Maintenance/Cruising Log - January 2016

January 01, Friday, 2016

I started off the morning with my normal ritual of getting on the Internet, and checking the weather, while making a pot of coffee. When the coffee is started, I feed our two cats, Jillian and Jordan , and attempt to brush their beautiful coats.

I listened to the Rio Dulce Cruisers net on DREAM AWAY. The net is everyday at 0730 except Sunday. It covers all of the local news and events, and a good source of local information that matter to cruisers.

I was not able to make my announcement for the specials at Backpacker’s Hotel on the Rio Dulce Cruisers net because of the extremely poor radio reception here in "Gringo" Bay (Bahia Buena Vista).

I really do hope to keep up with the Maintenance/Cruising log this month. It is going to be a very busy month with good friends coming in from the America, and England. As of this morning, I have only completed half of the December log, so I have to work on that while trying to keep the January log up to date. I still have not completed the September Maintenance/Cruising Log, which I will also try and catch up on. It seems all I have time for is to work on DREAM AWAY, or write about the work!

Today being the first day of the New Year, it is a Southern tradition that the first thing you eat on New Years Day, is Blackeye Peas.LINK We did not have any dried Peas, but we did have a can of Blackeye Peas. I sauteed some onions and tomatoes, added the Blackeye Peas, and that is what we had as our breakfast.

Blackeye Peas And Toast Ready To Eat

Kitty With Peas And Phone

Jim Eating The Traditional Meal

After breakfast, I went into the garage, and found our two cats squeezed in around the Freedom Marine Inverter/Charger. Had to get a photo of them.

Jordie And Jillie In The Garage

The project for the day is fix or find out what is wrong with my wind instrument. I got out my spare cable and spare wind vane. I also had to remove the instruments from its mount.

Spare Wind Instrument Cable On Main Cabin Table

Instrument Pod Before Removing The Instruments

Jim Removing The Instruments From The Pod

I used a cooler and a cockpit cushion to rest the instruments on so I would not put any tension on the wires going into the instruments.

Instruments Resting On Cockpit Cushion

First thing I did was to verify there were no broken or loose connections on the wind instrument. There did not seem to be any problems, and the instrument still did not work. Now I removed the wires coming down from the mast through the junction box, at the base of the mast, to the instrument. I connected up my spare cable, and the spare wind vane to the instrument, and the instrument worked. The problem is starting to get narrowed down!

Checking Wires On Wind Instrument On The Left

Jim Holding Instruments And Wind Vane - Instruments Works

I disconnected the spare cable and wind vane from the instrument, and re-connected the wires coming down from the mast through the junction box. I powered up the instruments, and the wind instrument did not work. I went down to the junction box at the base of the mast in the mid-cabin. I disconnected the wires coming down from the mast at the junction box, and connected my spare cable and wind vane. When I powered up the instruments, the wind instrument worked.

Jim In Mid-cabin Connecting Wires

Now the problem is either the cable from the junction box up the mast to the wind vane or the wind vane. My spare wind vane is good, as it had just been tested, and tested good in the last hour. Changing out the cable will be a major issue, but it could be done. Changing out the wind vane is much easier. All I have to do is climb the mast, disconnect the old wind vane, and install the spare.

This is what I decided to do. With Kitty's help on the halyard attached to the bosun's chair, I climbed to the top of the mast. Again with Kitty's help, we used a bucket with the spare wind vane and the camera in it, she raised the bucket up to me. I changed out the wind vane, and then took a couple of photos.

Gringo Bay From The Top Of The Mast

Gringo Bay Towards The Mountains To The South

Kitty On Deck

Kitty On Deck

Jim At The Top Of The Mast

Back down the mast, and into the mid-cabin. I disconnected my spare cable from the junction box, and connected the wires coming down from the mast. I powered up the instruments, and the wind instrument worked! I left the instruments on to verify operation as I had to do the cleanup. Putting everything back the way it was before starting the project.

Jim In Mid-cabin Connecting Wires

Wind Instrument Working

After finishing the cleanup, the wind instrument was still working. I shut the instruments down, and went and took a shower. I fixed an adult beverage, got my book, turned on the instruments and went into the cockpit. While enjoying my adult beverage and doing some reading I would watch the wind instrument, just working away!

We had leftovers for dinner, and it started raining during dinner. Rush around boat to close the hatches and ports, then back to dinner and reading. It rained off and on all night. We were up and down a lot opening and closing hatches and ports.

January 02, Saturday, 2015

I started off the morning with my normal ritual of getting on the Internet, and checking the weather, while making a pot of coffee. When the coffee is started, I feed our two cats, Jillian and Jordan , and attempt to brush their beautiful coats.

I listened to the Rio Dulce Cruisers net on DREAM AWAY. The net is everyday at 0730 except Sunday. It covers all of the local news and events, and a good source of local information that matter to cruisers.

I was not able to do my announcement for the specials at Backpacker’s Hotel on the Rio Dulce Cruisers net because of the extremely poor radio reception here in "Gringo" Bay (Bahia Buena Vista).

It had rained off and on all night, so when I went out and looked at the tender, it was very full of water! I got into the tender, and bailed and pumped out all of the water. Fun times!

Water In The Tender But Hard To See

Water Level At Back Of The Tender

Today I had planned to run a bead of Sikaflex around the boom gallows on both sides to hopefully keep the bimini and hard dodger from leaking, and I wanted to work on the speed instrument, which does not work properly. Because of all the rain I will not be able to run the bead of Sikaflex. I want the area very dry before applying the Sikaflex.

So today is work on the speed instrument day. There is really not a lot I can do except look for broken wires in the splices. Several years back, I replaced the transducer, and rather than run the new cable, we just spliced in the new transducer.

The first thing I did, was to remove the transducer. While Kitty watched the speed instrument in the cockpit, I spun the wheel on the transducer. Nothing on the instrument, so I have to start looking elsewhere.

Jim In The Garage With The Transducer