Sequitur

Michael & Edi have headed out on a slow, thorough exploration of the globe.

Vessel Name: Sequitur and Zonder Zorg
Vessel Make/Model: 2007 Hunter 49 and 1908 Wildschut Skûtsje
Hailing Port: Vancouver, Canada
Crew: Michael Walsh & Edi Gelin
About: For our current location click, on Map & Tracking, then on the Google Earth logo.
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13 January 2014
26 April 2013
24 April 2013
27 October 2012 | Harlingen, Friesland
29 September 2012 | Sneek, Netherlands
19 September 2012 | Hoorn, Netherlands
13 September 2012 | Aalsmeer, Netherlands
20 August 2012 | Sequitur: St Augustine, USA - Michael & Edi: Vancouver, Canada - Nieuwe Zorg: Aalsmeer, Netherlands
11 August 2012 | Sequitur: St Augustine, USA - Michael & Edi: Vancouver, Canada - Nieuwe Zorg: Aalsmeer, Netherlands
10 August 2012 | Sequitur: St Augustine, USA - Michael & Edi: Vancouver, Canada - Nieuwe Zorg: Aalsmeer, Netherlands
08 August 2012 | Nieuwe Zorg: Aalmmeer, Michael & Edi: Vancouver
28 July 2012 | Nieuwe Zorg in Aalsmeer - Michael & Edi in Vancouver
26 July 2012 | Nieuwe Zorg in Aalsmeer - Michael & Edi in Volendam
17 July 2012 | Michael & Edi in Leeuwarden, Netherlands
07 July 2012 | Edi & Michael in Vancouver, Sequitur in Saint Augustine
27 June 2012 | Saint Augustine, USA
07 June 2012 | Saint Augustine, Florida, USA
20 May 2012 | Fajardo, Puerto Rico
11 May 2012 | Terre Le Haut, Les Saintes, Guadeloupe
01 May 2012 | Carlisle Bay, Barbados
Recent Blog Posts
13 January 2014

Another New Book Released

I am delighted to announce that my new book: Carefree on the European Canals is now in print and is available on Amazon.com, Amazon.ca [...]

26 April 2013

New Book Released

The proof copy of my new book arrived by courier today. I have approved it and it is now listed on Amazon for pre-order, with a publication date of 30 April. It is a rather large book at 680 pages in an 8.5 by 11 inch format with 315,000 words illustrated by over 2400 colour photos, charts and maps. [...]

24 April 2013

One Year Out of Brazil

One year ago today we sailed Sequitur out of Brazil after enduring more than six weeks in the least-friendly country that we had experienced during our three-year voyage. In the early evening of 24 April 2012 we crossed the line on the chart dividing Brazil from French Guyana and breathed a huge sigh [...]

27 October 2012 | Harlingen, Friesland

Planing a Metamorphosis

We have added a new post to the Zonder Zorg blog at: Planing a Metamorphosis.

29 September 2012 | Sneek, Netherlands

Onward to Friesland

We have arrived in Friesland and have added a new post to the skûtsje's blog at: Onward to Friesland

19 September 2012 | Hoorn, Netherlands

North From Aalsmeer

We have moved northward from Aalsmeer and I have added two new posts: Heading North From Aalsmeer and North From Amsterdam

13 September 2012 | Aalsmeer, Netherlands

Taking Possession

We are back in the Netherlands, and I have added some new posts to the ZonderZorg blog at: Taking Possession and Settling-In and Making Plans

20 August 2012 | Sequitur: St Augustine, USA - Michael & Edi: Vancouver, Canada - Nieuwe Zorg: Aalsmeer, Netherlands

Added a New Website

We have added a new website: Skûtsje ZonderZorg. Zonder zorg in Dutch means without worry. Our intention with the site is to provide a place to share some of the history, geography and culture of the skûtsje as we discover it. We will also use this place to document [...]

11 August 2012 | Sequitur: St Augustine, USA - Michael & Edi: Vancouver, Canada - Nieuwe Zorg: Aalsmeer, Netherlands

Still More Skûtsje History

We continued to attempt to track-down Douwe Albert Visser, who was the owner of Nieuwe Zorg in 1941 when she was re-registered. One of the problems we repeatedly encountered in our online searches was the effect of currently having Albert Visser and two Douwe Vissers as very competitive skûtsje racers, [...]

