This photo show the finished product. The white gel coat that I have is not quite as bright white as the gel coating that Lagoon uses but it is close enough. Fixing dings is realy quite simple and is something that you need to do as soon has you see one.
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09/30/2009, Puerto Amistad, Bahia De Caraquez, Ecuador
Today was more of the same as our days here in Bahia are quickly winding down to a precious few. We will be taking the bus to Quito on Sunday and then flying to LA on Monday.
One of the good things about it being Wednesday is that it is "movie night". Usually, on Wednesday night, Puerto Amistad offers a special dinner and a free movie. Tonight, the dinner was a T-bone steak, a baked potato and mixed vegetable for $6.50. The steak was very good and you just can't beat the price. The movie was a Robert Dinero, Al Pacino shoot em up, good cop/bad cop thing. It was pretty good but it is hard to hear with all of the background noise going on. They play the movie in English with Spanish subtitles. However, I believe it would be better if it was in Spanish with English subtitles. One of the good things that comes out of watching these movies is that we are getting pretty good at being able to read Spanish!
Toward the end of the movie we were disrupted by the sounds of a fire engine's siren slowly making its way down the street in front of Puerto Amistad. Further down the street we heard a drum corp. Since the movie was coming to and end, I went to the street and saw a parade of firemen and EMS people marching down the street. They were carry torches and flags and waving to everyone. There was even water truck and a second fire truck carrying men dressed in SCUBA suits, masks, fins, and tanks. Everyone was having a gay old time. Only in Bahia!
Tomorrow, Carlos comes over to Leu Cat to clean the bottom of our hull. It has been over a month since the last cleaning and it is due for another one.
Techno-Tip Of The Day: Deck and Hull Repair - Part 3
After the second layer of Marine Tex is fully cured, you can now sand it flat. You need to sand it softly, as the Marine Tex is not a hard epoxy. I use 100-grade sandpaper and it just takes a few seconds. Once I brush the dust off, I then take a small tube of white gel coat and put a few dabs on top of the Marine Tex. With a small paintbrush I spread the gel coat over the Marine Tex and on to the existing deck. The gel coat seals the Marine Tex so be sure to have it extend beyond the Marine Tex and on to the existing deck. Don't worry about brush marks as the gel coat will flow and fill any brush marks that occur.
Now you just let it dry and pat yourself on the back for a job well done!
The photos posted to this blog shows the ding after the Marine Tex has been sanded smooth and the photo in front of this blog shows the ding after the gel coat has been brushed on.
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09/29/2009, Puerto Amistad, Bahia De Caraquez, Ecuador
Not much is happening here, except we are continuing to work on exhibit materials for the upcoming trial. The little excitement we did have belonged all to Mary Margaret. Besides working on exhibit materials, she also went into town to have her waxing. When she returned, she then had her hair cut. It is a pretty sad state of affairs when the highlight of the blog is waxing and then a hair cut. But, such is the state of our affairs as this trial is quickly approaching.
To offer at least something of interest today, let me share with you the bad effects of the slight to Moderate El Nino year we are having here in Ecuador. El Nino is a meteorological event that happens every 5 to 10 years. Up along the west coast of the US, where we used to live, it means that the up coming winter will be especially wet.
El Nino is actually the result of a periodic oceanographic event. The upper surface of the equatorial current (the one that runs east to west near the equator) heats up and the water piles up slightly in the western pacific. This gradient causes the current to reverse itself now forcing the water to flow in a west to east direction. This in turns impacts the wind direction somewhat and this results in changes to the weather conditions around the world.
Here in Ecuador, the concern is not so much the impact on the weather as it is on the fishing. You see, the Peruvian current (also known as the Humboldt current) is what brings the cold Antarctic waters north to Ecuador. This cold water is rich in nutrients, which attract plankton. The plankton are what the fish feed off of so in a normal year, as the cold Antarctic waters upwell toward the surface due to the continental shelf, great masses of fish feed off of the plankton and this is that makes this area one of the world's best fishing grounds.
