marae. A special chant is sung during the ritual, and having dispensed with the formalities and acknowledgements, then the celebrations begin.

Different dance troupes come out to perform for the chief, his court and the people. The drummers never stop. There is a man who can actually blow one conch shell that isn’t drowned out by a dozen drums. The singers really get into it. The dancers dance likes it’s the end of the world, and their costumes are amazing.

In video footage I will try to post later, you can see how fast these women can move their hips, and, to say the least, it is quite mesmerizing. I’m sure all males in the audience would agree! And, the dancing leaves no doubt as the purpose of men and women in life. I kept thinking this is the Tahitian version of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On!”

I will post other photos as the month progresses, but hopefully I have reassured family and friends that we are not working on the boat all the time nor only watching World Cup Soccer matches. We are lucky to be “stranded” here in Tahiti during this special celebration called Heiva.

Happy Fourth of July Holiday

No holiday here in Tahiti.....that's not until Bastille Day on July 14th, but we hope everyone in the US has had a wonderful July 4th weekend.

Good news from Baie Phanton: we are in the marina! and work has begun on our port engine! After 5 weeks of waiting for a diagnosis, parts to be ordered and delivered in the middle of a labor strike (this is French territory after all), and then 10 additional days for a slip to open up in the marina, we are finally getting our engine fixed. When we anchored in the Galapagos on March 4th our port engine decided to engage its gear only on its whim, not ours. It's made for some interesting maneuvers in bays and anchorages. Tahiti is the first place where there's a Volvo engine mechanic so it's really been a long wait indeed. A special thanks to Nicholas, Francois, Andre and Yvan for helping us maneuver into our spot.

With Jacque working on the engine, Jon is doing his best impersonation of Tim the Toolman, tending to other projects on the boat (see earlier blog). I am thawing Tuna steaks for dinner tonight to share with our French Canadian friends from an aluminum monohull called Coup de Soleil whom we first met in the Marquesas. They are now in the same marina. (The cruising world in the Pacific is really really small.)

With some luck, we'll be finished in a few days and will move on to explore other islands. In the meantime, we are cheering our hearts out for the Netherlands.

Best wishes to everyone.

Dinghy

You all have heard from my parents about the infamous dinghy… it gets holes in it making it impossible for them to go ashore for an entire week… it looses oars easily (and to a former rower, that’s just plain not cool). Maybe it’s the name on the dinghy that is the source for all of these mishaps.

As some, who have been lucky enough to take a little dinghy ride back when it was on Botkin Creek off the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, may know, the dingy has a quite interesting and unique name. Doodlebug. It’s the affectionate nickname given to me, Katie, by my mother.

I assisted in a few different aspects of getting the boat ready for their voyage, including countless hours at boat shows, numerous trips to boat yards, and quite a few dinghy rides to and from Grace. Given my assistance in preparing the boat, I was allowed to name the dinghy. So naturally, I chose my name, or nickname, to make something on that boat all about me.

Over the years, I developed the other nickname, Calamity Kate. Wreaking havoc wherever I went, leaving a trail of destruction in my wake. Not bragging, just stating. That’s how the nickname doodlebug evolved. A doodlebug was the colloquial name for a V-1 flying bomb. This V-1 bomb developed a bad reputation for its guidance system during WWII when the Germans attempted its use against the allied forces—essentially an unguided missile. Not knowing this until I was 22 was probably a very good thing for my self-esteem. Somehow I think if I had known the affectionate nickname doodlebug had really been referring to me as an unguided missile…I might have had a few issues. But all is well, and I am a doodlebug for the most part, although I don’t leave as large a wake as I used to, I still leave my impact wherever I go.

What Do We Do All Day ? ? ?

