Finally on the hard and man can it rain!
10 November 2017 | Shelter Bay Marina, near Colon, Panama
Bill/Partly cloudy
We're finally out of the water and sitting on stands in the yard here at Shelter Bay. We had originally been set for pull out yesterday morning at 1000 but for some unknown reason(office had no excuse for it), we got rescheduled for this morning at 0800. Well at 0745 I hiked over to the yard and found it deserted. Not a sole in sight and lots and lots of rain. It was pouring and I was wearing for the first time in years my Gill foul weather jacket. Tracy gave it to me about 11 years ago and I'd worn it during the colder passages we've made. It's well insulated and while it does keep the water out, well it keeps the sweat in. Tracy wore a different Gill jacket she's bought at West Marine as a replacement for a defective one that they had sold her. Well this one did the exact same thing. The inner waterproof liner has disintegrated and it's coming out of the bottom of the jacket in chunks. She was soaked to the skin. So much for a good product.
Everyone was late coming to the yard as a large tree had fallen and was blocking the road. I'd told you about the lack of maintenance on their roads in my last post. Victor, the lift operator finally showed up and told me to go ahead and bring Zephyr over for our haul out. I hiked back, we disconnected the electrical and started up the engine. In came the dock lines and off we went. We needed to pump out one of our backwater tanks so we exited the small bay, pumped it out and came back in and headed for the lift. More crew showed up and once in the slot, Victor changed into swim trunks and dove in making sure the straps were in the right place and then had another of his crew slowly raise the straps and we were set for the lift. Victor came out of the water, rinsed off, changed clothes and took over and out we came. We climbed ashore over the bow pulpit and they finished lifting her. Out she came, over the concrete and then lowered onto to blocks for her pressure wash. The Hempel Globic C9000 paint had done a wonderful job. Not much left but next to no barnacles on the hull and those that were we quite small and easy to flick off. The pressure wash took off just about all the remaining paint and left the hull just about ready for another coat of paint.
Victor raised her back up and slowly motored Zephyr to her new resting place and out came the chocks and down she came, all safe and sound. When she was getting her pressure wash, I checked the Cutlass Bearing(a bronze tube with internal baffles that the propeller runs through to cushion it as it spins) and we found it had worn out and was going to need replacing. Now we get to take off the Max Prop so we can get at the bearing. Lots of screws and pins and a long set of instructions on how to take it off. I watched a video on You Tube numerous times as it's one thing we've never done. Before doing that, we made sure to clean the blades and center shaft of the prop so she would be nice and clean when we re install it in a few days. Apparently Victor had done many Cutlass Bearing replacement and will be helping us with ours. We got most of the prop off but are left with the central hub that slides over the prop shaft and will need a bearing puller to get it off so I'll be asking for help tomorrow on the morning radio net. Wish us luck.
Now here's where it get a bit crazy. Last week when we first checked in with the boat yard(we'd emailed several times before we left Curacao)Edwin, the manager told me her had several cans of Hempel paint, not the same but some by the same company. OK, we can live with that. I'd gone in early on Tuesday morning to confirm our scheduled pull out and was again assured that they would have the paint all ready for us as we knew that Zephyrs hull would be ready to paint with in a day of the lift out. Suddenly today, we were told that they had to go and get the paint--two gallons of red and three of black at $190 per gallon). They didn't have the paint they had assured us they had!!!! I'd already signed the invoice committing to the paint and suddenly, now that we are out of the water, well we now have no paint but they knew where to get it and would have it by tomorrow morning(it's another national holiday, the third in a week). About an hour later as we were working on the prop, over comes Stefanie and some of the workers and drops the bomb that they can't get it tomorrow(it's a holiday) and probably won't have any paint till Monday. This after being told repeatedly that they had the paints we needed. If we had known that, we'd have stayed in the marina. BUT, one of the workers had some cans of bottom paint that he was willing to sell us for the same price that we were going to pay for the Hempel. Biggest problem is that he wants cash---$1,000 US for the paint but could have it to us tomorrow. We were stuck!!! We need the paint and don't want to spend four days just sitting, waiting for paint so we dug into what was left of our stash and we could come up with the money, pretty well emptying our stash. Like the delay in our haul out, I never got a reason for their lying to us about the paint and I'm sure never will but at least we will have paint tomorrow. We are out in the middle of no mans land as far as the yard goes with only deserted boats around us so other than the occasional barking dogs, we have peace and quiet.(sidebar--at one of the marine stores in Grenada, this paint(Sea Hawk Island 44 Plus) sells for $359 a gallon)
I'll let you know how the bearing pulling and paint goes tomorrow. It finally stopped raining about 1045, almost exactly when we finished getting Zephyr up on stands but remained cloudy and cool for the rest of the day.