July 1, 2001 -- Canada Day Eh! We woke up this morning to a heavy downpour. We were concerned that the party the Canadians were putting together would be rained out. However, when we asked Sue on Lady Simcoe, she said that it never rained on Canada Day. After a brief discussion, we decided to fix spaghetti for the potluck lunch. Mike spent the morning fixing one of the best sauces he has ever fixed! Then I fixed the noodles to go with the sauce. Actually I fixed macaroni instead of spaghetti since it is more conducive to eating in a potluck environment. We headed in around 12:30 PM AST or so, and helped the Canadians finish setting up. Lunch was excellent, and then we started Dominoes. Our table took a break at double twos so that we could help kedge a boat off the sandbar next to the marina. Several dinghies had attempted to help but none of them had the power to pull the boat over far enough to free the keel. After we finished with the grounded boat, we returned to finish playing dominoes. Mike took the booby prize for the highest score. Sue on Masade, Sue on Kokopelli, Pete on Pearl, and Chuck and Ruth's son's girlfriend from Blue Horizon all had the low scores for their tables. After helping to clean up, and move tables back to their places, we returned to the boat and spent the evening watching a movie and lounging

July 2, 2001 -- Focus on the Boat We were expecting Enza Marine to come out to the boat this morning at 8:00 AM AST. However, in standard island time, they arrived around 9:15! We finished with them around 10:00 AM, then we headed into town. We were expecting a shipment in at Island Water World. Unfortunately, the stuff had not even been shipped out of St. Martin yet! So, we rode the bus up to the Spice Island Mall. We had lunch at "D" Roti Place, then headed to the mall to do some grocery shopping. We returned to the boat and put away our groceries. Then, while Mike worked on the plenum box for our engine room blower, I checked the capacitors for Ling Ling. We had 4 capacitors that were either dead or weak! I spent the next two hours swapping out capacitors! Mike finished the first layer of build up on the plenem box. We were both exhausted and overheated from working with no air moving where we were working. We test fired the generator and found that we had the best voltage we have had in a long time with a high load! Sue and Leon stopped by to see if we wanted to do Thai Prawns tonight. We suggested tomorrow night since we were exhausted. We did suggest meeting for the opening of the bar for cocktails tonight though. We headed in around 5:00 PM AST for happy hour. Beaujolis arrived in the anchorage this morning and went to the happy hour as well. We caught up on how each of our trips were, where we went, and all of that. It was a fun evening, but we were both tired so we headed back to the boat early

July 3-5, 2001 -- Unexpected Issues Today, we started doing some work in the utility room when we noticed a small stream of water coming out of the foot light leading into the engine room. We emptied the utility room of its equipment and discovered that the pipe going into the refrigeration pump had sprung a leak. We immediately switched over to the other pump. Unfortunately, the secondary pump was the one that was soaked by the first leak we had back in Puerto Rico and was seized due to corrosion. Even through we flushed the pump with fresh water, when we fixed the pipe at that time. We should have then sprayed it with WD-40 or Electronic cleaner, agh hind sight is 20/20. We managed to get in contact with Enza Marine (actually they were going by in the dinghy) since we don't do plumbing if we can possibly avoid it, if we have to do it we will, but it is not pretty. Mike says that he does plumbing like Daffy Duck, whatever he touches leaks! We had planned on dinner with Masade followed by a movie night on Serendipity, but canceled since we weren't sure how long it would take to get our freezer back up. With Enza Marine on the job, we were able to focus on other underway projects. Mike continued working on the plenum box in the locker, inside of the forward shower while I did miscellaneous other stuff. Within an hour, Enza Marine had the leaky pipe replaced, the pump cleaned up and back in place. Then he pulled out the seized pump to work on that. We finished our work and took a nap. It is hard to work in the heat especially if you are somewhere on the boat that is not getting the breeze! Since everything was back up we accepted the invitation to the movie night; we had already rescheduled dinner for another night. Just as we were about to leave, Ling Ling overheated; we assumed that the problem was that her raw water pump belt had finally died. At 7:00 PM AST, we headed over to Serendipity. It was a fun evening with Masade, Serendipity and Pearl. On July 4, we finished up the work on the plenum box. Next, we took a look at Ling Ling. Her belt had indeed shredded. After getting the belt back on, we discovered that her lip seal was dying and the raw water pump was leaking! We closed her sea cock, and reviewed our spares since we were sure we had one. We don't. Next, we checked the Island Water World and the Budget Marine catalogues to see if they had them. They do, but not in stock. We got ready to head into the marina for the Independence Day celebration that they were sponsoring. We went in early so we could stop by Budget Marine and have them order us one. After taking care of business, we enjoyed an afternoon of food, fun and dominoes. On July 5, we spent the day focusing on cleaning up the boat from a week's worth of work! We had an ulterior motive for this of course, we were having company over for dinner. We got the boat in good shape pretty quickly, then spent the rest of the day quietly since we didn't want to mess the boat up again! Ashley from Blind Date arrived first, followed shortly by Sam and Micki who were the chefs for the evening. They made a delectable meal of chicken and dumplings, peas, glazed carrots, and corn. They also fixed an apple walnut thing. It was an excellent meal and a fun evening

