05/07/2009, Gulf of Aqaba
Childhood memories of spring cleaning in my Canadian home don't hold a candle to Passover cleaning in Israel. Women in this country begin their cleaning a good month before the holiday. Every inch of the home gets a thorough cleaning. Walls are scrubbed or painted, windows shined, and kitchens scoured till they glisten. This spring cleaning is no small chore and it takes on the importance of national pride.
Understand then, the frustration everyone feels at this time of the year, when a Sharav blows in and dumps a carload of sand in each persons sparkling clean home. This years' Passover Sharav blew in mid week just as we were enjoying a BBQ with friends.
The next day I arose bright and early to face some serious cleaning and caught the crew of one of the charter boats sweeping the decks. Chuckling to myself, I got out the hose and began rinsing inches of sand off of Yofy's deck and rigging. Once the decks were dry, I turned to the interior and used my special dust - buster combo. This is an invention that works a charm when you don't have a vacuum cleaner. Oh, did I mention that our shop vac broke down one day before the Sharav blew in?
My dust - buster consists of one carpet beater, one large soft, thick rag (half an old bath towel works well) a bucket of clean water and a dab of dish washing soap. I use it to clean all of Yofy's upholstery. Sailboat interiors sport a proportionally large number of upholstered cushions that even without a Sharav are prone to collecting dust and mold. While I do machine wash the covers once a year, I use this technique between washes to keep the fabric bright and sweet smelling. In damp environments I add a couple of drops of tea tree oil to the water or alternately a splash of vinegar to deter mold.
I immerse the rag in the bucket of slightly soapy water and ring it out well. Then I lay the extended rag on the cushion and bang the bejeezes out of it with the carpet beater. After a few whacks I rinse the rag and continue till I've banged the entire surface of the cushion. It is truly amazing just how much dirt this method will release. Of course, Manny likes to make sexual innuendos whenever he sees me getting out the carpet beater and neighbours get a good laugh when they see me whacking away, but who am I to let a little ribbing get in the way of a good thing?
This year I have discovered a new cleaning product that has many uses aboard Yofy. It is an environmentally friendly degreaser. While I normally keep my cleaning supplies down to a few basics, this spray degreaser has really come in handy. The brand that I use is called "Ecofriend" but I am sure there are other equally good products out there on the market. We have used this degreaser to not only clean the oven, but our bilges, vinyl cockpit cushions, fenders, vinyl coated lifelines and even to remove cetol dribbles from our fiberglass hull. The last use was clearly a grab in an emergency and it did cross my mind that I wouldn't want to be spraying the gelcoat at random with this stuff. Better to spay some on a cloth and to swipe the dribble itself, but it did work a charm.
Years ago, just after we had invested in our lovely pale green upholstery, I knocked over a full glass of red wine straight on to one of the salon cushions. As the red stain spread, I let loose a few explicatives, thought about how much it would cost us to replace that cushion and dove for the salt. Unfortunately no amount of salt would remove the stain and by the next morning there was quite a large ugly mark. I mixed hydrogen peroxide straight with a teaspoon of dishwashing soap and dribbled it all over the stain rubbing the detergent in well. Then I took the cover off the cushion and went to a Laundromat. The cover came out of the washing machine good as new with no signs of red wine at all. Since then we've kept a good supply of hydrogen peroxide aboard and use it regularly for spot stains on the upholstery.
When I am cooking with lemons, I save the skins after juicing and use them to give our brass a quick rub. If the brass has been neglected for some time I will use half a fresh lemon and allow the juice to sit awhile. Later I can sprinkle on coarse salt and give the brass a rub with the lemon skin. Lemons are also a good cleaner for untreated teak and they cut grease well. You can rub the interior of a lemon skin over your varnished bulkheads and cabinets to degrease. Then wipe clean with using a bucket of water and a clean rag and you will have a sweet smelling cabin with glowing woodwork.
We like to keep a gallon jug of simple vinegar on board Yofy. Vinegar is an excellent cleaning substance and has many uses on board a cruising sailboat. Every few months, we dump about 2 cups of vinegar in the head, pump it into the hoses and let it stand for a few hours. Then we pump the vinegar out and rinse with sea water. Manny also runs vinegar in much the same way through Yofy's engine about once a year. Vinegar will help prevent the salt water scale that builds up in hoses without damaging rubber seals and valves. Fiberglass head compartments will smell sweet and remain mildew free if you regularly wipe them down with a vinegar water solution and vinegar makes a wonderful hair rinse.
Meanwhile, yet another Sharav is on the horizon and my sinuses are having a party. - Nothing to do but batten down the hatches and prepare for another round of spring cleaning.
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03/31/2009, Gulf of Aqaba
Our friend Derek wrote us recently about an Arab expression that he learned from his father who spent some time in Egypt. Derek's father roughly translated Sham El-Nessim as meaning "the smell of the breeze". He remembers his father telling him that this was the name of spring breezes that were the "signal" for those with money to move to their seaside homes near Alexandria to escape the heat of the summer in Cairo. I did a little research on the internet and found out that Sham El-Nessim is in fact a festival signifying the arrival of spring and is a uniquely Egyptian tradition practiced since the days of the Pharaohs.
Since Derek's email, the expression has been on my mind. For lately there has been the scent of something warm and sultry in the air. Of course the real proof of spring came at the beginning of March with our first Shirav. While I go on about smelling the breeze many of you are asking "What about that new engine?" Rest assured that we've made good progress.