10 August 2012 | Sequitur: St Augustine, USA - Michael & Edi: Vancouver, Canada - Nieuwe Zorg: Aalsmeer, Netherlands

Some More Skûtsje History

While I was researching the history of Nieuwe Zorg, I finally found her first registration details obscured by an apparent typographical error in a transcribed online spreadsheet. She was listed as having been built in 1901 instead of 1908. I emailed the webmaster of the [...]

Farewell to Peru

14 December 2010 | La Punta, Peru
Michael
We arrived back on board Sequitur in the mooring field at La Punta in the early afternoon of Friday the 2nd of December from a week of exploring in Cuzco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu. Our heads and souls were still filled to overflowing with our experiences, and we couldn't stop thinking of the postulations in Gavin Menzies' book "1421: The Year China Discovered the World". So much of what we saw of the remains of the Inca Empire seemed to us to have had a Chinese influence in its conception and execution.

We needed; however, to get our minds from the past and back into the present and onward, we need to tie-up the loose ends and make our final departure arrangements. We had arrived in Peru in late May, and over six months later, we were ready to move on down the coast to Chile.

Many details needed attention. Among them, we had to take delivery of a new dinghy and motor, which we had re-scheduled for Saturday the 4th, but saw it migrate to the following week. We still needed to be lifted-out to clean the bottom, inspect it and change the zincs. Our more-than-a-dozen-times-delayed lift-out was now finally scheduled by Jamie for Tuesday the 7th. Also on Tuesday, our stainless steel fabricator, another Jamie had promised to have the outboard engine bracket completed and installed on Sequitur's transom.

In between and around these, we needed to top-off our tanks with diesel and water. We needed to re-commission the watermaker, tune the standing rigging, overhaul the sails and the running rigging, change the engine oil and filter, change the three fuel filters, flash-up the second freezer and second fridge and start loading them with provisions for our passage south. All of these and many other tiny details needed attention.


On Tuesday morning the one Jamie delayed our lift-out until Thursday. I asked for a specific time, and he said early. I suggested 0800, and he said 0830, so I confirmed 0830 on Thursday the 9th of December with him. The other Jamie arrived as promised with the newly fabricated bracket for the new 18hp outboard engine. It fit perfectly, and other than his having mounted the clamp board on the wrong side, it was exactly as I had envisioned. It was quickly and easily changed.


Wednesday was a national holiday in Peru, the celebration of, from what I could gather, the day that Mary finally got-up the courage to tell Joe she was pregnant. Luis had arranged with me to use the day to do the dinghy and outboard motor commissioning, so I took the launch ashore and walked along the malecon to his club to meet him.


We unpacked, unrolled, assembled and inflated the dinghy, and then we mounted and centred the motor and marked its position on the transom. One of the club tripulantes walked over to the gas station a block away to get four gallons ( a tad over 15 litres) of gasoline in the fuel tank. Peru is one of the very few countries in the world still using some of the archaic US measurement system, the rest of the world having gone to the much less complicated metric system.


The dinghy was rolled out the pier, which was still rickety and not yet fully repaired from its damage in the tsunami from the Chilean earthquake earlier in the year. The tripulantes slung, swung and launched the dinghy, which we have decided to name Non Sequitur, in memory of the dinghy we had stolen in Paita as a part of our welcome to Peru in May.


Luis and I motored out to Sequitur in the mooring field, where we completed our transaction in the cockpit. We now have a dinghy and motor again for the first time in six and a half months.


We secured the dinghy and took the launch ashore in the early afternoon and caught a bus to San Miguel, where we picked-up some things at Maestro and then went across to Wong. We hadn't yet had lunch, and had decided to do the per-weight buffet. An indication of our fuel burn of the previous week was evident by the massive protein stacks on our plates as they were weighed through by the cashier.

We then went below to the supermarket and started the process of re-filling Sequitur's pantry fridges and freezers. Among the things on our list was ground beef so we could prepare some pasta sauces and a chilly con carne. The standard grind was S/22 per kilo, so instead we opted for the huge shucked and cleaned scallops complete with attached roe for S/19 per kilo. Who needs ground residue of beef when scallops are less expensive? We bought all they had.


On Wednesday evening I woked-up a celebratory dinner to welcome our new dinghy. I toasted some sesame seeds in a dry wok as I cleaned and chopped the vegetables. Quartered champignons de paris and mini portobellos, sliced oyster mushrooms, celery, white onion, scallions, pak choy and chunked red, green and yellow peppers and roma tomatoes were among the ingredients that went into the wok with a few drops of sesame oil in the last of our canola oil. When everything was nearly cooked, I tossed-in a couple of huge handfuls of scallops and tossed until they were just firm, then sprinkled on the toasted sesame and we were ready. Instead of breaking the bottle of bubbly over the bows of the dinghy, we had opted for a better use.


