Playing Catch Up & Preparing For Guests
03 April 2010 | Simpson Bay Marina, Simpson Bay Lagoon, St. Maarten
kurt flock, partly cloudy, no wind, mild
This was one of the parrots we saw during our tour of the amazing Deshaies Botanical Gardens on Guadeloupe.
[New photo gallery uploaded: 4/3/2010: Deshaies Botanical Gardens]
It's 4:15 a.m. It's patently absurd to get up this early when I could sleep in 'til noon, but I like this time of day. I find early morning is the best time to write and mess around with our blog, so here I sit, waiting for the water to boil so I can make coffee in our French press. I just cranked the handle on our Zassenhaus knee grinder sixty times, which gives me just enough grounds for two strong cups of java. I'll add a tablespoon of raw sugar and a dollop of Bailey's, and I'm good to go!
As I contemplate what to write this morning, I wonder what our friends really think about our decision to undertake this sort of adventure. There are a couple of folks who tell us they are envious and would give anything to be able to do what we're doing, but I suspect the majority think that we're crazy, it's too much work, and living on a sailboat is nothing close to what they'd enjoy for any length of time. We'll, to make the concept more palatable to Kate, we decided to call this whole thing a 3-5 month sabbatical from work. Well, we're just over five months into it, and Kate will be heading back to Indiana in less than two weeks. I'm wondering just how our universe will unfold and how soon we'll be back aboard Myananda - together.
I'll have to sail Myananda to someplace the insurance company deems "safe" during hurricane season, so my adventure will last another month or so. Since we still own a house in Indy, and since we still have a real estate business there (Flock Real Estate Group), fact is, we never really cast off the dock lines on a full time cruising adventure - like many of our new Caribbean 1500 friends did. I have very mixed feelings about this. I'm already wondering how long I'll have to remain in Indy to deal with the responsibilities, commitments, and opportunities that comprise our professional lives there. Just thinking about that is like standing naked under an icy cold shower. Ughhh!
Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good about Myanada at the moment. We've been dealing with some aggravating intermittent problems with our generator, the autopilot, and a few other systems on the boat, but I think we may be riding a hot streak of successful repairs. Wednesday I took our watermaker apart and put it back together. I ran a new product supply line and sample valve to make using it simpler. Thursday I worked on the generator with Jason, a guy I met at Simpson Bay. Jason has the same model Panda, and he helped me trouble shoot our very annoying intermittent shut down problem. After back flushing the raw water cooling system and tracing the fuel lines, we discovered the Panda picks up fuel directly from our starboard diesel tank, and that tank has been low for some time. As the remaining fuel sloshed around in the tank, the pick-up sucked air in the line that no amount of bleeding was going to correct.
After filling Myanada's diesel tanks with fuel, changing the fuel filters for the Panda, back flushing its raw water cooling system, installing a new impeller, changing the oil, installing a new K-3 fuel pump relay, installing a new oil pressure sensor, and installing a whole new control panel, I think we've finally got the damned thing working properly. It ran 3.5 hours straight, with a 24 amp load yesterday, and it just purred! I took heat measurements at seven locations on the generator with my infrared heat gun, and we measured raw water output from the cooling system by catching it in a five gallon bucket (18 liters at 102 degrees). I now have some baseline operational data for the generator that will come in handy when I have to troubleshoot it in the future.
Yesterday was autopilot day. The autopilot first acted up during the Caribbean 1500. It developed a terribly nasty tendency to work only when it felt like it. There's nothing worse to trouble shoot than a frigging intermittent issue on a boat, and few systems are as important and essential as the autopilot. It's a third hand when you need one - an indefatigable crew member who never complains about rough seas or long night watches. It can be not just inconvenient, it can be down right dangerous if it decides to turn itself off at the wrong time - just as bad as a helmsman going below during a nighttime squall to make a peanut butter sandwich while everyone else is asleep.
Since arriving in the Caribbean, the longest passage we've had from island to island has been maybe 90 miles, so having an intermittent autopilot has been annoying, but not dangerous. I can hand steer that long if I'm reasonably rested, so what the hell. In St. Maarten, I had Atlantis Marine, certified Raymarine technicians, go over the autopilot. Andy adjusted the rudder reference control, but that's about it, and it wasn't a fix. After searching the web and cruiser forums for information relating to the cryptic "DRIVESTOP" message the control was giving me, I concluded I may have a bad hydraulic pump motor. I checked the brushes on the motor, and sure enough, they appeared worn and in need or replacement. Unfortunately, the motor was made in 2003, and Raymarine could not supply me with replacement brushes. The first brush kit then sent me was just flat out wrong! I checked all over St. Maarten, and I came up empty, so it was off to Budget Marine. $1,100 later, I had a brand spanking new Type 3 Raymarine 12 volt hydraulic motor in my hands, and optimism in my heart. Now how to install the damned thing!
I also had a suspicion my steering system hydraulic fluid was funky, so I decided - in for a penny, in for a pound, and I concluded I might as well take the whole damned system hydraulic system apart, something I'd never done before. There was only one page in the pump installation book about bleeding the system, and it seemed way too simple for what I was getting into. There were four hydraulic lines running from the pump to a drive piston and overflow reservoir, and I forgot to mark exactly how they were hooked up when I took them off. Actually I didn't really forget, I just thought I could remember the configuration since there were only eight connections. Hmm...
It didn't take me long to determine that it was a good call draining all of the hydraulic fluid out of the system. The stuff I got out appeared to be contaminated with water. I think I know how that happened. The overflow reservoir is vented, and it's located in the starboard aft lazerette in a location potentially exposed to salt water intrusion. I made a mental note to change that as I proceeded with the repair.
It took a couple of hours to purge the bad hydraulic fluid and refill the system with new, but with Kate's help and after improvising a way to blow fluid back into the drive assembly, I got the job done. I then went back to the installation manual's instructions for bleeding remaining air from the assembly. As far as I can tell, we got all the air out. The autopilot seems to work perfectly now at the dock, but that's not really a test. I'm hopeful the thing will work flawlessly during our upcoming sail to St. Barth this week.
Going back in time a bit, we recently visited the wonderful town of Deshaies on Guadeloupe during our two week down island sail with our six new cruising buddies, Don and Donna (Destiny), Casey and Laurilea Gibbs (Winds Aloft), and Norm and Michaela Harlow (Mikalka). Deshaies has a beautiful harbor and is a quaint town that offered us some very unique sightseeing experiences. There is a botanical gardens here that cost us $20 Euro per person to visit, but it was absolutely spectacular. I've uploaded some photos I took while touring the site. I had to go in separately from Kate, as dogs weren't allowed (that didn't sound right, did it). We had Sophie along, so I cruised through first, and then Kate went through. We had a couple of other neat adventures at Deshaies, but I'll describe them in a subsequent post.
It's now 7:30 a.m, and Kate's up. I'm on my second cup of coffee, and our friends Eric Willinghan and Meg Greenhouse are arriving from Indy at about 2:00 p.m. today. Kate says it's time to get cracking on cleaning up Myananda for their arrival, so this is it for now. Gotta find my sander so I can sand the edge of the door to the forward cabin that's been binding and preventing the door from closing completely. Wanna get this done in case Meg and Eric require something approximating privacy during their stay!