Unfortunately, when the Equatorial current reverses, causing what is now called an El Nino (wet) winter along the west coast of the US, it also shuts down the upwelling of the Humboldt Current. This means there are little nutrients in the near surface waters and, as a result, few fish.
The already poor Ecuadorian fishmen are having a lousy year and many have stopped going out each day because they have been returning with very small catches. Instead, they are looking for other work and other ways of supporting their families.
Thus, when those of you up along the west coast of the US complain about the amount of rain you will be getting this year, stop for a moment and think about how bad the poor fishermen have it down here.
Techno-Tip Of The Day: Deck and Hull Repair - Part 2
Now that the Marine Tex epoxy has cured overnight, it is time to apply the second and last coat. The purpose of this coat is to bring the epoxy slightly above the height of the deck that is being repaired. It doesn't have to be pretty since tomorrow I will be sanding down to be smooth with the deck. The photo attached to the blog shows an enlargement of the ding that I am repairing. What it shows is that the hole is fully covered and the epoxy goes out beyond the ding and covers part of the deck. Just for references, this ding is very small, just about the size of the nail on my small finger. You would be following the same procedure if the ding was the size of a walnut. Tomorrow I will do the sanding and then apply the gel coat.
was the size of a walnut. Tomorrow I will do the sanding and then apply the gel coat.
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09/28/2009, Puerto Amistad, Bahia De Caraquez, Ecuador
Now that we are back in Bahia de Caraquez, it is time to get back to real work. We leave for the US on October 4th and we both have a lot to do in preparation for the court case that I am testifying in. Thus, today was back to the salt mines.
The highlight of the day actually occurred during the evening. Buzz and Maureen of Encore invited us to join them for dinner at the local Chinese restaurant. During dinner we enjoyed listening to the adventures they had in northern Peru. They had left for Peru a couple of weeks before we went to Peru and they returned a week or so before we did. While the company was great, the food left a lot to be desired so I doubt we will return to this place again. I must admit, I miss the wonderful food that you seem to find everywhere in Peru!
MM note: About a week ago I wrote about a piece of Incan jewelry I bought. The design was beautiful. There is a picture of it with the blog. I found out what most of the design means. The four corners symbolize: water, air, sun and moon (sun is male and moon is female), the inner four corners are the four Incan original tribes. The triangle is the world - the condor is heaven, the puma is earth and the snake is hell. That is all I could find on the jewelry. I mentioned I would get back to you so... until we speak again...
Techno-Tip Of The Day: Deck and Hull Repair
Over time your hull or deck will get a number of little nicks or dings in it. These are easy to repair and should be repaired as soon as they happen. It is important to fix these immediately in order to keep moisture or water from seeping into the fiberglass base that is below the gel coat. Moisture will wick into the fiberglass and, when sealed, can cause bubbles to form in the gel coat over time.
To repair these little dings, you need to have two things: Marine Tex and a tube of gel coat. Marine Tex is a two-part compound that you mix. You absolutely need at least a small container of this material on board before you start cruising.
Before you mix up the Marine Tex, however, you first need to prepare the ding. You do this by sanding the ding to remove any rough edges around the gel coat. If the exposed fiberglass has been exposed to water, let it dry as best it can in the sunlight. However, remember that you are living on water and the natural humidity may make it impossible to completely dry out. Once it is as dry as it can be, next take a cloth saturated with acetone and clean the ding out of any dirt and dust. The acetone will also help remove any moisture from the near surface of the exposed fiberglass.