At 0750 on Thursday morning I lowered and launched the dinghy from the davits and took it to the newly installed dinghy dock. Its predecessor had been destroyed by the Tsunami; its replacement was less than a week old.


I had brought the dinghy ashore to clear our stern and make it easier for Sequitur to enter the lift-out dock. Also, I wanted to ensure all was ready for our lift-out. The travel lift was not there!


I went looking for it. I walked along the pier past the crew which was continuing its demolition/re-construction of the pier's roadbed, and there was a yawning gap in the travel lift's route to the haul-out dock.


I continued up the pier to the security gate and Jaime's office. He was not there, and the attendanr told me he would be in manana, the next day. I walked across to the work yard and saw the travel lift buried behind a clutch of boats and trailers and other impedimenta. This was not looking good for our scheduled lift-out in less than 15 minutes.

In my non-Spanish, I spoke and gesticulated with Godofredo Alvarez Rivera, one of the senior tripulantes, and told him of our scheduled lift-out. He replied in his non-English and gestures what I understood to be that he would organize it. Assured, I took a launch back out to Sequitur.

Toward 0930 a tripulante arrived onboard Sequitur, and pantomimed that we needed to lower the SSB antenna and topping lift. He thought the antenna was a backstay and he wanted to stabilize the mast before we unfastened it. I pointed-out our B&R rig and convinced him we had no backstay and a very stable rig. I released the SSB antenna and topping lift and allowed them to sag to the mast. At 0942 we slipped from the buoy and motored to the pier, backed into the dock and watched as slings were passed under our hull.


Shortly after 1000, Sequitur was lifted, and as our side decks came level with the dock sills we stepped ashore. Sequitur was out of the water for the first time in a year and a half.


The bottom had no encrustations, only the slime expected from sitting on a mooring in horribly polluted water for over six months.


The zinc at the end of the propeller hub was gone, as were the two shaft zincs. We can only hope that they have been missing for only a short while, and that nothing has been eroded by electrolysis.


A couple of tripulantes spelled each other off as they power-washed the bottom. I was delighted to see that the bottom paint was still good. We had last had the bottom done in March 2009 with Interlux Bottomkote, and it looks like it will last us until our projected haul-out in Puerto Montt, Chile in the southern autumn.


Once the bottom had been power-washed, I took my bag down onto the rolling platform under Sequitur, and had it rolled in to the propeller. I unscrewed the plug, screwed-in a nipple and greased the gears of the VariProp, then removed the nipple and replaced the plug. Next, I used Q-Tips and CRC contact cleaner to clean-out the threads in the end of the propeller hub. With LockTite on the capscrew threads, I installed the hub zinc and torqued sufficiently to compress the lock washers to just closed. I then installed the two shaft zincs, again using LockTite on the capscrew threads. All of this was watched by a very interested tripulante, who proudly posed beside the completed work.

In the middle of this procedure, Gonzalo and Magdala arrived at the Club to say hello and to arrange a farewell with us. We had thought they had gone to New York, but they had cancelled the trip. I was dirty and distracted with the zincs, and I directed them up to the upper deck to make arrangements with Edi.


I inspected the bottom, and could see no sign of any electrolytic erosion on the propeller, the shaft, the struts, nor on the through-hulls. Everything looked fine, and we were ready to splash. While the bottom was being power-washed, I had walked up to the office and paid for 200 gallons of diesel. Now we were lowered to just above the water, and there we took the fuel. The main tank took 135.0 gallons, the gauge stopped at 192.75 when the auxiliary tank reached its fill, and I put the remaining 7.25 gallons into our two 5-gallon diesel jerry cans. It had been a very close calculation. We topped-off the water tanks, taking on about 480 litres.


At 1315 we were re-launched, and with two tripulantes onboard, we motored out to an electrical buoy near the centre of the mooring field. I allowed Augusto to take the helm and get us to the proper place, and within twenty minutes, with the assistance of launches they summoned by cell phone, the crew had hooked us up to moorings fore and aft, and had run our shore power cable to the outlet on the forward buoy. The entire process, from preparation through lift-out, servicing and re-launch to re-mooring and connection to the electrical buoy had gone very smoothly. Jaime was nowhere to be seen.


