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G'day Blog fans.
I've finally got hands clean enough and time enough
to write.
What also is incredible is the amount of time,
effort, money, aggravation
(because of the Metric system and the US refusal
to use it), dirt, filth,
that comes with "being on the hard". Yes the boat is
out of the water again.
I say again because it is less than 12 months since
the last time.
We have had a persistent leak in the rudder post
since the Galapagos. This
has nessecated pumping the bildge by hand every few
hours since
then!!!!!!!!!!! This is hopefully being remidided. But the
catch is with
things these is that you don't know is you are successful until
days later
when they put you back in the water. And if you are not
successful it's
another expensive haul out.
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Another pressing reason
to haul was that we lost the depth sounder in the
Tuamotous (we didn't
"loose" it, I mean it stopped working). It's generally always a good idea to
know how much water you're
in. But especially a good idea 'round here and the
other places en route.
The depth sounder pokes out through the bottom of the
boat so to replace it
you have to take the old one out and pug a new one in.
This is best done
when the boat is not sitting in water.\
We have also lost our wind speed /direction in
struiment. So while we were
buying a depth sounder we got a wind instrument.
All this stuff needs larger
holes in the hull (they change the sizes of depth
sounders??/!!!!!
why???/!!!!) a right royal pain in the arse. And even worse
the old wireing
needs to come out and new put in. This may sound easy but the
instruments
are near the bow and the display is near the aft in the cockpit.
On a boat
it is mind-blowing and somewhat soul destroying how hard this task
can be. I
won't go into the details.
A friend is also here and is putting antifoul
paint on his bottom and gives
me his leftovers. So we get a new coat of
antifoul and I get, inevitably.;
some of it on quite a few places on
me.
So "life on the hard" has been extremely busy and
dirty. But unlike Trinidad
it is mercifully cool here in mid
winter.
We should be back in the Pacific on thur 17
Aug.
Soon we will get to
(whisper it...) Bora Bora. Ahhh.
I need a holiday.
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