We're working every day, 9 days straight so far. Our tasks are not photo-worthy and we make incremental progress, so I've not been encouraged to write or post any photos.

Yesterday, I unwrapped my old mountaineering skills and used climbing hardware to ascend to the radar, hoping to exchange it and its cable for the new equipment. We were unable to withdraw the cable so I descended. That kind of task requires both of us to accomplish, so when that failed to work, we had little to show. The main sticking point for this task, literally, was the tiny size of the entry port on the mast base. There are many important cables (old radar, masthead lights, wind instrument) and a truly tiny hole, but I was able use an angle drill and burr grinder to enlarge it. At least next time we have a better chance of feeding the new cable downward. Whether we feed a cable upward or downward is a function of the size of the terminal connection: large connectors won't go through a small opening.

When I installed the radar back in 2008, I had to fabricate an "adapter plate" that allowed the mounting holes in the radar to work for the mounting holes in the radar platform. I suspected a problem with the plate because of the many years of environmental damage up on the mast. Indeed it does show damage! Plastic is my material of choice and the plastic that I had used showed some cracks around bolt holes. I did bring material for replacing the adapter , thankfully. I'll remove the old one, use it a template for configuring (cut to shape and drill the holes) the new plate, and install it, and hopefully, the radome. The new cable is for all digital radar, so is much smaller than the old. The old cable was for the analog radar and necessarily had a piece of coax in the center, make it very large diameter. Dang, digital radar! The radar uses the Doppler effect to determine and display whether a radar target is approaching or departing. Jeez, I hope we can get it mounted!

Our fixed mount VHF radio can receive static but not much else. We're unsure of the cause: the antenna or the coax. Neither will be easy to replace, unfortunately. The antenna is US with US fittings, difficult items to find here. Our windlass is also not starting and I haven't had the time to investigate further. It's all electrical, but that equipment fares poorly in the heat and humidity here. There a simple deck-mounted foot switch that powers a solenoid, as is typical, the battery and windlass motor. I engaged the switch and the motor started, then stopped, implying that the motor works. I know that there's power to the switch. Ah...back to testing. I can probably buy a windlass switch in the country since everyone uses 12V equipment.

I did get most of the new power cable installed for the Zeus3 chart plotter, and more easily than I had anticipated. Conni's dad, LaVerne, helped with planning some soldering of an AWG8 wire to a AWG18 wire: no way a crimp would span that difference. I use a small butane soldering iron for most of this kind of work, but it provided insufficient heat to melt solder on the 8 gauge wire, so I considered using a small butane torch that I have here. After consulting with LaVerne, I leveraged myself in position and was able to complete the solder joint. Jeez! As much as possible, I'm using power connections that I installed for the old Raymarine system that we are replacing: the wiring is good and in place, shortening considerably the install time.

Conni works as she can. Two-person work requirements have almost stopped her progress.

There is a very nice couple in the New Orleans-based catamaran next to us and we enjoyed wine with them last night. As is typical with cruisers, they are interesting folks and it was nice to have a visit with other English speakers.They had never even sailed a boat before, and bought a big catamaran, sold all of their possessions, and departed New Orleans. Initially, she was reluctant (can anyone blame her?) but she says that she's glad to be aboard.

Wednesday, 29 July

Interesting day with a lot of rain, so no mast work.

Conni got even more of the boat interior done. Now we have places to sit that aren't covered in tools and parts. Jeez, it's no wonder we rent a pension!

More of our new network is completed. I find that I lose a lot of "vision" on the wiring process when I'm away from it for so long. Being able to move along a cable run with a sure hand for placing support, knowing wire gauge and terminal size by looking: those skills take some time to remember and we have little time. It turns out that a long piece of NMEA2000 drop cable that I ordered did not arrive and I didn't realize it, so I'm scrambling to find workarounds. I'm scavenging cable that is packaged with the instruments, for example. I'm unsure if I can consolidate my parts to make things work, but I'll do what i can.

VHF radio update: I borrowed an SWR meter from my neighbor and, after a few hours of testing, determined that our VHF is working suitably. A bit later, Mike (my neighbor on the catamaran) and I exchanged some radio communications, so our fixed mount VHF is functioning. Whew! We also tested our AIS and it's also working. Both of these results are very good news.