We’ve been at anchor in Taravao, Tahiti for a month now, essentially waiting on parts for our malfunctioning port engine, which refuses to go into gear reliably. The first week was spent confirming the diagnosis with the boatyard. The second week was spent working across languages and cultures to order the necessary parts. Last week, the parts arrived in Papeete, the capital, and were being processed through customs. This week, they arrived Wednesday at the local marina, but now we wait for a slip in the marina. Patience is a virtue, but as Samuel Johnson once said, “Patience is a virtue easily fatigued by exercise.”

So what do we do all day? You’ve read about our trips – to waterfalls, to town, to island gardens; you’ve read of our time spent with new friends, and time spent watching the World Cup. But this boat also demands our time, and we work regularly to maintain the various systems onboard. In a recent post, I spoke of mulligans, and the careful reader could see that each wanna-be mulligan had its aftermath.  Some of our chores are as a result of mistakes; most are routine wear and tear and maintenance.  If you think we're so bored that we'd rather write about our chores than do them, you'd be right!

Below, to round out the picture of our time in Taravao, is our annotated list of our boat chores over the last few weeks.

• Fix Port Engine – awaiting parts and slip in marina
• Order Screens for Hatches – this required much research on the internet to find the right screens and to find the right dealer. The screens were requested from the dealer in late April; confirmed in late May, and (finally) ordered in mid-June. They should arrive mid-July.
• Strengthen Anchor Hawser – our anchor + chain are heavy, especially if we need to put out 300 feet of 3/8” chain. The chain comes up to the boat through a hole – the hawser – and this hawser is reinforced with a stainless steel plate. It’s not strong enough, and tends to flex, so we’re upgrading once we get into the marina. Designing this takes time, as we consult with many cruisers and gain the benefit of their experience.
• Clean Toilets – we clean our toilets every few days, but this chore is the deep clean where we dissemble the piping and valves completely and scrape and clean the mineral (and other!) deposits. Toilets on a boat – or heads, as they’re referred to – are below the water line and thus require special valves. They also rely on salt water, and the mineral deposits combine with the body wastes to form deposits on the valves and pipes. Someone’s gotta do it.
• Rewire Xantrex – Our batteries are so-called “deep-cycle” which means that, unlike a car battery, they are designed to discharge to the 50% level, and then recharge to about 90%, repeatedly (like, 1000’s of times). A car battery discharges to about 95% and then is instantly recharged to 100% by contrast. To know when the 50% level is reached, you need to track all amps into and out of the battery. Our batteries were mis-wired, and we never had much information on amps going into the batteries. It took me a long time to diagnose, and since I didn’t want to make a bad situation worse (i.e. explosion), I took my time in developing a solution. We re-wired some of the grounding cables last week, and now all is well.
• Cockpit Speakers – Not surprisingly, one of our cockpit speakers is blown; I have an extra, and I’m waiting on a sunny day to replace this, as it requires some cutting and epoxying.
• Fiberglass Repairs – In the course of docking and anchoring, a few chips have developed on some edges of the hull-deck joint. I need a few days of guaranteed rain-free weather to tackle this small job.
• Para-Anchor Rode Thimbles – If we get into a serious storm, a major danger is going too fasat down a wave and plowing into the wave in front. An earlier post on the Sidney-Hobart Race highlighted this danger. Thus, I have a large drogue and/or parachute that can be deployed from either the stern or the bow (depending on whether we want to slow our boat – stern deployment, or turn and ride bobbing in the waves pointed into the wind (bow deployment). The drogue needs to lie 400+ feet from the biat, and, obviously, needs to be secured to the boat with a chafe-free mechanism. Chafe is the biggest enemy of lines and sails – the flogging and rolling of a boat at sea, even in calm conditions, can wear through a line in a matter of hours. Thus, we need to splice galvanized thimbles to the ends of our deployment ropes to accept shackles; a metal-to-rope attachment won’t last.