July 6-8, 2001 -- Untitled Today was the day that we started working on our DC electrical panel again. While Mike prepped the area where the new breaker panel would be placed, I spent the morning disassembling and assembling a new 8 breaker panel. We added breaker on indicator lights as well as back lighting to the new breaker panels. This process isn't as easy as it may sound! Mike had to remove the old 12 volt gauges, and widen the cut out from where the old breakers were. Then he labeled wires and removed the new three breaker panel we had installed temporarily. I pulled out the breakers we ordered and plugged in properly sized breakers for our needs. We worked on this most of the day! However, when we finished, we had two 8 breaker panels with backlighting and indicator lights; they look really cool! We had an early dinner, then headed in to the marina for happy hour and to listen to the steel band play. On July 7, we spent a lazy day aboard the boat. On July 8, we did boat chores again. While I checked battery water, Mike worked on laundry. We spent the rest of the day not working since we were headed over to Masade for dinner. Sue fixed Thai Prawns for us. We had a great evening of food, fun, talk and Skipbo!

July 9, 2001 -- Surprises, Good and Bad After weather this morning, we decided to head into town. We were expecting the special order that we placed with Island Water World to be in, and besides we needed to pick up some groceries. On our way to get a taxi, we stopped in at Spice Island Marina to order an additional part for our new electrical panels. While I was in there, Renee with Budget Marine handed me the lip seal that we had ordered Thursday. We weren't expecting it until tomorrow! We met up with Peter and Diane from Pearl and shared a taxi into town. We went into Island Water World, and were told that our special order was hung up in customs, but should be there by Wednesday. Unhappily, we left and caught a bus back to the Spice Island Mall for lunch and grocery shopping. Again we were disappointed. Apparently the supply boat was running late today, and most of the new stuff was not out yet! So, we picked up a few things and then headed back to the boat. Since Renee was going to send our new order in shortly, we decided to replace the dripping lip seal on Ling Ling's water pump. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the lip seal we received was indeed the correct one, and required no other pieces. After replacing the lip seal and reinstalling the pump, the generator was, again, operational! After putting the boat back together (we had to pull the soft patch in the main saloon to work on the water pump), we fired up Ling Ling. We ran the water maker, the chargers and cooked all at the same time! After dinner, Mike decided we needed mindless entertainment so we spent the evening watching a movie

