07/26/2010, Still in Colorado
Well, we put the final brush strokes on the gutter and that was the last section of the house that needed paint. Now we face the problem of having to put on a second coat on the trim since the first coat didn't cover the base coat.
If you read the last post, you know the problems we have been having with our paint. Here's the latest. The factory rep from Valspar never called us last week. Gee what a surprise!! The trim is somewhere in the United States but no one is quite sure where it is at the moment.
After waiting all week for the rep to call, I called Valspar on last Friday and talked to a Customer Service person. He couldn't have been nicer. I gave him all the particulars of what we have been coming up against. He took down all the info and assured me that Valspar would be in touch. Later in the day, I got an email from the rep that was supposed to be calling me. Gee what a surprise!! He wanted to know what was going on(the specifics) and where I got the paint. I "told" him about our conversation the previous week and his response was that he had called the number and had gotten the message that our number had been disconnected. Yeah, right and I have a bridge in San Francisco to get rid of. He is out of town again but is due back in Denver today so we will see when he calls us to come out to see the house.
As for the trim, it was shipped from the factory to the wrong distributor and then to the wrong supplier and then to the wrong store. Instead of just shipping me a new order--heck no, that is to easy-- they have to get it back from the store and then the supplier and then the distributor and then it has to go back to the factory and then it will be shipped to us. The estimated delivery is for July 30th or August 2. They're still not sure. Since we ordered it on June 21, it's had a big trip around the country. At least we didn't wait for it before we painted the house.
Meanwhile, we have taken out more Willow trunks in the front yard and keep trimming out dead wood from the trees once it gets to hot to paint(have to stop at 90). The trash man will love us again this week when he comes by. The fun never stops.
We were luckily enough to find the packaged shredded beef we have used while cruising at Costco. It's in a 3 pound package and keeps for ever so it is perfect for using while sailing. No cans to have to get rid of and as you use it, the existing package gets smaller. It's been discontinued by Costco so we had to have them find them as not every store carries it. We now have five more packages to take back to Zephyr in the fall.
So now we wait for the trim and continue with other jobs getting more parts placed on order. It's never a dull moment.
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K
07/18/2010, Still in Aurora, CO.
It hit 102 yesterday and it set a new record for the day. While we are still painting the house, we have to stop by 1100 as it hits the max temperature that the company recommends. 90 is the max and we hit that early in the day. We've had problems with the paint we bought for the job. The paint we got for the body of the house was very thick and went on relatively well but here and there, the original base color showed through and it needed a second coat. The trim paint has been a disaster. One coat doesn't cover anything and for those of you that have ever painted a house, the trim can take forever and having to put on two or even three coats will make an unpleasant job much harder. We took the paint back to Lowe's and got it replaced as it was so thin and runny and wouldn't cover anything. They had no problem replacing it with a second 5 gallon drum. Well, we got it home and started in on it. This paint started separating in the tub as well as in the smaller cans we poured it in for painting. I took it back again and this time, Lowe's made the paint in 5--1 gallon cans. Home I went and as soon as I opened the first can, the paint had started separating again and still would not cover the existing 14 year old paint. It was two coats at a minimum yet the companies website says it will cover in one coat. So I headed back to Lowe's. Since I kept having problems with the paint and not Lowe's, I asked if the company rep could come to our house. Calls were placed and the rep is going to be coming over early next week--like Tuesday if we are lucky.
Mean while, Lowe's has lost our trim that we ordered a few weeks ago. Apparently, it we shipped to the wrong supplier and they delivered it to the wrong company. With luck, they hope to find out where it is by early next week.
And the fun just keeps on coming.
I've planted tomatoes and cucumbers in my planter boxes on the back deck so at least we will have fresh veggies in a few weeks. I didn't plant jalapenos this year.
So, stay tuned for more of our exciting stay here in HOT Colorado.
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07/14/2010, Aurora, Colorado
Well, we're a month into our stay here in Colorado and everything is moving right along. We came home with lots of things to get done and LOTS of parts to get ordered.
The painting of our home is going nicely. While we were getting our paint colors approved, we spent the better part of a week smearing caulk around the outside sealing the cracks and crevices between the siding boards on our home. Over the years(14) the siding had shifted and there were a few gaps that needed closing to keep the wind and rain out. Plus, we found that many of the nails that Ryland Homes had used to attach the siding didn't go into the studs behind the siding. So we pulled out nails and had to reset them(caulking the old holes)and then moved on the the next set of nails. We plan on replacing the trim around just about all our windows as Mother Nature has caused them to swell and become basically worthless as a piece of trim.
