St Helena Tuesday 12th January 2016
Well can I have three cheers...haha
The deck is done, well almost other than a few touch ups here and there.
I can honestly say, that every part on deck of this boat has been polished, scrubbed, painted and oilied, several times and man am I tired, but it's looking good once again.
Now to boat issues, or should I say The Captains issues, well it kinda is as its his department.
As most of you know we always have, issues and came in with a bucket load of them.
But we are so torn, should we get them done here or continue on to the Caribbean?
The big problem is here they want to take us out of the water, and we are not so confidant that the guy here can do the repair, Yeap we have 2nd thoughts about him, why? I'm not sure but we do.
The strut that holds the drive shaft cracked, and we think broke the seal in the transmission, which we will need to get a new seal out of Africa.
But the problem is it was a special made one by Chris back in Simonstown, who has been out of the country until now.
We have been trying to get in contact with him and so far no luck.
Then we need the strut fixed but that should be not much of a problem.
We also thought that while it is out of the water we will do an anti foul, but in searching for anti foul paint here, which we thought would be way too expensive, it's actually not too bad a price.
But your choice of colour is red, and they have lots of it, well red is not going to cut it for this here vessel, we need blue, so we need to get that out of Africa as well.
The timing has to be perfect we have to get it on the RMS by the next visit, as it will be back in Cape Town, South Africa in a few weeks time.
And then when we finally get the bits and pieces, we have to wait for the RMS to leave here then go to Ascension Island and back here again then leave, that's our window to get the boat out of the water, but also we have to wait for a calm day, which around here could take weeks, which we won't have.
Then we get onto the generator, the new part for it arrived here, which was perfect, but just before it came The Captain decided to get out the heat exchanger and give it a good clean, it also needed a few things fixed on it.
So he takes it to shore gives it to Mark who is maybe going to fix our other problems, and it was so badly corroded that it cracked in several places, he is trying to do a temp repair on it now, so maybe we may get it fixed or another part needs to be sent out.
Then the water maker, our never ending problem child, the high pressure pump has been sitting on the Nav table for weeks on end, it's almost a permanent fixture now, I even dust it as I go about my cleaning, it's starting to look really at home and I think Henry the hippo and Ralf the reindeer are making friends with it.
There is a stainless steel pipe on it that we suspect is leaking so that is in getting repaired as well.
The hole in the main sail we can repair ourselves so that's not a big issue, but the oil that was leaking out of the wheel pedestal could be an issue, The Captain is in the middle of trying to take the wheel off to get inside the thing and have a really good look to see what's going on down there.
But our biggest problem at the moment is our propane tanks. Now this is my only means of cooking.
Well we can't get them filled here, The Captain has been trying for the last week or so to solve the problem from, borrowing different connections from Louis on Ave Del Mar, to pulling apart a regulator and getting a good flow through it, but it did not do the job.
We are sitting with one full tank and two empty tanks, a tank should last a month if we are lucky but we can't leave here with just that.
And then if we do decide to leave here there is now pirate issues, a warning has been sent out that boats are being boarded by armed guys ransacking boats taking everything of value, although no one has been hurt at all it's still a real issue.
This is happening around Trinidad and Tobago, where we were going, so another change of plans in the making.
Man does it ever end.
On a happier note we have two new boats in and wait for it one is flying the French flag, our entertainment is looking up once again...haha
Well tomorrow is another day.