Blog #22 Cruising on a yacht is just fixing it in exotic places
Cassini's blog
Simon and Sally, Nigel and Catherine
Thu 14 Sep 2023 19:49
| Cruising on a yacht is just fixing it in exotic places Today we finished the last of the bacon that we had bought from the UK. It was treated with sufficient reverence: eggs, toast and mushrooms, together with a cup of proper coffee from the mocha pot; toast and marmalade to follow. On to fixing things: the life we now lead is often referred to by our sailing friends as just doing yacht repair in exotic places. The sun is shining today, the ice cream is delicious and the prawns and squid that we cooked in a seafood risotto in the Ninja this evening, were delicious and great value, so I guess that this place counts! Looking back at ‘the list’, repairs to head lining on the port side port light, an oval window in the hull above the waterline, has been there since we bought Cassini, and had several efforts at repair. Today it’s had the full ‘contact adhesive’ treatment. So far so good. I’ll let your know. Engine checks. These are daily under engine, but today, more lubricating oil and coolant added. We’ve done some 200 hours on the engine this year since our ‘annual’ service interval (250 hours). So that’s about a year’s worth of running in six months so far. This is in many respects a ‘delivery’ to the Canarie; we have a target destination and a time we need to be there, so not entirely unexpected. Once we get to the Caribbean we will hope to wait for the wind to be in the right direction before we go somewhere, rather than rely on the engine to get us there - that’s the plan anyway. Hopefully with some wind, mostly in the right direction for the next two to three weeks, we can hold out until the Canaries to do these engine jobs. We’ve had a broken hinge on the forward hatch that’s also been on our ’to-do’ list for a while. We’ve tried Gorilla glue (failed), today we went to trusty two-part Araldite - my go-to favourite glue since my days of working on underwater ship stern seals in Deep Sea Seals Ltd. I decided, given the forces involved around the hatch to support it half open, to add a small extra piece of material which I fashioned from an off-cut of walkway that we found near the bins (the marina are replacing all the old timber walkways with composite). Waste not want not. Fingers crossed the new hinge works just fine when we fit tomorrow. The big news though today (for me), is that the new windlass gearbox and motor has arrived (pictured below). We had to borrow a trolley from the chandlers, because it’s so heavy, to get it back onboard. Tomorrow morning, before it gets too hot, Nigel and I will be contorting ourselves around the anchor locker to fit and test the new parts - we’ll be on our way back to anchor in Coruna afterwards. A few weeks now into the live-aboard cruising life, one of the small comforts I have been thinking more about, has been a more comfy seat to have at the back of the boat by the helm, to sit and steer from for hours on end (if necessary) and keep a good lookout (always necessary). We saw in one of the other sailing blogs, a rather expensive, but adjustable, robust and comfortable foam seat. I’ve procrastinated for some years on this, but in Sada, our friendly chandler Javi was able to oblige (for a price) and we’ve actually gone and bought two! ARC+ Atlantic crew to note - Nigel and I have first dibs ;-) Hoping that the repairs go well tomorrow, and our second ’seat’ arrives on time, we’ll be on our way, hopefully under sail, to one of our favourite anchorages back in Coruna tomorrow night, before heading further west and south on Saturday. Simon   |
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