bottom job

we had not taken the boat out of the water since before departing back in the US. It had been over three years and we do not know how many miles with the same bottom paint. but now, floating in the liveliest of all the bays where barnacles grow by the minute, we could not procrastinate anymore about this project and urgently needed to paint the boat again. we went to marina todomar, hulled it out and worked on it for 10 days. I was in the US while esteban painted. he also fixed some other stuff like the beaten rudder which we managed to hit with a rock in the bahamas back in 2009 (the death trap); and the transom which was damaged in greece… (the med-moor fiasco); and checked all thruhulls and plates. everything seemed in pretty good shape, even the paint. we did do some changes but overall it looked pretty ok. work on the yard was from 7 am till 6 pm. at this time not only work needs to be stopped but also everyone must be on board.. like a curfew. at night, the security guard lets a couple of mean dogs loose around the marina to help him do his job. the warning worked for esteban… no late trips to the bathroom. better to use a bottle on board if needed than run for dear life, especially after being warned. so day in and day out, and with not the best gourmet restaurants around this neighborhood, esteban got it done and splashed puerto seguro back home in time to welcome his parents on board.

more boat work

we are almost done with the circumnavigation, but that prahse never applies to the work on board. there is always some project that needs to be done. in this case while in the marina santa marta esteban worked on the anchors, the chains and the anchor locker, the closets (building badly needed shelves in all of them) and the upholstery of all the interior cushions, the generator and finally a project with the aft locker. the marina was a good place to do this. in total we spent over a month in santa marta. everyone there was very nice to us, and the marina itself was really top class; one of the best in the world. for us santa marta was a very different experience; living in such a nice marina and having more of a local life. we were with family and local friends and enjoyed the city and surroundings. we are definitely coming to terms with the fact that we are almost finished with our circumnavigation, but still enjoy our days and life on board.

self tailing winches

remember that wreck back in san blas????


well, turns out the owners sold the wreck to the kunas and they in turn sold the winches from that boat to us, for a very GOOD price!!! and that is how we were able to upgrade from our standard winches to this self tailing ones. now, i can turn the winch handle with two hands and therefore adjust the genoa all by myself without needing esteban's strength all the time. this really improves our sailing!!!




so after carrying them from san blas and taking the old ones apart and selling them (so far only a pair, the other pair is still with us waiting for a new owner), we finally installed them as the last project in bocas del toro.





here you see esteban installing the last one (and badly needing a pair of new pants, don't you think?!)

solar panels

as the circumnavigation started we realized we needed to turn either the engine or the generator to charge the batteries more often than what we wanted. every hour of the engine or the generator represents diesel consumption and deterioration of belts, increase in frequency of oil changes, filters, etc... so we decided to go lighter on the budget and boost the charging power of the wind generator by also going solar. we found two 85 watt solar panels from the catamaran light speed in san blas, and purchased them for a good price. we carried them on board and placed them on deck initially only to find no free deck space to maneuver.



we finally decided to install them on top of the bimini which was the better place for direct sun light exposure and the better option considering the costs of materials and our boat size. We are quite happy with the installation. now we can only hope they will really work and provide the 9 amp average per hour as they are supposed to.

the second anchor roller

the circumnavigation started but the works on the boat never end. we are constantly doing maintenance on board and changing or improving systems. this project was in fact never finished and it was now time to get it done. we had purchased a second anchor roller back in florida to support our second anchor; a CQR of 35 pounds. the roller was shipped to colombia, where we thought we were going to tackle this project. turns out, the shipment was delayed and when we left colombia the roller, together with a box full of stuff, had not arrived. finally the roller arrived around christmas and we brought it back with us when we returned from argentina. now we just finished installing it and the CQR is nicely secured on its place instead of being stored in a place we would never dig it out of, specially in an emergency.






as far as anchors go, we are done!! we fixed the first roller with the bruce which was badly damaged after a storm in bahamas; we installed the second one for the CQR and; we now have our fortress on board, which we had left in miami... and believe it or not, was brought to us on a plane by garry and alex. from now on be careful when you offer to carry anything for friends or family when traveling. You never know…! someone might just take you up on the offer and ask that you to take a 20 pound anchor in your luggage! :-)

meet our third crew member

the aries wind vane!! not a person really but even better. it does not drink, eat or sleep but simply steers the boat patiently for as long as there is wind!!!!!!!!!! after losing our raymarine autopilot we installed the aries wind vane in rum cay. we still do not know or understand how it actually works, but we do not care, it works great. thanks to aries esteban and i have taken rather dangerous naps at the same time for hours while puerto seguro and aries sail away!!!

