Transmission break-down

When the shit hits the fan, it’s a bit comforting it does so in a good location and at a reasonably convenient time. Yesterday morning we decided it was time for us to explore a few of the outer motus in the ‘mini-Polynesia’ that the Gambier archipelago offers in approx. 20 by 12 miles of lagoon, sheltered by an almost full outer coral reef. Moving about 5 miles to the northwest a couple of interesting motus (small coral islets on the outer reef) cought our interest and after asking some of the sailors who has been here long term we took off, motoring in a 15 kt breeze out of the ENE.

During th afternoon we hiked the bigger motu which also ios home for the adid irport, and we did some snorkeling in the fairly cool (20C) water. Nice coral, plenty of small fish and some spots that looked like we should be able to catch some lobsters….decision came anonymously to go here with the big boat today in the morning to spend a couple of days, snorkeling and feasting on lobsters.

But, the transmission on our engine had other plans, a quite horrible noice when I put her on gear, and then…sloooow progress, about 2-2,5 knots with 2000 rpm. Slipping clutch probably which in short time would build up heat and wear the plates out completely. Quick decision, again anonymously, up the genoa, engine in neutral an then turned to rest and a fairly quick downwind sail back to the anchorage in Rikitea in time for lunch.

So far the ‘shit’ part; Re: good location – a lot better here than when negotiating a pass into a lagoon in the Tuamotus, that could well spell disaster, also getting parts shipped in here should not be a problem at all, convenient time – again the above mentioned plus we were prepared to hang out here for a while anyway.

Tomorrow I will take the transmission out and assess the damage, then my guesstimate is 1-1,5 months before it’s back in place. In the meantime we keep enjoying the main island of Mangareva and hopefully it will be the ‘cheaper’ parts only that need replacing.

Rikitea; Mangareva; Iles Gambier; Polynesie Francaise

Time flies as usual and we are enjoying our first weeks in this little Paradise, inhabitetd by approx. 1500 polynesians. They have their own language – Mangarevan – which goes a long way to show how isolated they have been here. The Australs to the WSW are 500 miles off, the SE Tuamotus a bit less and Tahiti around 900 miles to NW and finally Marquesas 800 miles NNW. Provisioning here is different from anywhere else we’ve been. There are 3-4 tiny stores (and a bakery!) with some frozen meat, canned food etc. A supply ship shows up every 2-3 weeks and spends a full day oflaoding and reloading it’s holds. In our innocent ignorance, we assumed that the stores would be full with goodies the next few days, but not so. The locals buy all the frozen food (like NZ lamb, entrecote and chcken from Argentina) as it comes off the ship, and then store it in freezeers in their homes. Needless to say the net tie a ship came in, we were quick to go ashore to get our share. In terms of veggie
s, carrots, onion and potatoes are regularly found in the stores, but no fruit whatsoever. Once we started waling around the little town and got to speak to people, we are getting all the fruit we are able to consume. Bananas, pamplemousse (maybe best described as grape-fruit on steroids- the are huge!), papaya and Uru (breadfruit). Breadruit is delicious and eaasily replaces potatoes, yucca or whatever source of starch one might be accustomed to.

The weather is a bit ‘comme ci-comme ca’ though. The water temperature is 22 C and will go down to 20 as the southern winter is approaching. The air is arond 25 C but can b as low as 13 during winter. The anchorage, right off the wharf, is very safe. Open to E-SE with a fetch of 5-8 miles inside the lagoon may sound a bit scary, but the reefs takes most of the energy out of chop so it is n fact well protected and never rolly at all.

A couple of days ago, we hiked across the hills( Mt Duff is the highest mountain right behind us at 422 m) to the other side of the island and back. There are 5-6 more islands to explore, some of them inhabited, others not, and a few atolls on the outer reef too, to provide a taste of the Tuamotus. We expect to explore those the net week or two before heading up to the Marquesas. As some of you remember, we both love being in the water, snorkeling and freediving and it will be too cold here during the winter. Also, a lot of wind and some rain as the weather pattern here is a 5-11 day cycle of series of mighty Highs to the south with troughs in between with convergence (means gusty winds and rain in squalls).

Our revised plan is therefore to do a couple stops in the Tuamotu group of atolls en route to the Marquesas before returning here to spend the net Hurricane season (also the southern summer) here in Gambier before next fall (about a year from now) heading to the Societeies (Tahiti, Moorea, Raiatea, Huahine and Bora-Bora)

Paradise Found!