We'd called several contractors and visited Lowe's and Home Depot to see what was available. James Hardie makes a piece of trim that will resist any kind of weather abuse and has a fifty year warranty. It's not made with reprocessed sawdust as the current trim is. We wanted the "smooth"sided boards as this way, we would only have to replace the bad boards and could leave the ones that aren't too bad in place. I'd emailed James Hardie about the trim to get all the specifics. Both contractors told me the trim was no longer available. Home Depot told me the same. James Hardie said there was no problem--still current. Lowe's on the other hand had no problem laying their hands on it so guess who got the order. While it had to be ordered, I was in no hurry as there were plenty of things that had to be done before we needed the trim.
We attacked the yard with a vengeance and trimmed just about every tree and shrub on our property. Three years of time had allowed them to go crazy and get out of control. We even dug out a willow that has caused us problems ever since the first year we moved in. Waste Management had their work cut out for them. It took us three weeks of pickups just to get rid of everything we had cut out and that was even spreading out the refuse around the neighborhood.
Meanwhile, in our "spare" time, I sat at the computer working on our list of parts that we needed to take back to Mexico. I wanted them on order so I could check them off the list. We ordered oil coolers for the engine as well as a new fuel pump. We'd replace both of our oil coolers while in the US and since the normal service interval is to replace them every 1500 hours of operation, we didn't want to get caught with out them. One had blown while we were at Catalina Island allowing water into our oil pan and into our engine. Believe me, it's not a good feeling when you pull out the dip stick and see that your oil is modeling clay grey instead of dark black. Who knew that these things wear out? Not me. Since I figure the fuel pump is original, it doesn't hurt to have a spare on hand. From what I have learned, if the engine doesn't get fuel, it will stop running. DUH!
Spare parts for our head(toilet) have been ordered and received and added to our ever growing pile. I have yet to see the parts we need to keep the head working any where in Mexico. I've already replaced some of these parts twice just since we moved aboard.
I ordered back up parts for our DuoGen wind generator and they should arrive shortly. Since the DuoGen hangs our over the water, as I switch it out from wind mode to water mode, there is the probability that I will drop one of the parts over board. It's not so much an "if" it's more of a "when".
Our spare prop for our Mercury outboard came in yesterday so we drove across town to pick it up. Somewhere out there is a rock with our name on it. It's just a matter of time before we find it.
With a good bit of computer work, I even found a company that sells computer charging systems that plug into a "cigarette" lighter fixture. No longer will I have to turn on our inverter to have 110 volt power so I can plug in a charger to convert the 110 volts back to a 12 volt charge. Now I can just plug in the computer to an outlet and get it charged. I got them for our Acer, Panasonic and even our Apple computers. This little piece of equipment will allow us to save a good bit of amps in our normal daily energy budget. Every amp I don't use is one a don't have to generate to replace.
I finally found a diesel school so I can further my education on our engine. It's Mack Boring in New Jersey. Three days long where you get your hands dirty and get to dismantle an engine and rebuild it a then make sure it works. Just the type of class I need. I know the basics but not the real "nitty gritty" of what to do should something happen as it will sometime in the future.
Well, I've gone on long enough. I'll add some more in a day or so. I've got to go to Lowe's and get more painting equipment.
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I've added two new links to the blog of two boats that we have followed during our time in the Sea of Cortez. We ran into Cetus while up in Washington over a year ago. While Hello World has returned home, their blog covers their travels over the past year. Cetus is still in the Sea of Cortez for the Summer so you can follow their adventures during the HOT Summer.
Enjoy.
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06/26/2010, Home in Colorado
Man, yesterday sucked. I hooked up my TIVO machine(records TV shows) so we could get it on line with the service and have the TV shows I'd recorded two years ago available to watch. I hooked it up to the telephone so it could do it's download of new show schedules. The screen popped up with all the shows that I had recorded. After it did it's telephone update, it tried to load the information so I could see it. I had planned on getting it set up with the converter boxes the government made us all buy. Well, after several hours of downloading the new information, it couldn't load the info so we could use it. I called TIVO to get some help. One was how to hook up to the converter box and two to find out how to correct the problem of the failed download. The tech told me how to hook it up to the converter box. No big deal. I simply needed a special cord to hook the two together. As to the failed download, he told me I needed to put it into a diagnostic mode where the software searches for bad files in the machine and corrects them. So with his help, I pushed the buttons to start it. It takes about three hours to do it's thing. Well, after three hours, it was still going at it. There was a message at the bottom of the screen that if it hasn't corrected the problem and the green screen was still there, to call for more help. I did just that. Hey, guess what? The wonderful tech at TIVO had just burned up the hard drives in the unit. What he didn't tell me was that if it didn't correct the problem, the process that I had started runs in a loop and just keeps doing it over and over again, There is no way to stop it so that you can see what the machine has on it's hard drive. For all intense and purposes, they had just destroyed my machine. BUT, they would be willing to sell me a new one for a couple of hundred dollars. Oh, plus as far as the subscription to their service went, well the life time subscription to TIVO that I had had just expired when the machine died. They would be happy to sell me a new subscription too!! Boy, did I get taken. The techs I talked to after the first one did the job on my machine had no idea why he had had me do what I did and apologized, but I would still need to buy all new gear if I wanted to continue with TIVO. So my TIVO is officially dead.