We knew, according to the weather and the way the boat was rolling, that a tropical wave was approaching the island. We decided to stay on the boat. It was already raining off and on when we woke up, so we decided to have an easy day. In fact, after breakfast, Mike decided to nap, since it was a late night last night along with getting up to close up the boat since it started to rain. Initially, I planned to join him; however, I got bored pretty quickly. I was looking out the window when I noticed that the rain had stopped. So, since Mike was asleep, I headed outside to work on stainless. Mike woke up long enough to ask where I was and what I was doing. When I told him that I was working on stainless, he told me to work on the aft stanchions since they looked so bad. Then he promptly fell back asleep! After cleaning three stanchions, I came inside to take a break. Mike was awake again and energized to work on the boat. As I was heading back outside, he told me that he planned to install the replacement DC engine room blower that we have been planning to install for the last month, but kept getting side tracked on other things. While I was outside cleaning another 3 stanchions, Mike pulled everything out from under the galley sink, and installed the new blower. When I came back in, he asked if I could help supply some light for the last few things he was doing under the sink. I held the flashlight for him while he sealed the plenum box and screwed it in. Then, he put the access port back in place and reattached the plumbing. Finally, it was my turn to put everything back under the sink that Mike had pulled out. As he says, he is a puller-outer and I am the putter awayer. Molly from Jolly Moon called to ask if we had any wind scoops left, so I ran in to drop one off to her, since her dinghy fuel tank had cracked. We are selling the ones we have because they don't work with the new screens and we got a pattern for the type that you can leave up in the rain that will keep water out and still let water in, unfortunately, these are not sold, we will have to make one. At the same time, I also dropped off trash, and planned to drop off our gas cans to have Spice Island Marina refill them. They have someone that runs into St. Georges every day to fill Butane, Propane and Gasoline tanks. While I was at the marina, Mike took the opportunity to clean the rust stains off the side of the house and to clean the rust off the fuel fills on the deck. In the afternoon, we watched rain showers roll down the hills toward us. At one point, Mike looked out and called me up to see a rainbow. As we watched, we saw the rainbow move! The end of the rainbow, where the pot of gold is supposed to be, was about 100 yards off the bow of the boat on shore! The trees behind it were showing the colors of the rainbow on them; it was something to see. I tried to get a picture of it; hopefully it will turn out

This morning, since the weather has stabilized, we decided to head into town again. Our special order should be in at Island Water World and we still need some groceries! We climbed into the dinghy and headed for the marina. While Mike ran some trash to the dumpster, I dropped off our gas can at the marina store and talked to Renee at Budget Marine to order 2 additional lip seals for Ling Ling so we have some spares. We met up in front of the tiki bar and talked for a bit with Sam and Micki from Beaujolais (or however you spell it), and a few others. Micki told us that they were planning to clean their bottom today, and if we wanted we could come over to check out their hookah rig. We thanked them, and headed into town. Half our special order was in at Island Water World! We also picked up a few other things that we need for other projects on the boat as well as 2 more gas cans. The UV's had killed our last two, the UV's are hard on everything down here. Then we headed to get some lunch and go to the grocery store. Finally, we returned to the boat to put everything away. Sam and Micki called on the radio to let us know that they were about to continue cleaning their bottom if we wanted to come over and watch and learn. So, while Mike opted to stay on the boat and work on installing the LED indicator lights on our new electrical panels, and sand the cowling he is repairing. I headed off to Beaujolais to learn to use the hookah, weight belt and all of the secrets of scuba without scuba. The first thing we did was to size a weight belt for me. Then we prepped my mask. Micki then demonstrated the breathing apparatus and gave me some instructions pertaining to that. They also showed me how to clear my mask underwater, pop my ears and otherwise stay comfortable. We flipped into the water, and after a few more adjustments to my weight belt, we were ready to work. Micki started scraping and I observed for a bit. Then, we heard a tapping sound. We surfaced and Sam told us that Mike had called. I needed to pick up the carpenter from shore and bring him out to the boat. After taking the carpenter to the boat, I headed back to Beaujolais. After something to drink and a smoke, Micki and I went to work on the bottom again. Micki worked on the forward part of the boat while I worked back on the bottom of the keel. Micki joined me shortly, and we continued working on the starboard side of the boat. All the sudden, I went to take a breath, and there wasn't anything! Following Sam and Micki's instructions, I surfaced immediately while exhaling. Micki came up right behind me coughing and sputtering. The hookah had run out of gas. Sam filled it up again, and fired up the hookah. We went back to cleaning the bottom, and before I knew it we were done! We did a circuit around the boat to make sure we didn't miss anything, then went aft to finish the rudder and clean the prop and shaft. Micki took the prop and shaft while I cleaned the rudder. After I finished, I let myself drift, and discovered I was descending. Shortly I felt a tug on my air line, I was almost at the bottom, 25 feet down! I swam back up and did the same process again. Finally, we climbed out of the water and rested on the boat talking for a little while. On my way back to the boat, I stopped by Serendipity to pick up a movie we loaned them since we expected them to be leaving tonight. Marcia and Diane from Pearl were out floating. We chatted for a little while. Mike caught my attention and indicated it was time to come back to the boat since the carpenter was almost done. After dropping the carpenter off, we spent a quiet evening on the boat

