Saturday 23 August – Reconnected

Where Next?
Bob Williams
Sun 24 Aug 2014 05:37

Alongside St Paul Harbor, Kodiak
Weather:
rain, cool

There has not been a lot to write about over the last several days hence the inactivity on my blog, but I thought I had best give a brief update so that friends and family do not start to worry about my quiescence.

My time during the day, as per usual, has been taken up with working on the boat and I am pleased to be able to report a couple of wins. Most importantly the satellite phone that a fellow cruiser and friend is lending me arrived yesterday. Today I set it up and tested it and it seems to be working. I will test it a few more times over the next several days to ensure that the connection was not a fluke, and that my communication problems are in fact solved. It will be nice to be able to get back into my daily blog update routine.

A second win, and something I had not planned on, was reconnecting a copper tube that leads from a grease nipple adjacent the cockpit locker to the rudder post bearing. This tube had broken years ago and I had repaired it by bypassing the tub and screwing a grease nipple directly into the rudder post. This solution worked fine, however the only problem with it was that to grease the rudder post I had to crawl in under the cockpit, which is no simple matter. This in turn meant that I probably have not greased the rudder post as often as I should, which has led to the bearing leaking, which in turn has caused some corrosion in the steel around the rudder post area. I am not sure what led me to decide reconnect the original tube. I think it might have been walking past a car parts shop when the idea occurred to me. I am pleased to say that I was able to purchase the necessary parts to reconnect the tube, and now the rudder post has been thoroughly packed with grease and the leak seems to have ceased, at least for the moment.

Another problem I have been trying to resolve, but thus far less successfully, is fixing the Honda genset. There is a Honda dealer close to the dock so I took the genset in to have the young mechanic that works there have a look at it. He was very confident that he could get it going so I left it with him. I got it back yesterday and it looked like the problem might have been solved, but when I got it back to the boat I ran it for a while the intermittent fault recurred, so come Monday I will be taking it back to the mechanic for a second attempt.

It has not been all work and no play. There are three other cruising boats in the marina at the moment. Nomzamo and Suuhaa who we met back in Japan, and also a small 27 foot yacht, the Bosun Bird. The crew of the Bosun Bird, Nick and Jenny are very experienced small boat cruisers who have done some amazing voyages over many years. They have an excellent blog, very professional with lots of interesting information. It has been a privilege to meet them. With such wonderful company I am not in a particular hurry to move on just yet, and there is a rodeo on next weekend so I am thinking I might well stay for that.

All is well.