After a long and rather slow passage from Colombia (6 weeks and 3 hours at sea) we made landfall in French Polynesia – in Gambier Islands where we are anchored off the main settlement Rikitea on the Island of Mangareva.

Beatiful place, the town is clean, all houses well kept and the gardens full of plants, flowers and tropical fruit. We’ll stay at least a month here, maybe longer if we like it and make friends with some locals. A year in French Polynesia is what we want.

Internet is extremely pricy and sloooow) here so the photos will have to wait until somewhere else.

The passage was slow partially because the extreme growth we got on Nanna¨s bottom about 2 weeks out. I had to go in the water a week later – when the conditions admitted it- to scrape the goose-necks off the hull. A special – fascinating as well as a bit scary – experience to swim around the boat in crystal clear deep blue water with about 4000 meters to the bottom. All went well, no big White came around to have me for lunch, and afterwards Nanna was almost 1,5 knots faster. The trade winds were quite illusive and usually not very consistent. Normally from Southeast here, we encountered northerlies, southerlies and even winds out of the west !) for several days. Throw in a few calms, and something between 50 and 100 squalls and you´ll understand that we stayed quite busy night and day. The squalls are worst at night of course, since it¨s almost impossible to see them coming on an overcast sky. This means that in between them, we sailed ´chicken-style´ – reefed down, i.e. with too little sail area and thus slower than otherwise. A sudden 40 knot wind at night with full sails upp is NOT fun.

We were in daily radio contact with a group of boats heading from Galapagos to the Marquesas 13 degrees north of us and they seemed to have better winds. It was a fantastic feeling to be so much on our own though… We saw only 3 other vessels at sea during the last 5 weeks! One sailboat, a Danish containership and a Japanese ´tuna clipper´. Those darn Japanese won´t give up until the last tuna is dead, the whole species extinct.. Sad, but unfortunately true.

No other signs of human activity either in weeks, no airplanes, not even any plastic junk floating around in the ocean (well, this part of it!) Just the ever changing sea-scape and the sky. At night an incredible starry sky where I got the impression I could reach out and touch the Milky Way, it seemed so close.

We did a 2 day detour, hard on the wind,, to be able to make a short stop at Pitcairn, 300 miles SE of here. Since there is no real harbour or protected anchorage over there, we had to anchor at the leeward side of the island ( in 20 knot of wind and a 2 meter swell) and then carefully go ashore with the dinghy. Thanks to Richard and Jes on their custom built 60 ft aluminum catamaran Elcie, we made it ashore in their rugged aluminum dinghy with a strong outboard. We spent about 6 hours on this paradise island, best known as the home of the descendants of the Mutineers from Bounty.
The people on the Island are very friendly to visiting boats and helpful in every possible way. We would have loved to stay longer, but the wind was forecast to pick up and the locals advised against going ashore the following day.

So at sunset, we set sail again and steered ENE for Gambier, another 300 miies.

Total miles sailed: 3850 and we only ran the engine for 2 hours out of Tumaco and another couple of hours entering the 22 mile wide lagoon at Gambier.

Our best day was 146 miles and the average not more than around 100. The ´worst´day´s run was 29 miles when we were becalmed almost the whole day 250 miles SE of the Galapagos. The trades seem to be constantly disturbed around there.

I had expected 125 miles a day on average with 150 (6 knots average speed) in 20 knots of wind, but the winds were not consistent enough to enable this. Supposedly ( as statistically speaking) the trades get more consistent and stronger too, the farter west we go.

LIFE is so fragile – and the Disaster is never far behind…

My Granny always said that bad news never arrives alone…think she added that they come in groups of three, probably having something to do with the BIblical trinity, as 3 is a ‘magical number’ of sorts in many different cultures.

 

So far, I have got two bad news to tell, and I have no wish to have to get a third one!

 

The local fishermen are darting by NANNA daily, heading out in the early morning and returning when they’re done for the day. Many very simple dugout canoes work their way even against the tide when they have to. I ‘ve been waving and smiling to all of them since we arrived, at least when I am on deck or in the cockpit and when I actually see them. Some don’t wave back, but just stare in a sullen fashion. Most wave back, making a ‘thumbs up’ gesture and smiling. A few young boys came over to NANNA, curious about us since they do not see many foreign vessels. And then an older man, always alone in his homemade canoe, paddling slowly and seemingly tired started comeing by and selling me some of his catch every other day or so, most likely when he had had a good day. Very friendly and polite we always exchange a few words and some big smiles. One particular day though, once I had paid him and he already had cast off NANNA, he said- almost in a casual tone of voice-  that his 15 year old son got killed with a machete in another part of Tumaco they day before. Stunned, I just looked at him in disbelief for a few seconds, until his eyes told me that was no joke…. A life lost. A young life, full of dreams, of hope, and possibly of fear too. I will never know if the boy was involved in some ‘bad guys’ activities or if it was just a case of meaningless atrocity.