Next, I plugged in my IMac that I had used for several years. A great machine that has worked just about flawlessly. It booted up just fine after over two years of sitting. A list of updates popped up on the screen since it hadn't been used in so long. I, of course, being a good geek, clicked on them to do the required updates. First, Microsoft Office. Downloaded just fine. Then the screen popped up with more updates. Well, once it started them, it locked up with the "I'm working" rotating ball on the screen. I couldn't get it to stop so I could stop some of the downloads. I could get anything to respond. So, I did a hard shut down by holding down the power button. Off it went. When I tried to restart it, hey, guess what? It would start!!! It tries to and then shuts itself off. So, being the the smart guy I am, I made an appointment at the Apple Store to have it looked at in the afternoon. Guess what? The hard drive is fried on it too. I guess doing the updates didn't do me any good but did me a good bit of harm. And it had all started so beautifully.
So, now I have a dead TIVO and a dead IMac to store in my basement till I can figure out what to do with them.
As to the TIVO, there is a company out in California(Weaknees.com) that can fix them. They sold me two hard drives for the TIVO a few years ago when I wanted a larger storage capacity for the machine. I'll be emailing them to see if they can help. As to the IMac, well that will just have to wait for a while as replacing the hard drive isn't the cheapest thing to get done.
So that's how my day was yesterday. If you were a piece of electronics in this house, you had a bad day.
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06/23/2010, Back in Colorado
Here's more of getting ready for the haul out. Part 2
Once we got everything stowed that I brought back, we started in on getting things off the decks. We started with the main sail. We unfastened it from the mast and the end of the boom and slid it off the boom making sure that it was well tied around itself. Once off the boom, we laid it across the deck(we're still out on the mooring ball) and slowly flaked it into a manageable pile to fit in the sail bag.
While I was gone, Tracy had pulled the life raft off the stern rail and stowed it temporarily in the cockpit. It's now settled safely on the floor of the main cabin under the table. The cooler(storage box) that we keep on the stern rail was stowed in the forward cabin on one of the berths. Off came the forestaysail which was flaked and bagged and put below. The deck was getting empty.
We decided to spend Friday in the marina getting the last things pulled off the deck and getting Zephyr washed of all the dirt she had acquired during her time on the coast of the Baja.
We pulled in early in the morning and started in again. Off came the big genoa sail at the bow. It's on a roller system so it can just be pulled out for use. Well, we undid the line that holds it at the top of the mast and pulled it down and off it's track. We aligned it along the port side of the deck(not enough room in the deck at the marina)and slowly folded it in to nice neat pile. Into the bag it went and down below it went for storage.
The big thing that is stressed when putting your boat into storage, especially in a HOT climate, it get as much off the deck as possible and take all your sails off as they degrade in sunlight, especially in the intensity of the Mexico coast. Even if they are covered, the Suns rays will get on them and can ruin a good sail. You want as much off the deck so the teak can breathe and no be affected by what is on top of it. Even though we had planned on having Zephyr totally cover, we wanted as much as we could stored. Less things available for a thief is one should make his(or her) way aboard.
As to the inside, every can with a pull top--like cat food, cokes and beers, needs to be taken off as they might explode in the heat. All aerosol cans also must go as they could explode with all the pressure that is inside them. It can get well over 120 degrees inside! It's nasty down there. Especially if the Sun is allowed to hit the boat. With a dark blue hull, it can be even worse as it absorbs the rays also. We found it strange that there were very few boats with covers in the yard. A few had canvas across the decks, but none with covers like Zephyr that covered a great deal of the side as well as the deck.
So we pulled clothes out to come back to Denver as well as food that would spoil or cans that would explode off the boat. All electronics had to be disconnected from power sources and any antennas had to be disconnected as well(lightening). Water in the tanks has to be treated with Microdyne to stop algae growth and an additive is added to the diesel fuel to keep the bugs that can grow in it to a minimum.
We had the engine flushed when we were in the yard so all salt water was washed from the system. Four months with salt water just sitting in the pipes is not a good thing. Since we had never done it, we hired a service to do it. Boy were we dumb. The through hull intake is covered with a metal screen that protrudes from the hull by about an inch. The workmen got a clorox bottle and cut the top off where it goes down to the straight sides and fed the hose through the hole at the top(wrapping plastic wrap around it to make a seal) and turned on the hose while one guy held it to the hull and the other tasted the water(YUCK)as it came out the stern exhaust pipe. No OSHA in Mexico folks. Once he no longer tasted salt in the exhaust water, I shut off the engine. Boy, was that high tech or what?!?