Throughout February Manny did last minute adjustments to the new engine and worked on the alignment. Then one evening when I arrived at the boat I found him ready to start the engine. The nanni diesel turned over at the click of the switch. Manny looked at me and said "Is there less noise?" Our old Ruggerini engine shook like a Parkinson patient and was so loud conversation was impossible. I called up to Manny from my place in the galley and said "What do you think? We're talking!" And then a huge smile broke out on his face as he also realized the difference.
Later that week we asked our friend Pedro to join us as we set out for a trial sail. After six months at the dock Yofy's bottom sported more than her usual marine growth, but we managed to make way. It was a day of light winds and we were happy to motor down the Gulf. Manny eagerly read off knots from our GPS readings and both of us kept exclaiming about the speed we were making - "even with a foul bottom!" Although I'm sure Pedro grew a little tired of our fixation on speed over ground, I do have to say that we are delighted with the extra push this new engine is giving us.
Midway through our day we found ourselves well away from land. We turned off the engine and lay adrift while I served some lunch. The sun shone and a
light breeze played over the water as we ate. Off in the distance, the outline of Egypt's Sinai coast beckoned. We raised a glass to toast the end of one long project.
Over the next few weeks we did several more day sails, checking the engine against stronger winds and waves. Each time we returned dockside, Manny climbed in the engine room to check for leaks or tweak the alignment. After years of sailing with a questionable engine, we needed more than just a little assurance that this new diesel was in good running condition.
While Manny focused on the engine, I gave a light sand and three coats of cetol to all of Yofy's brightwork. In the beginning we kept a close eye on the durability of varnish, teak oil and other recommended products and soon found that in this climate cetol stands the test. So, a few years ago, I sanded all the brightwork down to wood and applied five coats of cetol. In any other climate, I would only need to reapply one new coat each year, but Eilat's strong sun, sandy winds and salty air eat through several coats a year.
As our hours of daylight slowly lengthened, Manny became determined to clean Yofy's bottom. He dug through our lockers unearthing his scuba gear and waited for the next mild day. Last Saturday he filled his air tank, took a long exhale and zipped into his wetsuit. Grabbing a plastic scrapper, he stepped overboard and set to work. Half an hour later he surfaced covered in bits of barnacle, looked at me and said "You know, we really do have to haul out soon."
After a good wash and a chance to warm up in the sun, Manny was ready to do a test sail. There is something about guys and performance. He just had to see if Yofy would make another half a knot under power with a clean bottom. Within half an hour we were back out on the water glued to the GPS. Excitement mounting we watched the numbers climb until Yofy was making 5.9 knots under power. Manny looked at me and grinned. "Just imagine what she'll do after haul out!"
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January came in with a blast, bringing cold temperatures and grey skies. For two weeks we hunkered down, pulling warm clothes out of storage and preparing for some winter weather. Then the sun came out, temperatures rose ten degrees and we've had mild weather ever since. While it feels like spring, nobody is quite sure whether to take this mild spell seriously or not.
Things change quickly in the Middle East. One day it is sunny and mild and the next it is winter. One evening we are chatting with friends about the tense political situation between Gaza and Israel and the next morning our radio says we are at war. So it is that while I have been writing about avoiding piracy in the Red Sea, we have survived another war, and done a major refit to Yofy's engine room.
All this time Yofy has been tied snuggly to her dock. Before we could install the new Nanni diesel, we had to find suitable damper and adaptor plates; parts which connect the engine to the transmission. Throughout October and November I scoured the internet searching for a suitable supplier. Each day Manny would fume at the lack of responses to my emails and in the end it took over 30 emails to various websites until we unearthed two good sources. Our search was so long and so frustrating that I am happy to post here the names of two very patient suppliers who gave us excellent service. One is Waterway Power center in the USA . The other is Lancing Marine in the UK .
While I held fort on the internet, Manny painted the engine room, installed an air conditioning system and an extra bilge pump, rewired all the gages and moved the junction box, extended the engine beds and engine mounts and changed the water intake and filter. Each evening I would walk down to Yofy and find Manny hunkered down in the engine compartment busy at one of the jobs.
In November, we took a few days break to travel to the Galil in the north of Israel. We had a wonderful time forgetting about engines, bilges and wiring. One day we drove to the village of Turan to buy our years supply of olive oil. We found the village press nestled in an olive grove. Goats grazed the land next to the parking area reaching high up in the trees to catch tender young leaves. Inside various locals were bringing in yesterdays olive harvest for pressing. We watched the olives tumble onto the little conveyor belt and into the macerators. The oil from those olives was a deep green colour and poured thick like honey into our waiting jerry cans. Now Yofy's special temperature controlled wine locker also holds four gallons of cold pressed virgin olive oil.
Just in time for Christmas our damper and adapter plates arrived and Manny began installing them. Next, he welded a cart to roll the Nanni diesel along the dock and another temporary frame which would serve as a landing site for the engine when it was lowered inside our cabin. Manny's plan was to slide the engine onto her mounts from this temporary frame. Finally at the end of December, on the new moon flood tide the new Nanni diesel was winched into place.
Throughout January Manny was busy aligning the engine, modifying the exhaust and changing the cable attachments. As I write, he is once again in the engine compartment doing what we hope is the last adjustments to the engine alignment. I have learned that there are so many different details to attend to when you change an engine on a sailboat. Since the summer, I have watched countless numbers of times as Manny heads up to Amnon's shop to tool a part that he can't get in town. Once again, I am thankful for his good technical skills.
Nothing shows how long a boat has been stationary than the marine growth on her bottom. By now Yofy sports a thick crust of barnacles and daily one of us questions if she will actually be able to move out of her slip for a sail trial. Good thing we now have a powerful diesel that can take the challenge!
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