 

After a stuttered ‘Oh, that’s terrible I am so sorry to hear it’ that I heard myself say, he left me in a state of deep sorrow for the rest of the day. We are on an ‘everlasting vacation’ in the view of most people, and write our blogs as a series of innocent little ‘adventures’ and explorations in what is often a bit superficial touristy manners. Yet the real life is going on all around us, we become part of it or a while, then we heave anchor and take off over the horizon to the next ‘Paradise’ on our list. On an occasion like this, I really feel how unfair life is on this planet. A few have so much, materially and in terms of security, both socially and literally, while so many others still in the 21st century hardly have anything, but keep challenging life each new day.

 

The above related story happened while Isabelle went together with Jorge to his finca (farm) in the moountains of Central Colombia for a week. Naturally I wanted to go too, to see some of the interior of this big country, only second to Brazil in terms of the variety in flora and fauna in all of South América. Since I was worried about leaving the boats here, due to the fact that the holding is not that good, I decided to stay put and look after the boats and also work on NANNA as described in the previous post.

 

A couple days after the bad news from the fisherman, I received an email from Isa, telling me that they got robbed in Jorge’s finca a Friday night. Four men, heavily armed and wearing masks over their faces, suddenly came into the house and kept Isa and Jorge for over three hours. Cash, computers, cameras, cell phones, and of course; debit and credit cards. They threatened to kill them if they didn’t gave their PIN codes to them. Two of the men guarded them in the kitchen of the finca, while the other two took off to town to withdraw cash on the cards. It’s not easy here in Colombia to get money on ATM machines with our foreign cards, it seems like only one or two banks accept them and not at every office either. So the armed robbers came back to the finca, believing that Isa gave them the wrong pin code. I am very thankful to Jorge, who managed to make them believe that since her card is French, most Colombian banks do not accept it. In fact he can get cash himself, in just one bank inn his home town. So with this, they gave the cards back, after a thouogh wipe with a cloth to eliminate fingerprints, and took off.

 

Isa lost her new Netbook that she bought back in France in November, the camera I just had given her and a couple of USB sticks. Unfortunately, she had the first few chapters of the novel she started writing at the finca on one of those USB sticks. They also took a gold ring she got from her parents on her 18th birthday. Jorge lost more obviously. Most notably the wages for his workers that he was to pay them the day after. Also, he lost some  of his innocence in regard to this type of crime, and Isa told me he just wanted to sell the finca and take off on his boat. Too early for that, in a few more years that will happen I am sure, but he got over it.

 

As scary as this experience no doubt was, it could have been a lot worse. A lot worse, I do not have to say any more.

 

Jorge, a true ‘caballero‘ (gentleman) of the real kind, felt so bad towards Isa for what happened, he even bought her a new computer once back here in Tumaco.

 

A very nice man and a good friend found here in the ‘wild west’. I sincerely wish him all the best with all his projects at the finca AND his dream to go cruising full time on his boat once his son is old enough to try out his own wings.

 

When I am typing these lines, we are almost ready to leave for Gambier Islands, in the southeastern part of French Polynesia. French Polynesia is a part of the vast Pacific Ocean covering an area as big as Europe(!) and we are planning to spend at least a year and a half there. This means a few months in Gambier, then a few more n the atolls of Tuamoto before heading north to the Marquesas to spend the next hurricane season (Dec-March) there before heading to the Society Islands, first of them the main town Papeete on Tahiti Island.

 

The passage from Tumaco to Gambier is about 3700 nautical miles and will probably take us around 4 weeks, very much depending on how long it will take us to  ‘get out’ of the notoriously light and variable winds between here and the Galapagos Islands. We’ve loaded as much provisions as we can onbard NANNA and will add fresh produce just before we laeave. Looking forward to trade wind sailing for change!

 

///M

 

P.S. Isabelle’s own story from the inland trip is -in french- on hre blog. Link to the right on this site. D.S.

