Work Before Play...dull, dull, dull

Now that I've gotten our inland travel itinerary all set, I'm anxious to take off and doing chores seems  pretty dull. I have visions of all the wonderful animals we'll see and the cultural centers and museums we'll visit and the food we'll try and … My mind wanders constantly to what I will be doing versus what I am doing or should be doing. Nevertheless, the deal is we have to complete some specific chores before leaving on our land tour. My to-do list is always shorter than David's (praise the Lord!), but it always seems to take me about as much time to complete mine as it does for him. The wool-gathering and mind-wandering take their toll on my productivity, I guess. I began my chores in earnest the other day tackling the cleaning of the starboard water tank. It had some unwanted particles floating around in it and it was overdue for a cleaning. We filter the water between the tank and the faucet, but still the tank needed to be emptied out and wiped clean and dry with a cloth. The water pump had done its job to empty the tank as much as it could and I foot-pumped as much more out as possible. The water tank is located under the drawers in the forward bunk which had to be removed before getting to work. I removed the inspection hatch (8 bolts)  before I lay belly down on the floor and scrunched myself into the opening. It isn't hard work; it's just awkward and tedious. I used a sponge to get out the rest of the water and then clean cloths to wipe and dry out the inside of the tank. A  dowel came in handy when I couldn't reach the far corners. It only took a couple of hours, but it was something to tick off my list.

Next, I tackled the Nine of Cups nameboards. One had been damaged at some point and needed to be totally stripped. This posed a problem when I determined that the heat gun which usually removes old varnish had no effect on the Uroxsys urethane we had used on the nameboards last. Uh, oh! I ended up scraping off as much as I could during the course of an entire day, then David took over hand sanding the rest later on. What a slow, messy process. To make matters worse, the nameboards were not on the original to-do list. David added them because he was refinishing another piece for the base of the replacement cockpit clutches, and since the nameboards needed to be done, why not include them? It was a joint effort, but we finally got them prepped. Gilding to follow.

Sewing projects were mounting up and I had put them off as long as possible. Nothing's ever easy on a boat. Since we don't have shore power, David had to lug out our little gas generator, so I could use the sewing machine. UV plays havoc with  fabric that's exposed, especially the stitching.  I use a good UV-resistant thread when I'm sewing, but even so, after awhile, the stitching breaks down and needs to be re-sewn. Case in point: the mainsail cover … again. It's big and bulky and stitching it down below is always a wrestling match, but necessary to protect the mainsail. Our homemade canvas bucket was  also suffering from sun exposure and needed a little restitching. David mentioned he'd like some new ditty bags for holding various parts and tools. I cut up the old bimini and salvaged chunks of useable Sunbrella fabric which provided ample material for the half dozen new bags he'd ordered. I handled more mundane hand-sewing projects like replacing missing buttons off various shirts and pants. All in all, a full day of patching, re-stitching and sewing. I didn't get it all done, however, there's some patching to be done on fender covers, but they can wait for the next sewing session.

We're making progress on the chores and it appears we'll finish most by the time we're ready to leave on our trip. Truth be told, I think the captain is just as anxious to begin our inland adventure as I am.

This Side ... That Side

While I've been busy visiting, carousing and generally enjoying family and the holiday season on this side of world (and incidentally freezing my butt off), my captain has been working hard on Nine of Cups and sweating bullets in Africa. Seems hardly fair! I spent a weekend visiting cousins and aging aunties. Here's an excerpt from one of David's emails to give you an idea of the type of weekend he's just experienced ...

“I had a trying day. Nothing seemed to go as planned. The flowcoat fumes were quite annoying with everything open, but then the clouds rolled in and it started raining, so I had to close the hatches and all the starboard ports, making the fumes quite strong. It should have kicked and cured in a few hours, but as of this morning, it is still tacky and stinky. I had written on the can how many drops of MEKP to add to a tablespoon of flowcoat, but either this flowcoat takes a different amount or what I had written was wrong. (He learned later it was 10 drops, not 3-4!).  I'm hoping I can put another coat over it and get it all to kick - if not, I will have to remove the whole mess with a scraper and acetone and start over. I'll do some research, then try a small patch and see. Meanwhile, I closed the doors to the aft cabin, put a couple fans on in there, and planned on sleeping on the settee. I thought with the headache I was getting from the fumes, I'd quit a little early before the Tradewinds Restaurant closed and have dinner out. I brought my shower bag and the computer, so I could send some pix to Gentry, and headed over in the rain. I forgot that Tradewinds closes early on Sunday. I also forgot to download the pix from the stick in the camera. I didn't feel like going over to the other yacht club, so I just showered (hardly necessary with the downpour) and went back to Cups.

When I got back, I thought that a nice cottage pie would be just the thing to cheer me up. I had some fresh mince (hamburger), which I browned with onions, boiled some potatoes, and opened a can of corn. Then I realized that Worcestershire sauce was still on the shopping list. I must say, cottage pie made with barbeque sauce just isn't the same.

What else? Oh yeah … I filled the water tank yesterday, then noticed the bilge pump was continually cycling on and off. This went on for a good half hour or so, until I finally decided it was more than what I could blame on the tank overflow. I shut it off for the day and will investigate later. Last night the wind began increasing and when I got up to check on things, I noticed the wind gen was not putting out any amps. It was spinning nicely – just no output. So I shut it down and I will need to investigate this as well.

But today is sunny and nice, and surely will be a better day.”

I think I'll call him Saint David for awhile.

Chores...Chores...Chores

How many times have we said it? Cruising is repairing your boat (and doing chores) in exotic places.  All of our ports of call while crossing the Indian Ocean have qualified as exotic and of course, we had lots of chores to accomplish in all of them. The to-do list was long when we arrived at each port, but this last passage has knocked it through the roof. We broke out a new notebook to record the to-do's and make lists of required purchases. They'll be no time for lazing around in a hammock while we're in Durban, that's for sure.

We've not left the marina since our check-in excursion the other day. Our noses have been to the grindstone. David will regale you in future posts about his progress and challenges, but suffice it to say, he won't be bored from lack of things to do here. We got the foresails down and stowed and he's already servicing the furlers.  I'm tackling the stainless at the moment, which is in an incredibly ugly state.

We were making good progress when a single-hander friend asked if we could help him move his boat to a berth. Sure!  We dinghied out with him to the anchorage and helped with lines as he adeptly maneuvered his catamaran into a rather tight spot. We headed back to Cups to resume our work.

Lots of folks stopped by to chat and then came a dockhand to tell us that the owner of our berth had unexpectedly returned and we needed to move as quickly as possible. Sigh! We were all tied up nicely, powered up and now we had to move. By the time we walked over to the other jetty to check out the new berth, walked back, got disconnected and off the dock, the wind had piped up. We made the move and got all situated again, but we lost two hours total before we were back to work again. Whole new neighborhood; lots of new neighbors. Not much accomplished. The views of downtown are good though.

We ended the evening by meeting up with friends on two Aussie cruising boats, Ocean Wanderer and Mi Corazon, who had just made the same passage as we had. We commiserated and regaled ourselves with sailor's tales over dinner. It's always nice to know that we're not the only ones who have gear failures at sea and crappy weather.