NOSE TO THE GRIND STONE AGAIN ...........

We have a couple of books on board on "How to Sail" ...... When we slowed our dinghy down to watch these kids sail by, we realised we may have to pull the book out and learn how to do all that stuff again ..... It seems like forever since we last went sailing ..... It's pretty sad when you get jealous of 'Kids in prams' .... But just look at the stern of our new yacht with its new 'faux-finish' wood grain ..... Just a bigger "ARITA" really ..... Now to get rid of the blue canvas and make it all teal green ...... It is all part of the master plan .....



Laurie has already started on that with making the new stack-pack for the mizzen ..... That mizzen 'sail-holder' has pockets on each side that hold the rolled up shade cloths for the after deck .......... She's done an awesome sewing job and at the end of each day with a swig of rum or a G&T it is beautiful to survey our World and watch other sailors go by ...... One day, we too will be sailing again .....



And that shade canopy comes in handy too, for cutting the templates for Paul and Lynn's windows on their new dodger ....... Seperate templates are needed for both the tempered safety glass and the stainless steel surrounds ..... All of which need to be manufactured on the main island of PUERTO RICO ..... And our friends Harry and Linda on the catamaran "KUHELA" are off to safer anchorages in SALINAS ...... Safer meaning bigger mangroves .....



"KIANA" will finally have a sleek dodger coated in epoxy white with large windows, but until then the little forward looking hole will have to suffice ...... Speaking of little holes .... Those were the holes left by the defunct gauges for two of our four water tanks .... Each tank holds 125 gallons, but since we now have the water maker we are taking these two and converting them to diesel tanks...... But first we need to clean them with the vacuum cleanerhose on a long flexi stick ...... There's thirty years of calcified crud down there .......



Now if we could get this hermit crab out of his shell and send him down there he could get all the crud out of the corners ..... Apart from the tank cleaning there was a whole rebuild required for the hoses ...... Convert half of the water fill hose lines to diesel..... New deck filler plug for water that now has to be on starboard ..... Identify the breather lines and separate them ..... But at the end of the day we will have a fuel capacity for 450 gallons, which is great for crossing the Pacific .... But we need a good old Texas oil well to fill them first .... But it solves the biggest problem of all, because our main fuel tank under the floor of the two front cabins has corrosion holes in it that have been consistently leaking and it has to come out ..... Now there's a drama yet to happen ...... On the sister ship "LIAHONA" Mark resorted to cutting a hole in the deck to take it out ........ We're hoping to avoid that ......



Friends of ours, Gabriel and Wanda from the PR yacht "GOOD TIMING" arrived from the mainland and we went kayaking into the mangroves to work out some sort of a 'hurricane plan' ..... Somewhere in there was the wrecked ferro-cement yacht "CARLOTTA" that once belonged to the now famous Capt. Fatty Goodlander, a really funny guy and great storyteller well published in Caribbean yachting magazines ..... He didn't own it when it was wrecked here ... But here's the thing ..... This is right in the thick of the mangrove channels, supposedly full protection from hurricanes, and yet look at it ....... We definitely need another plan ....



Despite the looming weather front, we took a boat ride with "KIANA's" crew on a local skiff to visit the sister island of CULEBRITA ..... A chance to get away from our anchorage ..... A day of play ..... Sit in the shade of the umbrella and in the water to keep cool, which is all relative, and probably somewhat insane ..... The water being warmer than the air ..... But at least it is wet ......



There were clear imprints of a turtle having come ashore the night before to lay her eggs ...... Beneath the trees was the disturbed sandy soil ........ Clearly the turtle had read the sign in both English and Spanish, that said this was a Government approved, Department of Nature Conservation controlled turtle-egg-laying beach ....



We fenced it off with a broken-up pallet and hoped it would stay safe and headed for the thorny trail to the top of the hill ........ There at the very top are the remains of an old Spanish light-house ....... Somewhere around 1889 or later .....





Thick wall of composite clay brick and basalt rock and on the inside the walls were given a cement rendered plaster finish ...... Really historic and totally deserted .... A lonely outpost but huge in structure .... We heard the story that donkeys were used to cart all the stone up the hill ....... No mean feat even for a donkey ....



The mortar was obviously much weaker than the bricks ....... Take a close look at the photo on the left ....... The ravages of wind and time .....





But the view from the top of the islands and the reefs is nothing short of spectacular ...........Spectacular and windy .... You had best hang on to the rusty rails and the spiral stairway ........



CULEBRITA is one of the favorite destinations for Puerto Rican powerboats and on a good holiday weekend you can count at least four hundred of them rafted up ...... No explanation is needed why they would come here .......



The original kerosene lamp and its optics are long gone and replaced with solar panels and batteries that power a light of sorts ..... With modern day GPS most people kind of know where they are and the rest get picked up off the reefs in the morning ......



And in among the thorn trees and the Turk's head cacti is the original copper and bronze dome of the light-house with its open flue for the kerosene lamp gases ....... Probably blown off in some long forgotten hurricane ...... Going downhill is so much easier than going uphill ......

GETTING BACK TO WORK .........