7.1 on the Richter Scale – and yet some more Boat projects

I am ata sñow internet place so no pics this time. Will upload some to the Flickr account ASAP

Life afloat never gets dull or boring. A few days ago we experienced an earthquake 7.1 on the Richter scale. It was on land, near a town called Pasto some 250-350 kms from here up in the mountain chain. The weird thing is that we felt it in the water. At anchor in 25 ft/ 7 mtr of water. It felt like we touched ground, gently a few times on a soft bottom. Good thing we have Colombias Oceanographic Center on the premises with their tsunami warning system. I had already had the pleasure of using one of their computers to get the information I needed to get Airmail up and running on the new computer, so I am quite familiar with their ‘control room’ where a huge wide-screen monitor is the heart – instantly showing every seismic event on the planet. They are not too interested in the terrestrial quakes though since tsunamis are their priority.

Anyway, from what we heard on our radio, despite the rather severe quake, no severe damage were reported and life went back to normal soon enough. Of course, Isabelle ad I, together with Jorge on the other anchored boat had a brain exercise as what to do if a tsunami would be coming this way. Given at least an hours notice, going to sea is the right thing to do, even of there is a few miles from here to deep (and safe) water. If the warning would come (too) late, the only reasonable thing to do would be to abandon ship and get high and dry on land.

The margins are quite small at times, disaster a possibiltiy. On our way here from Ecuador on my watch one night a smallish coastal freighter almost run us down coming from behind. With our brand new LED tricolor masthead navigation light, there is no way he didn’t see us. That is, if someone actually was on the bridge keeping a visual ( or radar for that matter) lookout as every ship has to according to the rules….. so I have to assume that for whatever reason there were no one in the bridge. I couldn’t see the name or flag of the vessel and didn’t bother to call them on the VHF. No one on the bridge means no one on the radio. And some people are grunting about the occassional single-handed sailor who cannot always keep a proper lookout.

We’ve enjoyed the carneval a couple of days but missed the probably most interesting one due to a heavy rain shower that kept us busy collecting rain water and doing a much wanted laundry. Priorities as a cruising sailor. We feel very secure here with a 24 hour a day guard, with automatic weapon and all, on the dock about 50 meters from NANNA. It’s as perfect a place as any to do some boat projects and spend a few weeks of the Southern Pacific Cyclone Season. A tropical storm (45 knots gusting to 55) passed 5-6 hundred miles west of the Societies and faded out due west of Gambier since we arrived. Untypically close, but I guess this storm hasn’t read the statistics and the historical charts as I have ;-/

Boat projects: The sea water leak we experienced while motoring on our way here was NOT the stuffing box as I assumed. Since we had some problems with the box earlier I might be excused. Actually it turned out to be a corroded hose clamp on the exhaust hose right where it exits the hull at the stern. This happens to be the most (?) inaccessible clamp on the boat though. It took the 2 of us a whole afternoon to replace it. Isa snaking herself through the quarter bunk around the thruhulls for the bilgepumps to hold the new hose clamp in place with a long dowel while I somehow squeezed myself between the ruder post and the linear drive for the autopilot, while the compressor to the fridge threatened to fracture my ribs. In this interesting position I could barely reach out and tightening the clamp with a screwdriver. No wonder that one was due….guess he wasn’t replaced in a few years.

Since I was quite literally stuck down in the engine room anyway, I spent the next days checking all other hoses and clamps too. An oil change, a check of the valve clearance and as a final act of obsessive mechanical inclination, I even disconnected the propeller shaft from the coupler to be able to check the engine alignnment. This latest project has been nagging my mind since a while. Alignment was good, to my surprise, since my feeling has been that we do have a bit of vibration while motoring. The cause for this vibration was found the previous day, when I discovered that the nuts on the engine mounts was indeed not very tight. Three out of four were loose enough to cause trouble so another checking point on every other oil change or so. To get at these nuts I had to buy 2 twenty-four millimeter box wrenches. Due to very poor access sideways on all four of them and also from above on one, I had to cut these wrenches with a hack saw to a length that could actually fit in this space. Very small increments with each new grip with the wrench for sure, but it did work.