warning: due to the abilities of the camera man this video is best viewed in an iphone or some sort of device that you can turn around :-).

the sails

after all the hard work on the boat interior and exterior and all electronics, the rebuilt engine and absolutely all the new stuff, we could certainly not forget about the (in the words of our sail maker) "... most important part of the sailboat, the sails of course!!!!!!..." so he fixed the working jib, the storm jib and the genoa, and he sold us a beautiful spinnaker and did for puerto seguro a brand new main sail that also to use his words "... fits like a glove..." perfect and beautiful sail thanks to tom :-)!!! we raised it the night we got it and because of how thick the material is esteban actually hurt his elbow putting the sail away...

new fridge

don't really know why we changed it now..... but we did. we were actually happy with the old fridge but it consumed too much electricity so after the boat show and the work of a good sales person at the fridge booth, we bought a new system that required installing a cooling plate in the hull. so esteban did that and later came bob and took out the good old fridge and installed the new one.... i can only tell you that as of the date that i am writing this post we have already stared the trip and use the fridge and it works great, but we really have not noticed a lot of energy savings.....

mighty mase

the generator, of course!!!!!!! we considered the generator to be so important that we gave up the aft bed in order to use the space to install it, and also use it as storage for the rest of millions of things we have with us. the beauty of installing it next to the storage is that all the stuff insulate the noise. installing it was an entire day and thanks to bob we now have it running!! it was a hard project with complications and very difficult and uncomfortable spaces to work, but well worth it, this will make the difference of being able to charge our batteries without hooking up to shore power, so we really can stay at anchor if we want and keep our costs low by not going docking in the marinas so much.

otto

a.k.a the auto pilot, or a very reliable third crew member on board. we took the raymarine pilot from galatea and installed the display together with the other instruments several months ago but we still had to install the arm which desmond, our "pirate" friend :-) did for us. thank thank thank you desmond!!! we will think of you when we are sailing in auto, so I would think we will be thinking about you quite a lot!!!

the running rigging

first of all a BIG thank you to justin; i think we could not have done it without him. he came ever day to the boat for several days to help us set every single line, to teach us knots (me I should say, i then need to pass the knowledge to esteban) and to basically share with us all of his experience from climbing and sailing and spending time with us. not only we enjoyed his company but we now have all new halyards, the old but improved boom, a spinnaker pole, jack lines, reefs, and just about every line on deck and cockpit to control every point of each sail!!!!

SSB

or short for single sideband radio. as opposed to the regular VHF radios the SSB is an HF radio and therefore we can communicate at greater distances and also have e-mail and weather on board. we got the radio as a gift several months ago... that was great but we were far from being set. turns out having the radio on board is not that easy. we had to purchase all the other components such as tuner and antenna among other stuff, plus we had to install it, get the licenses to be able to operate it and of course learn how to operate this sophisticated piece of equipment. as always esteban installed it with the help of dr. john and all the manuals and i got the licenses for which I had to take the ham test.... lets just say everything was an experience. it was learning a totally new language. but we have it! installed in a new beautiful shelve which is also home to our on board phone and several other gauges, and thanks to the licenses, cruise email and dr. john, jeff who should be now in bermuda; I think; sailing wild iris on his way to the azores, and quite a bit of reading, we already send e-mails from the boat and have the weather forecasts. so a happy ending to a project that we thought was never going to end.

galley

my galley I should say. esteban and I have assigned chores and cooking is indisputably my responsibility. i have nothing against his cooking but lets say I enjoy this task the most. he installed different faucets, one manual for salt water and the other with the pump, and the other two are for fresh water, also manual and the other automatic. the stove and oven work with propane (remember the old propane bottle he painted blue?? well, here is where we use it!) he also changed the old adler-barber fridge for a new more energy efficient one. i have to admit it takes a little time to get used to cooking in a small space with limited resources such as FOOD and also utensils and appliances, but I am getting used to it and I like it. of course esteban has to judge the quality of the food. i hope that improves after I start using the cooking book for cruisers that I ordered!

batteries

thanks to Gerome we found a great deal on 12 2-volt rolls batteries which we we purchased and installed in the main salon under the sofa bench. we chose this location, even though it was not the original battery storage area, because their enormous weight; therefore they needed to be in the center of the boat and as close to the keel as possible. once installed Esteban secured them with webbing... in case the boat capsizes (not that we are planning on this to happen) but if it happens we would not want to have the batteries fall in our heads or hit and damage part of the boat or have acid floating all over... as he says, preparing for the worse but wishing for the best!