Panamar transit
Aurelia
Shirley and Michael Webb-Speight
Thu 26 Apr 2007 18:50
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Hi to all
Well It has been a very wet last couple of days
here in Panamar with rain squalls and some pretty spectacular lightning shows
that have been going through over the canal we have just spent a couple of days
in at the mariner to get water and give the boat a good scrub down while there
we were rafted up to another kiwi boat who went through the canal yesterday and
am looking forward to meeting up with them again on the pacific side they are
doing the same trip down to NZ so myself and the skipper of her have a bottle of
rum on the biggest fish cought between here and NZ only rule is we have to drink
it together at the other end.
After leaving the mariner we went back on Anchor.
The next morning I got up and decided that we should move in a little closer we
went to up Anchor but could not start the main engine which runs the windless
and the bow thruster also, so I then proceded to start the process of
elimination which took me all day and into the evening at the same time
there was a boat cancel it's transit and a spot had come up this i did not find
out about until well into the evening after talking to my agent and i had until
10.00 the next morning to confirm so as you can emagine im sitting on Anchor
with no main engine a whole day of having the boat in pieces trying to find the
sorce of the problem it was about 9.00 at night and im going ashore in
the dinghy to see if i can find a marine electician (yea right i was
thinking to myself) after a couple of beers and alot of fast talking at the
yacht club here i found a local guy Andy. I called him and he was only too
happy to come down and meet me and have a chat as to what the problem could be
by this stage it was about 11.00 at night and i had had enough for the day so
arranged to pick him up in the dinghy the next morning at 5.30. We got back out
to the boat and started on it it wasen't until just before 10 that we diagnosed
the problem I rang my agent but unfortunatly they had already cancelled us
and I had missed out by only a matter of a couple of minutes a bit
frustrating but that's the way it goes sometimes as for the problem it was a bad
terminal on the charging line for the starter batterie so every time i used the
main engine bow thruster or windlass it was not putting in as much as i was
drawing so over a period of time it was just slowly draining the
starter batterie the boat's batterie moniter and multy meater where both
saying that it had 13.00 volts in it but when trying to arc off it i couldn't
even get a spark.
So I have bypassed the starter batterie and gone
staright onto the house bank I now need to set up a way to charge the starter
batterie up and see if i can go back onto it and if it will hold charge before i
make a decision weather i need to get a new one which i can buy on the
pacific side.
As for today we are just carrieing on with the jobs
that we have to get done before we transit and for the next leg Wade has to
mouse out a couple of halyard's so that we have enough lines as they charge
pretty well if we were to hire them i have transfered fuel today and will take
on the last of our jury fuel so that it can all be stowed away i have
mounted a little fan in the freezer and it can now freeze meat and stays
frozen we have put spreader patches and reef patches on the main wade has
polished up all the stainless and the topsides cleaned out bilges for
reprovision and i am going to start asking around for line
handlers.
Apart from this it will be good to get the call up
for the transit as we can be ready in a couple of hours now also this side of
panamar is pretty dirty and dangerous there is wast land not to far from
the anchorage and each night when the breeze swings around there is this thick
smoke that moves in as you can emagine it's a very pleasent eroma of the local
tip ablaze it would be nice to get away just for a couple of days but we are on
call and could go through anytime now.
Hope alls well with everyone back home write again
soon
Hamish and Wade.
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