Now mix up the Marine Tex to the consistency that its instructions give you. Using a tongue depressor or a small rubber spatula, fill in the ding. If the ding is deep, you need to plan on applying two coats. The photo to this blog shows a ding I have in the deck after I have filled it with one coat. Tomorrow, I will apply a second coat and continue with instructions on how to finish it off. The photo was actually difficult to capture. The Marine Tex is just as white as the gel coat when it is fresh. Thus, I had to enlarge the photo and greatly enhance the contrast. It looks pretty ugly to me, much more than it actually is to the naked eye. The points I want to capture with the photo are: 1) the fiberglass is sealed by the Marine Tex, 2) the edges of the ding are also sealed and 3) the Marine Tex is raised above and over the edges of the ding onto the surrounding good gel coat. Once the ding is fully covered with the Marine Tex and the ding is filled, I will then sand it flat and prep it for the gel coat.
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09/27/2009, Puerto Amistad, Bahia De Caraquez, Ecuador
One of the nice things about being back on our boat is that there is a certain routine that you can depend on. Now don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of set routines and, in fact, after being in a place for more than two or three weeks, both Mary Margaret and I start getting stir crazy and feel that it is time to move on. That is the reason we love cruising so much. Even though Mary Margaret loves to "nest", she can do that with our boat and still travel. I guess you can say that we are like turtles that take their home with them on their backs!
However, when we travel inland and have to constantly stay in hotels, we do like to come back to our little home on the ocean and settle into the day-to-day functions of living on a boat. It is the same feeling we had when we lived on the land and returned to our home from a vacation. You certainly enjoyed the vacation, but there is a certain, distinct pleasure returning to your home sweet home.
With that said, there are also certain displeasures that wait for you when you return home from an extend stay away. In our case, it is getting the boat back into shape after being closed down for over two weeks.
The main focus of our efforts this time was trying to figure out which of our battery meters was correct. The meter on our battery charger was telling us the batteries were fully charged and happy. The Tri-metric battery meter was telling us the batteries were happy but were 25 percent discharged.
When we started the generator the battery charger refused to charge the batteries and we were not sure if this was because the batteries were fully charged or the charger was not working properly. Mary Margaret and I spend the better part of two hours crawling under the transom and in the stern lazerette unbolting the charger and checking it out. We came to the conclusion that the charger was still wired correctly and was working; it just was seeing the batteries as fully charged. Thus, we came to the conclusion that the Tri-metric meter was in error. This can happen over time since the formula that the Tri-metric uses to count the amps going into and out of the batteries is prone to a slight error. Over time, the errors accumulate and you really don't know the status of the batteries. This is not the fault of the Tri-metric meter; it is a well-established problem of all amp meter counters due to the complex formula they use to account for amp losses when you recharge the batteries. Since it had been last May when we were last on shore power and the batteries were last 100 percent charged, the errors in amps going into the battery had accumulated to about 200 amps over the last 5 months.
The only way we know of confirming that the batteries are really fully charged is to not use the batteries over night and then check their open circuit voltage. If it is above 12.85 volts (for gels batteries), then the batteries are fully charged. We called Buzz of Encore and asked if he would come over and discuss this situation with us. Our thinking was that three heads are better than two. When Buzz arrived we discussed our situation and the three of us pondered and discussed and pondered some more. Finally, Buzz came to the same conclusion as we had and agreed that our course of action was the correct one to follow.
When we went to bed, our voltage was at 13.0 volts since the batteries were receiving a charge all day from the solar panels and we kept all the various things that draw amps turned off. With luck, the voltage will be at least 12.85 tomorrow morning when we get up. If so, we will know that the batteries are fully charged and we can reset the Tri-metric meter to read fully charged.
Techno-Tip Of The Day: Amp Counters
As you have seen from reading the above, all amp counters are prone to errors that accumulate over time. The situation we are faced with is common when you spend most of your time at anchor instead of being docked in a marina and plugged into shore power. We have decided that in the future, when we are on the hook for extended periods of time, that once every three months we will spend the night with all of the power turned off so we can check the cold battery open circuit voltage. Up until now, we have not done this primarily because we did not want to have a night where the freezer was not working. However, if I turn the thermostat on the freezer way down for a few days, and then turn the freezer off, the food will stay frozen overnight without the freezer running. This will be our future quarterly pattern of operation.
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