I am a quite persistent and even stubborn guy, but after spending a couple of otherwise nice evenings trying to figure out why I couldn’t make Airmail to work on the new computer I had to give up and send an e-mail to Jim Corenman, the developer of this free software( and I believe, also the creator of Saildocs and Sailmail) with my settings and configuration. This gentleman, to whom all sailors who depend on HF radio based e-mail and more important weather charts and -files, are so greatful, answered me promptly and Voilá! I now got it all up and running. Since Bahía de Caraquez was like a black hole in terms of radio propagation I was not able to check if it was really working there. Thanks to the Capitania and the Oceanographic Office here, were they kindly let me use their good internet connection, this too is solved.

Right now I’ve been busy replacing our vintage radar with a new(-er) one. Since the one that came with the boat is 26 years old, spares are getting hard to find, so therefore I have been quite happy using the radom for the new one as a footrest under the salon table during a year or so. Thank you so much, Bill and Kat on ‘Island Bound’ and we hope to see you down the road in a year or three. ( we do tend to stay quite a while in places we like and it will be hard to leave Latin America in a couple weeks. We”ll be back one day!

There are actually two more reasons for not replacing the old radar. First, it is a better radar, with better resolution and lobe angles etc., but after successfully having repaired it myself on 2-3 occasions I had to give up this time. The other reason is, of course that it is quite a project. The radom, or antenna unit, is mounted on the mast above the spreaders and it took the two of us the better part of a day to get the old radom down and the new one in place, and route the new cable through the mast to the bilge. Then it too me almost 2 more days to hook it all up, install the screen but most of all – route the cable through most of the boat, hidden under cabinets and bulkheads, to the nav. station.

I am OK with working on the boat, but it’s quite a nuisance to live n board while everything is turned upside down and inside out….

So , now it’s just to – via trial and error – determine how much higher the radom has to be than it’s predecessor, in order for the micrawaves to not be disturbed by the SS bracket that protects it from the staysail and the occasionally stray halyard that could otherwise damage it. The old unit was higher and the mounting bracket tailor made for it so it takes some consideration. I have bought some pieces of dense tropical wood for the purpose, and after tryin it all out, I’ll cut them and give them a coat of epoxi and then paint before finishing the installation

Lots of talk of boat chores here, just to let you know we’re busy. ‘Cruising is doing boat repair in exotic places’ – Yeah, very true at times

Back soon with more// M

The Spell of Latin America

We both love latin America. We both did love it for a long time. Perhaps no wonder it is holding us in a firm grip now for over 2 years.

what’s so special about it?

The music. Rumba, cumbia and many more. A melting pot of indigenous, african and european influences. Mmmmm!

The people. Always smiling, always welcoming and helpful, always going out of their way to help you around.

I remember as especially interesting the couple of weeks we spent in Nicaragua.(the second poorest country in the western hemisphere). When we took the bus to a bigger town for a day, everyone, and I mean everyone; warned us about ladrones, thieves,and to be very careful. we assume even the ladrones warned us, or else we were just lucky to never encounter them despite visits in some rather rough bars…maybe be shared a beer or two with some really bad guys without knowing in a sort of ‘ignorance is bliss’ fashion.

No, don’t really think so….we are pretty experienced travellers and always keep an eye out in crowds and bigger cities. A bit of luck at times, which makes me recall a qoute from Ingmar Stenmark (swedish downhill skier, arguably the best ever) when a journalist said ‘you were lucky today to win with 2/100s of a second.
‘Maybe, but I’ve noticed that the harder I train, the luckier I get’. ;-D Good one!

Anyway, speaking spanish helps a lot. I for one would love South East Asia, for itś food and again, very nice people (buddhism rules, right?) but over there, communication will be harder for sure.

So why these random thoughts on the blog? Well, it’s time to leave this continent soon enough. We will miss it, infa ct we are already missing Mexico and especially Baja California. The Southern Pacific has to be something very special too, and food for my dreams since my teens.

A tropical storm (winds around 45 knots, gusting to 55) is right now moving ESE about 500 miles west of Gambier, our next destination. This hurricane season is a comparatively benign one, just 4 so far. The season officially lasts to the end of April, but in a couple of weeks we should cast off from here and arrive Gambier about a month later.

Plans do change

Ours has, and they did once again. Two days before we left Bahía, with our Zarpe (international clearing out document) we met a Colombian sailor, Jorge, who has kept his boat in Bahía for a few years. As it happens among sailors, we made immediate friends and when he proposed (the very morning we left!) that Tumaco, the closest port in Colombia, would be a nice stopover, and to be able to leave NANNA there while visiting his finca (farm) up in the mountains…. the decision was pretty easy for us, albeit made in a haste.