In the central area of the Club's mooring field there is a wonderful network of mooring buoys with shore-power outlets, and some of these even have fresh water bibs. We were connected to a 110-volt, 30-amp outlet. Shortly after 1600 the breaker was made in the control barge, and we were on shore power for the first time in nine months.

In the late afternoon we caught a bus along La Marina and Prado to Arequipa, where we caught another bus to Parc Kennedy in central Miraflores. We nosed around in the shops, including in a couple of multi-merchant artisan complexes. They had mostly the same repetitious, mass-produced trappings we had seen in Cuzco, Pisac and Aguas Calientes the previous week. We bought nothing from them.


We walked over to Gonzalo and Magdala's home and spent a delightful time chatting, drinking bubbly and nibbling on hors d'oeuvres catered to us by seven-year-old Gonzalito. Leaving the young one with the maid, Gonzalo then drove us over to their favourite restaurant, Rafael. Among the wonderful dishes that came to the table was one with the largest serving of foie gras I have seen since the Alsace.


Another outstanding plate was the beautifully presented seared tuna that Edi had ordered. It captured the essence of chef-owner Rafael Osterling's cuisine, a fusion of Asian and Mediterranean styles with fresh Peruvian ingredients. At the end of the evening Rafael came out, and we spoke briefly.

We shared a widely rambling conversation throughout the dinner, and we thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to give back a small bit of the wonderful hospitality that Gonzalo and Magdala have offered us these last few months. Gonzalo's driver took us very comfortably and safely back to La Punta.


As wonderful as such socializing is, we needed to turn to more mundane things if we wanted to make our scheduled departure. With shore power and full water tanks, Edi flashed-up the washing machine and ran several loads of things tired of repeated hand washing as well as a backlog of tea towels, serviettes and other niceties. We decided against using the dryer, and the cockpit became a drying room.


Edi mixed-up a triple batch of biscotti, plus some dough for a batch of bagels, a couple of loaves of crispy potato bread and two pizza crusts. These were all set aside to do their thing while we went ashore and caught a taxi to the Maestro on Argentina. We bought assorted hardware, including chain and padlocks for the dinghy and motor, and we also picked-up another six bags of Bolaseca dehumidification crystals.


We loaded our purchases into the bag on our wheelie and crossed the street to the Minka market. We bought four kilos of boneless and skinless chicken, two kilos each of eggs, local cheese, comotes, mashing potatoes, green beans, red peppers, ripe tomatoes, red onions and green mangoes. We added four bunches of asparagus, and a kilo each of riper mangoes, firmer tomatoes, hard avocadoes and a hand of ripe bananas for banana loaf. Other small purchases took our load to well over 40 kilos. Everything stowed easily and we still had room leftover for our final shopping trip.


We spent the remainder of the day baking, pausing for a while between bagels and biscotti to insert two large pizzas into the oven and then into our bellies.


On Saturday I fine-tuned the new outboard engine bracket, adding bushings fabricated from the polypropylene of a yogurt bottle to the clasps. I also replaced the common nuts with nylock ones, so that I could set the correct grasp on the shaft and allow the bracket to swivel easily, but with some resistance.


I re-rigged the falls on the davits, which we had stowed for safekeeping when we arrived in June. With some bumbling as I taught myself how it could best work, I hoisted the motor off the dinghy and onto its new mount. I was delighted with how well the pieces all fit together once the dinghy was hoisted.

I had emailed and then later spoken with Jaime about our wish to sail away on Tuesday, asking him to contact the agent for us so that we could initiate the departure procedures. We waited onboard for the remainder of Saturday for agent to come.


On Sunday morning, as we continued to wait for the agent, I continued with pre-departure chores, including inspecting the Hydrovane and installing its rudder. I then set about re-commissioning the watermaker from its more than six month sleep.

The instruction manual for the Spectra Newport 400 Mk II is so well written, and in such clear language, and machine controls are so well conceived and executed, that it was a breeze to bring the watermaker back to life. I changed the charcoal filter and the 5-micron and 20 micron pre-filters, pushed some buttons, twisted a valve and the process began. The storage solution purge sequence ran smoothly, as did the ten-minute purge of initial product water, and within forty minutes we were ready to start making water. I closed the relief valve, pushed the Auto Run button and watched as the machine began delivering water at the rate if 68 litres per hour.


