Back to the Pontoon
26 October 2017 | Las Palmas on pontoon G
Ted, beautiful day
In the boatyard we got all the work done. Installation of 150 ampere alternator and its wide drive belt, new freshwater pump and new Balmar voltage regulator went smoothly. I say smoothly somewhat tongue in cheek because history says that nothing ever goes perfectly smoothly or easily. Belt not long enough or pipe doesn't fit are typical things that one encounters but figures out how to deal with them. The bottom line is that when North Star was again waterborne everything worked correctly.
The marine surveyor did arrive as promised and did the out-of-water part of the survey but preferred to come back on Wednesday to finish the in-water part, which involved running the engine and climbing the mast. So, he did. He came back as promised on Wednesday afternoon. The survey reminded me of qualification in submarines, engineers exam or qualifying for command. We broke out and used every piece of equipment in North Star over a period of almost three hours. He did find some old 1982 life jackets which I threw out and replaced. I was missing two smoke float signals which I purchased. He will write a "no discrepancy" survey and get it to me on Friday. A huge weight off me.
The next big issues are preparing for the ARC safety inspection and finding some new propane canisters to replace ours which are undated but vintage 1982 and can't be refilled. Propane containers are stored in a special locker that is sealed from the interior of the boat and vented outboard to prevent any propane from entering the interior of a boat, settling in the bilge, and killing someone or causing an explosion. All my gas fittings are US standard size and all the canisters are metric. So, I need adapters to fit the canisters to our LPG systems. Like I said, "Nothing every goes smoothly."
Last evening a Lithuanian fellow visited the boat next to North Star. He had been in the merchant marine when he was younger as well as a period as a professional yacht master. He owns a 7.7M Maxi Sloop build in 1971. This is the exact same model that I owned for about 20 years before buying North Star. He spoke excellent English and when I tried out some Russian, he said Lithuanians must study Russian in school from 8 years of age, so he also spoke Russian. Since my conversation with the Russian woman on the flight over here, more and more words are coming back from their 50+ year old archive somewhere deep and difficult to find storage.
One learns much from the other cruisers on the pontoon, some valid and some bogus. When North Star arrived, we were low on water and therefore took on water from the pontoon. I, of course not knowing better, have been drinking the water, through a filter, but nevertheless, water from the tank. The Norwegians in an adjacent boat said "No! No! No! You can't drink the water!" My Internet search showed there was a problem years ago and currently in other parts of the island, but the water in Las Palmas was OK to drink. The marine surveyor said he agreed with the Norwegians because some water is from desalinization plants and some is shipped here from many places, so you don't really know the source. It is safer to only drink bottled water.
Still lots of items on my to-do list, so back to work!