Category: 2025-01 (January)

Up in time for the net. Breakfast and wait for Richard to show up. While he was a little late, he did everything we asked! The engine room has been cleaned, the engine paint touched up, the wash down pump has been remounted. He has a guy who can deal with the staysail roller, he will get the correct size hole saw and be back, After he and his team left, we got after some projects on deck, first up was getting the lines down, as we thought about putting the sails up, so all the lines are up. Next was fixing the stern light, I took the fixture apart and found the problem was a little corrosion on the contacts, so fiddling with the light was enough to fix the problem. Then we worked together to install the new auto release for the life raft. This has to be replaced every two years, the life raft is supposed to get certified every 3 years. (This is really dumb and a Palin in the butt), getting certified requires sending the life raft away to get repacked and is expensive. About 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of a new life raft or between $3000 and $5000 the auto release is about $200. Getting the life raft certification last year was a 6 month ordeal of finding out where to send it (San Diego means across a border, and taxes one way or the other). We sent it to the second choice, Cancun on the east coast, it was a little less money, but there was shipping either way. So, obviously there are a lot of people with outdated life rafts and auto releases.
After lunch we noted the wind was a little higher than we wanted for playing with sails. So, we installed the new lights fixtures for the overhead lights. This was a good project to work together on. We installed a total of 10 fixtures. All are LED. Four sets were two lights on a string, the fifth was adding to the Salon lighting, for a total of 7 lights on the string. Of all of those everything worked well except the set in our stateroom and the forward head. Those two would not get to full brilliance, and flickered. They worked with the old fixtures, but not the new LED fixtures. (The old ones were a different kind of LED). We found that with one old one and one new one they were fine, but looked funky. What I tried was holding an old LED lamp across the contacts on one of the new lamps and found that it made it all work. So, I soldered an old LED across the contacts in two of the lamps and put them up, it all works. There is more light everywhere. This was a project that four hands made much easier.
We thought about going to the pool for happy hour, but it is overcast, and looks like rain, so we will stay in today.
This was a very productive day!

Up in time for the net, we both sleep very well on the boat. Today is overcast, but there is no rain in the forecast. Also there is not supposed to be much wind. Perhaps less tomorrow, we need to get the sails up and some other stuff on deck needs to be done.
Well, not much got done today, (1) I started on replacing spool for the staysail roller furling, there are four screws holding the spool together, 3 are broken so it will have to be pried apart. There is a guard that also has to be removed, it has two screws, one is very hard to turn, the other didn’t move and I thought I was going to break it. (2) Next up was installing a USB/SD card reader for the Raymarine chart plotter. This requires drilling a hole for the device the template shows 40.5 mm. well, the hole saw set that I have has a 38 mm hole saw, and so that is a non starter. I went on line to find the saw, 38 mm ‎ = 1.496 in, or about 1.5”. The 40.5 mm ‎ = 1.594 in. The next size hole saw I can find on line is 1 5/8” ‎ = 1.625” = 41.28 mm. Which will work, and all it takes is an hour long trip each way to Home Depot with two buses each way, and about $20 US. (3) Well, next up was the stereo. Ours failed due to high voltage when the voltage regulator failed high. Of course I bought the new stereo, the new amplifier for one channel of speakers, and a new XM receiver to make sure I had all the parts I needed. So, here I am looking at the new one and the old one, and they are not the same size. So, a phone call to support later, I now know that there is a RETRO FIT kit ($27) to make the new one fit in the old hole. At some point the best answer is to stop trying to break the wall with your head.
We laid around until mid afternoon and then took a walk. After the walk, we checked the navigation lights on the boat. All were fine except one of our two stern lights was out, another project. Then Dinner, showers and bed.