• Align Reef Line Blocks – we can reduce the amount of sail we have up by manipulating ropes that come back to the helm station. This process – reefing – is critical to safe passages, as squalls can come up quickly. By having our reefing lines running back to the helm station, we avoid the need to move to the base of the mast in heavy weather (when you are likely to need to reduce sail). The lines pass through several pulleys – or blocks as they are known on boats). At present, the blocks are not quite aligned, and the lines can (and do) chafe. We need to adjust these to eliminate the chafe.
• Replace First Reef Line – We discovered the problem of misaligned reef line blocks when we chafed nearly all the way through the first reefing line (used when the winds exceed 18 knots or so). We needed to purchase a new line (completed) and now need to sew it to the old line, pull it through the boom, and re-attach it. The old reef line will become a spare line, once trimmed.
• Chafing Sleeves for Lines – Any line that passes overboard – whether to dock, anchor, or to drogue – can chafe on the edge of the boat. We have purchased very sturdy plastic tubing to pass the line through and minimize chafe.
• Fuel Filters – Diesel engines are extremely reliable, and require only clean fuel and clean air to run for days at a time. Fuel in many parts of the world is suspect at best; I could build a small sand castle from the grit I’ve filtered using the hand filter that screens fuel before it enters our tanks. But wait, there’s more. We (and most every other boat) also rely on two additional filters to assure clean fuel: a primary filter that screens out even finer particles and any liquid contaminants (like condensed water), and a secondary filter, that is even more discriminating. These filters need changing, and with two engines, I changed four fuel filters this week.
• Oil Filters – Diesel engines need oil to lubricate the pistons and other moving parts. Every 150-200 hours of use I change the oil and the oil filters. Check.
• Upgrade NavNet3D Software: Our sophisticated navigation system, which has electronic charts of the entire world, accessible in 2D and 3D viewing, with “fly-around” capability, is driven by software that needs updating from time to time. Last week, I downloaded the new software, loaded it, and then had to figure out why my charts had disappeared. A simple setting needed changing, and, voila – all is good.
• Map Electronics Wiring – As part of the diagnostics for the Xantrex problem (see above), I needed to map each and every positive and ground wire to and from my batteries – including the boats’ electrical system (i.e, lights, freezer, etc), and the five sources of energy: 2 engines, 1 generator, a set of solar panels, and a wind generator. Each of these sources of energy passes through some kind of a battery controller, to make sure we’re not piling too much energy into the battery (result = explosion). So included in the now-complete diagram are three controllers (generator, solar, and wind) as well as several grounding shunts, where current can be measured to track battery usage. Complicated, but rewarding, as it allowed me to diagnose and fix the aforementioned Xantrex problem.
• Clean Dinghy Floorboards – Our dinghy is an inflatable boat with aluminum floorboards. Thus, there is always a bit of water in the space below the floorboards. At a constant 85 degree temperature, this breeds algae and, well, scum. We took advantage of our need to dissemble the dinghy to repair the leak (see earlier post) to clean the floorboards.
• Change the Generator Oil/Filters– Our generator is used to provide 110V electricity to the boat while at anchor, allowing us to have a washing machine and a two-zone air-conditioner on board. These are, admittedly, luxuries to many boaters, but they keep us clean and sane. The generator can also be used to charge our batteries, which are not a luxury. It runs on diesel, and like our engines, requires periodic maintenance.
• Change Transmission Oil – Our engines transmit their power to the propellers through a saildrive, which is essentially a transmission that converts rotation of the engine to rotation of the props, without a separate shaft. The oil needs changing, which requires pumping out the old oil and filling with new. Simple, but tedious.
• AC Condensation: Our air-conditioning system pumps cold refrigerant to four cooling boxes, where room-temperature air is drawn in by fans across radiator-like fins within which circulates the cold refrigerant. The air cools as it crosses the fins, and is re-circulated into the boat, thus cooling (and, importantly for the anti-mold/fungus contingent, de-humidifying) the boat’s air. The process tends to precipitate moistures out of the air, and these boxes are designed to drain the water into the several shower sump pumps, from which it is (automatically) pumped overboard. However, these boxes contain two drain plugs, and our esteemed builders failed to plug up the second hole, choosing onlyto put a hose from one hole to the sump. Thus, another source of water into our bilges (about which much has been written). We identified this culprit, and have now plugged these holes, eliminating yet another source of bilge water.