After learning how to use the hookah rig yesterday, we made plans with Sam and Micki to work on the bottom of our boat today. They showed up around 9:30 this morning. We worked for a little while getting everything set up, then took a break before getting suited up and underwater. We spent the morning doing two dives. I was having a slight problem with my mask; it was leaking! After our second dive, I was on my way out when my mask decided it could no longer go to windward, and leaped from the boarding ladder to float to Trinidad! Mike, being the generous soul that he is, offered me the use of his mask. While Sam watched over the dive compressor, and Micki and I dived on the bottom of the boat, Michael braved the engine room and changed the oil in the main engines. This is no trivial task! He had no breeze, and was stuck in a cramped position while he pumped out 15 gallons of oil from the engines and then pumped 15 gallons back in! Also he had to change the oil filters. One was easy, it was right by the crawl space. However, the other one was outboard of the engine. He could either work blind or crawl behind the engine to replace it! We felt that since it was time to change the oil, and with the fact that a tropical depression had formed then dissipated to the east of us earlier this week, we wanted the engines ready to make the run to Venezuela if needed. While this run has about a .00000001 percent chance of being executed, we just feel better having the boat ready to go if needed. The few times that anything has approached the island they turn north and head up. But if something is 72-48 hours out and has not turned yet, we are off the Venezuela and a nice little bay with 360 degree protection from wind and swell. This we can easily do as it's about 180 miles from here and we can travel that in less then 24 hours. Everyone took a break at noon for lunch. Sam volunteered to run to Choo Light for egg rolls, wonton soup and fried rice. The food wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't Chinese! After relaxing for a bit after lunch, we dived again and finished all but about 10 feet of the port side of the boat. After all of that, we spent a quiet evening on the boat

I woke up this morning very sore! I tried to call Beaulolais on the radio to suggest that we not clean the other half of the bottom. Unfortunately, I couldn't reach them. About 20 minutes later, Micki called to suggest the same thing! What a relief! We ran the oil in to the marina from the oil change yesterday, and then spent the day recovering from our strenuous work! On July 14, I hauled out the sewing machine to work on a squall proof wind scoop. I worked on it all day, and by the end of the day the scoop was done except for some framing pieces. On July 15, we took it easy for the day. We decided to head into happy hour. We spent a fun evening chatting with lots of people. We ran into Sam and Micki and made arrangements to finish the bottom tomorrow

Sam and Micki arrived this morning around 9:30 or so. After gabbing for a few minutes, Micki and I suited up. As we were about to enter the water, Britt and Ilana from Windom stopped by to say hi. Micki and I finished up the port side of the boat in short order, and moved to the starboard side. While Micki focused on the main hull, I worked on the keel of the boat. Before we took our first break, I had cleaned almost 90% of the keel, and Micki had cleaned the rest of the hull back to the ladder! We knew we would finish today. After our break, we went back in the water. Micki focused on the prop and shaft while I continued cleaning the rest of the hull. We finished within minutes of each other. We now have a clean hull! We packed everything up and helped Micki and Sam load everything into their dinghy. They headed back to their boat and we fixed lunch. At 3:30 PM, I headed into the marina for a hurricane preparedness discussion that John on Second Millennium was giving. It was an interesting discussion. Second Millennium was here when Hurricane Lenny, hit the islands to the north. They were able to report on the destruction on the NW coast from the large swell rolling in. Next, Sea Marva talked about their experience in Hurricane Louis in St. Martin. Again, it was an awe inspiring talk. After the discussion was over, I stayed at the bar for a little while socializing before catching a ride back to the boat with Sue and Leon from Masade