Up in time for the net, we both sleep very well here. After breakfast we organized our day, I was going to work on the voltage regulator, and Reneé thought about going to Sam’s, but decided against it, instead the covers came off the hatches and the kayak and paddle board got put into their holders. I called Balmar and found out what I need to ask Richard when he comes down on Saturday, so that project is on hold. Of course, I found a couple other things to work on. The light in the aft stateroom over the seat is in need of replacing, so I found a replacement on Amazon and ordered it in to our friends who are visiting next month. I also found the broken motor mount for the wash down pump (a piece of plywood 4”square is supposed to be glued down under the forward bed and then the pump is screwed to it), well, the wood is rotten, and needs to be replaced. Not a huge job really, but it needs to be addressed.
The sails got out of the forward stateroom and on deck, where they will sit until we get to putting them up.
When we listened to the net, we found out that there is a potluck this evening! So, Reneé is working on what to bring.
About 3:45 pm, I got a notification that someone was at our door in Tennessee. I communicated with them via the Ring door bell camera and let them know that they should not leave anything and that we were not home. They left, Technology is fantastic! We have camera’s and alarms, something thing’s that are necessary living like we do.
Well we went to the potluck and there was about a dozen of us. Pretty good discussion and hanging out, then back to the boat and showers.

Up for the net.

Bus to the Bible study (We were late, (we thought it started at 10 am, and we got there at 10:15) we allowed 45 minutes, we got both buses promptly.) normally start time 09:30. So, yes we were very late, 45 minutes. OOPs!

After the study, we walked out to get lunch on our way to the store. We ate at the restaurant with the red canopy next to the statue of Marilyn Monroe on 200. Then caught a bus to get to Soriana Mega and La Comer we got a bunch of stuff and took a cab back to the boat. We put stuff away and puttered around.

I made a trip to the local market for a few things we didn’t find at the bigger store. Like a bbq lighter (the regular lighter with a longer tube) we use them as a back up for the stove. Some raisins, we looked at both store and found none, at the market (which caters to vacationers from the states and Canada) I found some, but 150 grams for 41 pesos. (150 grams ~5 oz, 41 pesos ~$2.00). This was too expensive!

On the way back from the store, I stopped and talked to the owners of a trawler that we are considering for the Great Loop, it is a Selene 43. The only thing wrong with it, is the draft is 5’8”. We really want something less than 5’.

 

Up in time for the net.

The Ness’s brought by fresh fish.

I replaced the forward shower drain pump switch. This sounds like a simple job, the switch has two screws to attach the wires, and it sticks through a hole in the wall. Well, access is via a relatively small hole in the wall, the wires (from the factory are not long enough to pull out to where you can actually work on it. So, a job that should have taken 15 minutes, took about 2 hours. But, it is done!!

Reneé went to the local farmers market, we are restocking the boat. This is a good thing, it takes a lot of time to go get meals, especially when you do it on foot.

Richard came down today and we reviewed what he and his team had done on the boat. He scheduled Saturday morning to come and cleanup the engine room. He was not satisfied either. He also took a look at the refrigerator, what we found out is that the Auto speed controller is not working, but if you leave it in manual it does work. This is an energy saving function. We have rather “high end” refrigeration, so the compressor (while it its the same as everyone else’s) is operated with a speed controller that allows it to be more efficient. This speed controller displays the demand that it is sending to the compressor, but does not display what the compressor is doing. Whether the controller is in Auto or Manual it still cools to the setting for temperature. So, what we had was a demand display showing full scale and the compressor not running at all. Once it was shifted to Manual, it cooled right down. I called the company for the controller and was told they don’t sell that style of controller anymore. Bottom line, the refrigerator is working! We went all of last season with it not working. We replaced the compressor, and installed a dryer, and it is possible that all it needed was the switch to be taken to manual!!! Oh well at least it works now.

Reneé and I took down the Canopy, folded it up and currently it is in the cockpit waiting for the sails to go up. While looking for something else, we found the bags for the canopy, and now it is stowed. The canopy is two pieces of canvas that cover the boat from bow to stern and shade the whole boat, it also has two panels on each side that are screens these hang down from the canopy to shade the side and let some air flow through. We also have covers for all the teak. This was an awesome addition to the boat. There was a huge story before in the blog about the canopy, the previous owner had one made, and assumed we got it when we bought the boat, but it apparently got stolen in San Diego. We talked to the brokers involved, the previous owners, and the delivery captain. Eventually decided we were done looking. When we got to La Cruz we found Ivette (a stitch in time) and asked her to make one, it turned out she had made the first one.

While we were walking around getting stuff done in the marina, we chatted with Danny and Robin on All Set For Now.

We bbq’d the tuna, EXCELLENT!!! And had a quiet night.