• Clean Shower Bilge Pumps – Like our heads, our shower plumbing lies below the water line, so that when we take a shower, the water drains into a (mostly) waterproof box that contains a pump whose operation is managed by a float switch. When the water in the box rises to a certain level, the float switch activates the pump, and water is pumped overboard. These pumps and switches need periodic cleaning, as hair and soapy film can gum up the works. Someone’s gotta do it.
• Safety-Tie Shackles – We use shackles to link the ends of rope to various bits of hardware, like hooks and clips. The shackles are U-shaped bits of steel, with a pin that screws across the open part of the “U.” These screwed-in pins seem, at first glance, to be immovable once tightened, but experience proves that these pins, however tightly secured, will work loose. Thus, every shackle on our boat is safety-tied, using a bit of plastic tie common in electrical installations. For our anchoring shackles, we use stainless steel wire, and wrap it repeatedly through the pin and around the shackle. No fun having your anchor’s shackle pin work loose in a storm. This project focused on the “little” shackles that are everywhere, once you start to look.
• Cockpit Hatch Cover – We have a small sliding Plexiglass panel that slides back and forth over the stairs that lead up to the helm station. If I had a nickel for everytime I’ve bumped this with my head as I went up the stairs, I’d be a rich man. Eventually, my bumps have worked loose the screws that secure the sliding cover’s track, and thus, we re-epoxy the screws and now enjoy a secure track.
• Snuba Hose Fitting – We have a boat-based compressor that generates compressed air for use in diving. The generator powers a compressor, and the compressor forces air down a pair of 60’ hoses. It’s not scuba tanks, it’s a mix of snorkel and scuba, thus the name “snuba.” It allows us to dive up to about 40’, and has been useful to fix things under the boat, check anchors. We hope to use it more often as we get to more remote reefs. One of the air hoses came in contact with the (very) hot engine, and melted through, so we needed to visit many scuba and plumbing shops for a new fitting. Mission accomplished.
• Hooks In Port Bow – We have many spare ropes and lines; we now have hooks in our forward port bow compartment to hang them from. Much easier access, and less mold.
• Hang Photos – We now have picture frames in our bedroom with pictures of our children and parents. As many people as we meet, and as many new places we visit, we miss our family deeply.
• Windlass Gypsy – In an earlier post, I mentioned the use of a windlass to raise our anchor, and the use of my hand to keep the chain from jumping. I finally decided this use of the hand was not only unsafe (!) but unnecessary. In fact, when I changed out the 100’ of chain that came with the boat for the 300’ feet I now have deployed in the chain locker, I had assumed I had bought the same size chain. Alas, the original chain was 10mm chain; the new chain is 3/8” – close, but not close enough for the finely-engineered mechanism on the windlass that captures and holds the chain as it passes over the wheel and into the anchor locker. We had first to identify the problem (wrong size gypsy), then find a dealer, and then order the new gypsy. It should arrive this week. No more chain jumping, I hope.
• Australian Visas – We applied for and received our visas for Australia, where we expect to take the boat out of the water and undertake land travel of New Zealand, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia. 
• Travel Planning -- We plan to use frequent flyer miles to travel to Southeast Asia; working thru the logistics is coinsuming some time and Skype minutes. 
• De-Mold -- We're in a hot, humid environment, and mold appears quickly.  We use a bleach mixture to wipe down surfaces regularly, and it seems to keep it at bay for a few weeks before the telltale spots re-appear.  

That's it --   a long list of what we've done with our days over the last 10 days or so ...  now if we can get our engine fixed (looks like next week, we're out of here!  We're in a part of the world where we can witness a total eclipse of the sun on July 11, and, with luck, we'll watch it as we dinghy into a bar ti watch the World Cup finals featuring the Netherlands!