Isabelle and I just had to establish a few seconds of eye contact before I nodded to Jorge, and said: -Yes, why not? Another country and another adventure…. besides, officailly the hurricane season in the Southern Pacific lasts until end of MArch at least, so another advantage. The primary reason for us to leave Ecuador now, was the fact that my -already extended- visa expired.
Since our Zarpe was for French Polynesia, Jorge told us the cost guard in Tumaco could be a bit curious about our detour (approx. 200 miles)so under way, we joked about engine problems etcetera we would have top claim to convince them.
Never call for the Troll, or he´ll be at your doorstep.

We did in fact develop a few problems, we took on buceket or two of seawater while motoring, I could not make the newly installed Airmail software to work with the new computer.(important source of weather info, and e-mail) and some other minor nuisances.

Once in port after an uneventful and slow passage in vry light winds and varying currents(Gulf of Panamá) the sea water leak turned out to be a mere hose-clamp that had corroded and popped off…. easy fix, but it took both of us half a day since it happens to be in the most ´hard-to get-at´part of the boat. I tried to squeeze my poor body in between the rudder post and the fridge unit, while Isa assisted from the rear end of the quarter berth, snaking her upper upper body around 3-4 heavy thruhulls for bilgepumps.

´nuff said, it´s dealt with and all is well with NANNA again. Our location is quite interesting. We are anchored off a combined coast guard/Navy base and are passing through their premises every time we go on shore. A guard with automatic weapon 24/7 in a watch tower at the end of the dock some 50-70 meters from our boat. Well, we feel very safe here, and they are all incredibly polite, and helpful. Armed forces around the world could come to Colombia to study decent behaviour! ;.)

A short bus ride away is the town itself, the busiest most bustling one we´ve visited since Mexico. Like it!

NANNAS own kiosko or bar….obviously we couldnt pass this one by!

Today, 7 Feb, the Carnaval starts and keeps on for 6 days. (not nights for security reasons) Yeeehah! A bit f partying can´t hurt?!

Will update on that later, internet access hasn´t been very easy plus we´ve been very busy -again!- on fixing various boat issues.

Plan is to leave at the end of the month for ….. yes! -still the Gambier….or maybe MArquesas after all?….erh…. we´ll see, there are still a few weeks, and by now, you should know that a lot of things can happen!

Cheers//M P.S More photos uploaded to the Flickr account! just click on more pictures to the right D.S.

To Sea at last!

We’ve been busy getting provisions onboard for the 3500 miles (approx. 30 days at sea) passage to the SW with landfall at Gambier Island group, Isle Mangareva and the main village Rikitea. Provisions are said to be few and pricy over there so we have really tried out NANNAs reserve bouyancy and probably lowered her waterline almost an inch (2,5 cm) Inexpensive Ecuadorian diesel in jerry cans on deck (don’t like it, but well, it’s supposed to be a quite peaceful passage and the fule will be 8 times as costly down the road. Water tanks full, ‘tons’ of cans, rice, beans and other staples and of course a fridge full with perishable goods and a variety of fruit and veggies all over the cabin. No bananas in the rigging though, there’s our limit!

Tomorrow, Tuesday at high tide, we’re taking off with a local pilot to take us over the sand bar in the entrance to the estuary.

From now on we’ll be on our own, the 2 of us in what the US sailor and writer Webb Chiles has called “the Monastery of the Sea”. Normally we should experience a rather nice downwind sail in the SE trades from the Equator to around 23 degrees South and 135 West. We hope to be able to post some short notes during the passage from our HAM (amateur radio) rig onboard. If propagation and the atmospheric conditions are favourable it should work.

Also our position can be followed at shiptrak.org. Just enter our callsign KJ6NYJ in the upper left corner of the screen and chose how far back you want to track NANNA

Jury repairs on board NANNA

By now, I start wonder if my best ‘sport’ isn’t doing jury repairs. Not that anything truly essential has ever yet broken on NANNA, or any other of my previous boats for that matter, but it seems more and more clear that any minor replacement or maintenance job leads to unexpected situations. Mostly so due to lack of chandleries or even well assorted hard ware stores anywhere near wherever NANNA happens to be at any given moment.