We had the hull pressure washed to get rid of all the barnacles that had grown on out $240 a GALLON paint that we applied in Port Townsend. I'd scrubbed it several times during our trip so it wasn't horrible. The water pressure they used was far less than what we were used to back in the states. The tank of water sits on the front of a forklift and a hose is fed into the tank. Then a small pump pressurizes the tank and out comes the water from a second "high" pressure hose. They have no dedicated place for washing the boat(to collect the chemical laced water so it doesn't pollute the environment) so it is just done on the dirt storage lot in the work area. What didn't come off in the wash was scrapped off by a trowel(also into the dirt under the boat). Oh, the fun the US(and state)government would have had if it had been done the same way in the states.
Tracy had cleaned out the frig/freezer and had put what was left in a cooler I had brought from home. We moved into "Gringo Pete's Condo and Hotel" that is between the marina and the work yard. We got a room that included a kitchen so we could store what left over food we had in the refrigerator. We moved in early Saturday morning with the kids(Snowshoe and Blue going over later in the day. They were quite lost in suddenly having a new "home" with lots more room to roam around in. Blue kept having a snit fit every time Snowshoe came near her. Making matters worse was that Snowshoe wanted to play and chased her around the condo with her hissing and meowing all the time. We continually made trips back and forth unloading the poor Mazda with the things we had stripped off Zephyr. We figured we'd be there Saturday and Sunday night and on the road Monday. As it turned out, we spent Monday night there also. Nice place to stay and at $45.00 a night, not to expensive. A simple hotel room was $35.00.
By Sunday night, we had just about everything out of her and started fitting the tarp to Zephyr. We ran the spinnaker pole from the mast forward to the bow and tied it to the bow pulpit. With the tarp 50 feet long and Zephyr only 46 feet, we knew we had enough material. We measured from the back of the mast forward to the bow and then cut the tarp to that measurement. We laid the tarp in the dirt beside Zephyr and marked out the cut line. Zip with the scissors and the cut was made. I'd ordered in some brass grommets to attach to the tarp and so we doubled the material along the cut and attached the grommets every 18 inches as the Sun slowly set in the West. We then stowed the tarp on deck for the night and headed back for Gringo Pete's. It had been a long day.
Monday, we headed back to Zephyr just after 0600 to get started in the cool of the morning. We had a big tarp to fit and a time of 1300 when the yard was going to haul us back into the secure storage area.
Out went the tarp over the forward pole and then stretched toward the stern. Once the tarp was on the bow section, we used zip ties through the grommets to secure the edges and more zip ties to hold it to the pole under the tarp. Over the sides it went and the job of tying it down got underway. We'd cleared out everything from inside so we didn't need to go inside again. It looked strange having the decks all cleared of equipment. We'd bought a large ball of line to tie the tarp down from side to side with the lines passing under the hull. Once we had the sides done, we started in on the bow and closed it off with more zip ties through the fabric of the tarp. There were lines going all over the place making sure that the tarp moved as little as possible. We finished almost exactly at 1300. Right on schedule for the move. We then found out that our time had been mover to 1500 to 1600. OK, that gave us time for lunch(boy were we hungry). We returned to the yard and waited and waited. At 1530, I walked over to the office only to find that our move had been postponed to Tuesday at 0900. With it being that early, we could still get a good start for Tucson.
Tuesday, we were up early again as there was some laundry Tracy wanted to do before we set off. I dropped her off at the laundry/cantina and went back to the yard at 0800 to make sure we were still set for 0900. The office verified the time--no problem. I happened to look in the yard and there was the trailer in front of Zephyr being backed in to move her. So much for 0900. An hour early was fine with me. In went the trailer under Zephyr and up went Zephyr on the hydraulic arms on the trailer. All the lines held fine. Off we went for the yard. As they back Zephyr in, I looked around the yard and found very few spaces left for other boats. We were lucky that we had made or reservations a month ago.
Once in her space(wedged between two other boats, she was lowered onto her stands and the trailer rolled out. With four stands on a side plus one at each end, she was in place nice and safe. Well as safe as she can be. There was a huge flood last year through the yard with a few boats falling over in the wake of the water. Let's all hope it doesn't happen again.
I returned to the laundry and picked up Tracy and told her what had happened. Luckily, I had the camera with me and I took several pictures of the event so she could see them. I'll be posting them in the blog in a few days.
We headed for Gringo Pete's and loaded up and took off for Tucson. I've gone on long enough so there will be more posts. Stayed tuned for more post and pictures.
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