It's back on!
02 March 2012 | Vuda Point Marina, Fiji
sunny and hot.
It's Saturday here while it's still Friday around most of the rest of the planet and jobs continue. There is no such thing as a weekend when you are out cruising or even sitting in a marina. Heck, I really have no clue most of the time as to what day it is of the week. The only reference I have is that many of us get together on Thursday for "Pizza Night" when the local restaurants have specials on Pizza and Monday when we gather for drinks at one of the local bars/restaurants. With out those, I'm not sure most days as to what day it is. About the only thing that tells you what day it is is that buses don't run on Sunday so you're pretty well trapped at the marina unless you are willing to pay the $30.00 round trip fee for a taxi(no thanks).
I called All Engineering yesterday morning to see if the two projects I'd given them(fix the end of the tube for our wind electric generator that I'd buggered up and straighten the bow roller and add two bales to the far end to keep the chain where it was supposed to be) were done. "Yes, they are done". Yipee, we would head into town and get them. I'd left the aluminum tube there on Tuesday and the bow roller on Wednesday and they were already done. How's that for service.
We hopped 1100 bus(gets us into Lautoka about 1150) and headed first to the veggie market to get some carrots and then over the All Engineering. They close up between 1300 and 1400 so everyone can have lunch. I'd gotten caught by that closing on Wednesday when I dropped off the bow roller. This time, we came early.
Everything was all ready, they just had to find it. It's a big shop. Found the tube but had to look a bit for the cap/bushing that goes in the end. I'd brought it in so they had a gauge as to how big the buggered end was supposed to be. It took a few minutes but they found it.
When we took apart the roller furling, one of the stainless steel pins that holds the entire thing together had a bit of a problem. When it was put together, someone had used a non stainless steel split pin(we call it a Cotter Pin in the US) in the hole that holds it onto the roller furling. Well, the exposed ends had rusted away and it was darn near impossible to get the pin off the fitting, let alone get what was left inside the big pin out. I'd broken three drill bits trying to get it out. I took it with me to let these guys have a shot at it. First they used a small drill press. Nope(broke the bit). Next into a vise where they drove a pin into the hole hoping to drive the rest of the old pin out. All that managed to do was get the new pin stuck inside the big pin. It took a while to get the new pin out. Over to a bigger drill press. No luck there either. Over to another vise with two guys working on it now. It took a good 30 minutes but they finally got it out. You could see look of frustration on the face of the poor guys that had been working on it. I got the bill for both and while it seemed expensive, by US standards it's cheap. To reform the end of the aluminum tube came to $190Fijian($104US) and to straighten out the bow roller and add two stainless steel bales to it, came to $320Fijian($176.00US). When we had Zephyr being worked on in Port Townsend, they rebent the same strap on the bow roller(first owner had hit a bridge) and it had set us back close to $1,000! At $176, it was cheap and it looks great. Now the fitting will fit where it is supposed to and the anchor chain on the new anchor will stay on the roller where it is supposed to.
Since we were bringing back two really big things from town, we picked up a taxi and spent the $15.00 to get back to the marina. Tracy brought over Puff(our dingy) and rowed the bow roller back to Zephyr. There was no easy way to get the fitting over the stern rail and up to the bow without either hurting ourselves of doing some damage to Zephyr's decks. While she rowed, I walked back. Over went a length of line and up came the roller. We slid it into place and put in the top bolt(fit fine). I changed back into my oldest and already filthiest clothes(from when we took the fitting off) and climbed back down into the anchor locker while Tracy used the wrench while standing in Puff. In went the bottom bolt and it fit too! When ever you get something rebent or straightened, rarely do the previous holes that the bolts go through line up with their original holes. We got lucky and all the holes in the fitting lines up with the holes in the hull. When it was done in Port Townsend, it had taken three times to get it to line up. These guys got it right the very first time!! We were both prepared for it not to fit and have to be returned to be redone. I'd heard that this company was very good, now I knew it to be true. With all four bolts in, we stopped for the day. It was already 1500 and the hottest part of the day even though it was totally overcast. At 88 degrees and humidity to match, it was hot out there and I'd sweat enough to saturate both my shirt and shorts. They we soaked! YUCK!!!! We retreated inside(God bless our air conditioner) and drank lots of water and slowly cooled off. I headed up for a shower later in the afternoon once I'd cooled down.
This morning, we set about reassembling the roller furling and getting our new anchor back where it belonged. I'd gone through my stash of cotter pins(split pins) with a magnet and separated out the stainless steel ones from the just steel ones so I would use the correct one during reassembly. In went the pins and on went the cotter pins. We tightened the turnbuckle that tightens the forestay(and roller furling) and reattached the rest of the roller furling gear. Once done with that, Tracy climbed back into Puff and I lowered the anchor so we could get it back on the bow roller. She brought Puff around to the bow and we hooked the new Rochna to the anchor chain and up it came right into the new fitting slick as a whistle. That job(one of the biggest on our list of things to do while in Fiji) was done. I still have to reglue the teak side rail cap but that shouldn't be to hard. By now, it was already after 1000 and the temp and humidity was already up in the 80's as the Sun had returned. We both retreated back below decks and I stripped off my sweat saturated clothes(YUCK)as there was no way to sit down without staining the cushions(I'm sitting on a towel). We have the air conditioner running on high and a fan pushing around the air in the cabin so we are both cooling off nicely. Tomorrow, onto reassembling the DuoGen on our stern. The list gets shorter.