To some extent this was already experienced on RÖDE ORM in the Algarve, Portugal area, where chandleries exist, but very pricy indeed and not always well-stocked. Now, after two years in Mexico, Central America and Ecuador this has become even more evident. Needless to say, heading out onto the vast Pacific Ocean for the fore-seeable future will definitely give us more experience in the noble art of living without (as in unreplaceable or unrepairable boat ‘systems’) or simply doing without. The latter is probably the best strategy given it’s chosen from the beginning, i. e. before going cruising.

Let me share the latest example. A seemingly simple task evolves (?) into a series of events spanning several days. Here it goes:

Almost a year ago while at anchor in Acapulco, a Frigate bird sat down at the mast head on NANNA and thus broke our ‘windex’.( The windex -a worldwide spread swedish product ;-D) is a plastic arrow that always shows the sailor the wind relative wind angle when the boat is under way. An inexpensive, low-tech, and very useful item on a sailboat. Since we, much to my surprise, hrrrmmm, didn’t carry a spare onboard, we soon learned to live without – the windex.
While I was back in Sweden I bought a replacement of course. A windex consists of two parts. The plastic arrow and an aluminum rod which it’s fastened to with a threaded part on the needle bearing at the bottom to let it move freely 360 degrees. I assumed that I would be fine with a nwe arrow since I cold see from deck level that the rod was still in place on the aft side of the masthead.

A couple days ago my ‘to-do’ list before our next passage were getting alarmingly short, so I could no longer excuse myself for procrastinating climbing the mast to install the new windex together with a new tricor navigation light that Isabelle brought from France. It’s not much fun to try doing some work while hanging in a bosuns chair at the top of the mast while stretching upwards and hanging on with one arm while trying to handle small screws, wires and such with the other….hence the procrastination.

Anyway, much to my surprise I soon discovered that the fitting on the alu rod didn’t at all match my new windex arrow! Down again I went with the rod starting to scratch my poor head trying to create a solution to this new problem. Yes, JURY REPAIRS! OK, first I considered using a nut, but attaching a (stainless) steel nut to aluminium is not that obvious, welding beiing out of the question for obvious reasons. So the next idea was to get a scrap piece of aluminum the size and shape of a dice, then tap it so the threads wold fit after having it welded to the aluminum rod. Quite proud of this brilliant (?) idea I took out on town on foot to find a welder. Already seen quite a few shops and at least one of them ought to have the equipment to tack a couple of small pieces of aluminium, right? Uh, it took me a couple of hours walking from one to the other, asking my way (speaking spanish does help) before I finally located a shop that worked on aluminum. -yes, he could weld it for me, but -no, he did not have single little piece of material! Wondering how the h**l he could do any work then, I kindly asked if he could by any chance point me to a place where I could find some aluminum in town. He gave a somewhat vague comment about several little shops downtown that does window frames and such from extrusioned alu profiles. That would possibly work but they are too thin to be able to tap threads into….so back to the brainstorming ‘jury repairing’ mode again;

Eureka! Here’s the final solution. Funky as few but working!

A piece of extrusion approx. 1”x1” welded on the rod. I then sealed the ‘bottom’ of it Sikaflex, taped it to the stainless leg of the steering pedestal in the cockpit and poured a small batch of polyester in it and carefully set the arrow on top, with the threaded part well down the resin and taped it too, to the pedestal to make sure it wouldn’t move during the cure of the resin.

Not pretty, time consuming to ‘dream up’ and make, but HEY! -it WORKS.

As I mentined above, the list of boat projects is short, as it should given we’re leaving in 8-12 days for French Polynesia. Provisioning, taking on fuel and water, and a bottom cleaning is pretty much all that’s left.

Regarding our longer term plans, we are considering spending next years cyclone season in the Marquesas which would give us almost 2 years to cruise this special part of the world. I have been dreaming about it since my early teens. The final decision on this cannot be taken until late autumn when the forecast regarding El Nino/La Nina events start coming. Also, it depends on how we like it of course. First Gambier then we’ll see.

New Year Celebration – the Manabí, Ecuador way

Beside parties, fireworks and lots of good food and beverage, kinda like we’re used to on New Years Eve, the Ecuadorianos has another specialty. They make dolls, small ones, bigger ones and the odd HUGE doll out of papier maché on a ‘skeleton’ of wood slats or whatever are at hand and does the job.

Elaborately faired and painted they are burnt after midnight. Everyone seems to do it, so lots of dolls and lots of fires…

From what we’re told the dolls sometimes symbolize something from the old year that they want to leave behind. Understandable, but apparently the doll can also symbolize something wished for the year to come.

below a few samples