Then a pop, a whoosh and the sound of a rapidly turning pump broke my contented state. I quickly pushed the Stop button, and went forward to inspect the source of the commotion. The Parker tube fitting connecting the tubing from the pump module outlet to the Clark pump had failed. I undid the fitting to discover that only one grab ring had been used by the installer to connect the ½" tubing, instead of the two explicitly called for in the manual. My trust in the work done by our fit-out yard in Vancouver, Specialty Yachts sunk to a new low. I will now have to thoroughly inspect each and every connection, and try to find a source for more grab rings.

I bent the tabs slightly on the one grab ring and re-assembled the connection. Then using a rolling hitch on the tubing with monel locking wire, I secured the tubing in the connector. I re-flashed the watermaker and ran it for four hours, making 270 litres of water.


While the watermaker was doing its thing, we continued with other details of preparing Sequitur for the next leg of the voyage. In the mid-afternoon Gonzalo, Magdala and Gonzalito, tacked close aboard our stern a few times and we had a brief conversation. In the late afternoon Luis came by in his dinghy to say farewell, and he presented us with a large jar of white asparagus, which his uncle grows down the coast in Paracas.


We had given-up on the agent arriving, when near dusk there was a knock on the hull and Jorge Romero Gardella, the agent requested permission to board. We sat in the salon going over the procedure and digging out our ships papers, entry documents, passports, visas, immunization cards and other assorted papers, when there was another hail from alongside. Gonzalo, Magdala and Gonzalito had finished their sail and on their way ashore, they stopped by to give us a box of skin care products, including lots of sunscreen from his company, Yanbal International.


On Monday morning we continued with our preparations for departure. While Edi organized below, I put on my old mountaineering harness and went up the mast using the folding steps, and pushing a triple prussic knot up the spinnaker halyard as a safety. I was up the mast to re-install the speaker for the foghorn and loud-hailer, which had been installed by Vancouver's Specialty Yachts, and which had come crashing down to the deck during our passage to the Galapagos.


In the mid afternoon we took a bus to Plaza Vea to pick-up last-minute items, and took a taxi back with our huge load. While Edi stowed our purchases, I prepared a chartlet of our planned passage from Callao. The idiocy of the system in Peru is that they insist we provide an exact passage plan with courses and speeds, plus turning points and latitudes and longitudes with times at each, and an ETA at our final destination. The narrow-minded people who devised the system obviously had no concept of sailing, nor of the unpredictability of courses-made-good with constantly changing weather and sea state. The minions who now administer the system perpetuate its asininity. I decided the best way to appease them was to offer them a routing that took us very quickly out beyond their 200 nautical mile limit, and then kept us beyond their claimed territory down the coast to our destination, Iquique, Chile. They have effectively forced to skip the rest of Peru.

It is so sad that the incompetent bureaucrats who administer the system make it impractical for visiting yachts to safely and enjoyably cruise the coast. Instead, they force us flee the country and to tell other cruisers to avoid it.


I printed off the chartlet and caught a launch ashore to settle the invoices from the Yacht Club for our six-and-a-bit months moorage, our lift-out charges and fees for the launch services. I then met with Jorge, and we went up to the Club office to begin the paperwork.


In a little under an hour and a half, and with the help of Pamela, the office administrator, Jorge generated and I signed a stack of paper over two centimetres high. Among these was yet another Sanitario inspection, this one costing S/552 and bringing our total Sanitario charges in Peru to S/2650. I questioned the charges and received a very vague explanation.


Our last three ports: Puerto Ayoro in the Galapagos and Paita and Callao in Peru are the three most polluted and filthy harbours we have ever experienced. Are we being inspected to ensure we don't carry away with us any of their filth? We did spot the Sanitario vessel on a mooring off La Punta, and we postulated that the charges imposed on us are to aid in the cleaning and restoration of the dilapidated and filthy vessel.


I returned onboard to the wonderful aroma of banana loaf baking in the oven, and all seemed well again.


On Tuesday morning I was up at 0700 to complete our preparations for departure. Among other things, I went up the mast to remove the bird netting from the spreaders and the pig stick flying anti-bird streamers from the top of the mast. While I was up there I inspected the antennas and instruments and re-installed the wind vane.


By the time I had finished and was back down, Edi had completed stowing and squaring-away below, and by 1020 we were ready to depart, and we sat around waiting for Jorge to arrive with the Sanitario and Autoridado Portuaria Nacional people, who were due onboard at 1000.

At 1115 Jorge arrived onboard alone with signed and stamped paperwork, including our zarpe, our permission to leave Peru. We were free to head to Chile.
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