The last big blog was in June when we nearly overdosed on lobster ..... " Mon, wat a feast dat was " .... It took days to recover, but life goes on ... Saw these beautiful pink velvet flowers on a tree ..... More flowers than tree actually, and also this breadfuit tree that Captain Bligh had so much 'trouble' bringing to the Caribbean ........




One of the first projects we did after 'lobsterfestitis' was to install the watermaker ...... Watermaking is really incredibly simple ...... You pass saltwater through a tightly-wound fibrous membrane at a pressure of more or less 800 PSI and out of the inner core comes sweet fresh water, having left the salt behind ...... All you have to have are the components, hoses, and of course the pressure pump which is basically the same as a pressure washer used to clean your driveway ...... Having said that, we assembled the little bits and pieces on the bed and installed them in the white membrane housing ... Those housings are made of fibreglass and capable of taking the pressures ...... The bits and pieces are manufactured in 316-grade marine stainless steel and therefore cost the same as if made from space-age titanium ....




Getting the end-plates with their 'O' rings to fit tightly proved difficult as they kept spinning around ..... We solved the problem by making a special tool out of a piece of Brazilian hardwood called 'purple-heart' ...... It split eventually so we made one out of steel .....



The white connecting hoses are plastic 1/4" flexible hoses, straight off the shelf at HOME DEPOT and finally there's the electric motor driving the high-pressure CAT pump ..... The whole system produces 40 gallons of sweet water per hour and costs only $3000.00 ...... Forty gallons an hour means 'Hollywood' showers for the Queen who had been threatening to cut her long hair ...... Which now, of course, has been cleverly avoided ..... By turning that black knob to restrict the salt water flow we pressurize the whole system and 'Bob's your Uncle' as they say .........



With a 'to-die-for' aft cabin and 'Hollywood' showers the "Queen of Florida and the Bahamas" rides tall again .............. Even if the temperature is nearly a hundred degrees, the same number as the humidity percentage ......




Our 'Aussie' mate Paul on the yacht "KIANA" whose dodger canopy we ferried into town on the dinghy has started construction of his new upper deck 'emporium' and we have combined forces in the spirit of 'mateship' ..... Firstly we glued three sheets of 1/4" cedar plywood together to make the new cabin-top .....



"KIANA" is soon rafted up alongside "SOUTHERN COMFORT" so that her aft deck can be used for cutting the panels ....... A floating workshop with music ....... Mostly rock'n roll ...... More roll than rock when other powerboats go by ...... We all wave our arms wildly to slow them down, but they think we are dancing to the music ..... After all, that's what the Puerto Ricans all do .....



Not that we work so hard that we fail to smell the flowers or see the birds ...... Actually caught a humming bird sitting on a branch having a 'lunch-break' ....... And these female peacocks taking their 'young-uns' for a stroll in the undergrowth ...



These peacocks are free range on the resort near to where we are anchored, and to see them raising their young is really a wonderful treat ......... And of course there's another ferry trip to Fajardo on the mainland, to visit my "Dear Mother of God" dermatologist with the Bambi eyes, who does the usual skin-cancer burn-offs ........ Another visit next month .... I should catch up eventually ..... This is all good ...... Not complaining one bit ......



Then it's Paul's turn to give us a hand pulling out the anchor windlass that would not work properly ........ Discovered the problem and fixed it ....... Being a sailor is one thing, but while you are at it you might as well be an engineer, a plumber, a painter, an electrician, a fabricator, a carpenter and so the list goes on ......
Meanwhile back in CURACAO the unstoppable TIMO and his artist wife ANNEMIEKE, have made incredible progress on their new yacht " LAZY LIZ " ....... (You have to read the previous blog entries to see how all this began) ......



If you recall, TIMO got busy dragging an old lead keel underwater to the shore so that he could cut it up into small 'loaves' using a blow torch ...... The lead was used to fill his new keel ..... Well that all happened while we weren't watching and next thing you know, they are celebrating the birth of the new " LAZY LIZ " ....... Big party, lots of local well-wishers .... Wish we could have been there ..... Wish you could have been there ........




And as smooth as silk she slid into the water ..............



And so back to the houseboat went the "LAZY LIZ" ...... Meanwhile back in CULEBRA we are hard at work on SOUTHERN COMFORT but managed to take some time off to visit a yacht that I thought I recognized ......



She is a beautiful NEW ZEALAND built ketch "SHIBUMI" ..... A grand lady of the high seas, whose owners Chris and Jackie normally keep her in St. Thomas ...... We had a good look at her down below ...... What an awesome vessel and like "ARITA" she was built for the southern Ocean ..... Next morning they came to our anchorage before crossing the Caribbean Sea to CURACAO ..... Barely had we said "Goodbye" when the photos below arrived by email showing "SHIBUMI" using her mast and spinnaker pole to step the new mast on the "LAZY LIZ" ... Amazing .... Just goes to show how we are all connected ...... No easy job getting that mast into place ........






Incredible and all of it done in under a year ....... Less time to build than it has taken us to re-build ...... TIMO and ANNEMIEKE can fly those flags with pride ..... Congratulations on a magnificent achievement ..... Meantime we'll just get back to work ...... There's just so much more to do ..........