This morning, we decided to head into town to pick up the PVC pipe for the framing on the windscoop, as well as to pick up perishables from the grocery store. We headed into town to Hubbard's hardware store, and found the PVC pipe. Then we walked to Island Water World to pick up a few things. We hopped a bus to the Grand Anse mall to see if they had any bagels. Unfortunately, they don't. However, the woman at the bread counter said that I could place an order for a dozen to be picked up tomorrow. We walked up to Spiceland Mall where we had lunch and then did our grocery shopping. We returned to the boat, and after putting everything away, I went to work on the wind scoop again. At the end of the afternoon, I had completed the scoop, for the most part. There are still a few snaps to add, but I could put it up to test. I even went so far as to tell Mike that if it rained during the night he could wake me up to take the windscoop down if it leaked! Mike wanted that one in writing. We spent a quiet evening on the boat

It became miserably hot in the aft stateroom last night, so I came up to the main saloon to sleep. I opened the hatch that has the windscoop and fell asleep in a lovely breeze. Mike woke me up at 6:20 AM AST so I could listen to weather. I noticed at that point that it had rained sometime during the night! I never felt a drop of rain. The windscoop works! In fact, it sprinkled several more times before 8:00 AM AST. At no point did we ever get any water inside the boat! I did the 'Happy Happy Joy Joy' dance at that! We headed into the marina at 9:15 AM AST to pick up the carpenter who is building hatch screens for us. Mike took him back to the boat while I walked to the Grand Anse with Micki from Beaujolais. We checked out CK's Case Lots store. They have some good prices on things. When it is time to get more dry goods we will definitely go back there. Unfortunately, I found out that the bakery section at the Food Fair does not bake their own bagels. So, there weren't any waiting! We walked back to the Real Value market at the Spiceland Mall. We picked up a few essentials as well as two kinds of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, From Russia with Buzz and Bovine Divinity. We took a taxi to the True Blue Resort where Steve and Nancy from Tahoe are staying while their boat is on the hard. We had a Beef Roti and ice cream for lunch while visiting with Steve and Nancy. Steve graciously took us around the point back to our boats on his dinghy. The carpenter had one of our hatch screens installed and was working on the second one when I arrived back. Mike had set out the chicken for the dinner tonight. We chatted briefly with Sue and Leon from Masade and then Ashley and Carol on Blind Date. Sam and Micki already knew what time to come over. Sue and Leon came over early since Sue volunteered to cook. She makes excellent Thai and Indian dishes. We were having Chicken Satay and Chicken in Garlic Sauce for dinner. As they started cooking, Mike and I alternately helped them in the galley and cleaned up the boat. The carpenter was still there so we worked around him. Everything came together just right. Mike ran the carpenter back to the boat while I vacuumed. Sue and Leon had a little while to relax after prepping the meal and I had just put the vacuum away when the first of our guests arrived. We had a wonderful evening of food, drink and conversation with Beaujolais, Masade and Blind Date. Ashley and Carol's grandson was visiting and proved to be the life of the party, when he wasn't watching movies

Today, our principle focus was to stay around the boat. The carpenter was coming out to finish mounting the hatch screens. This translated to not wanting to start any major projects, or get involved in anything that would take too long since we needed to pick him up! He arrived midmorning, and by evening, everything was screened! On July 20, the guy from Enza Marine came out to install our new directional ball valves that he had ordered from when we discovered the leaks in the raw water cooling system for the air conditioning. The carpenter also came out to apply varnish and verify that the port light screens all fit that he made for us. During the evening, we went up to the bar to listen to the steel band. On July 21 and 22, we worked our butts off! The new DC freezer compressor and evaporator plates should be in sometime next week, so we needed to get ready for that. This entailed emptying 4 lockers and running the electrical wires. On July 23, since the carpenter was supposed to be back, we didn't do a lot. The carpenter came out, put on the varnish and then we dropped him off back at the dock. Micki from Beaujolais called about 7:30 or so and came over to visit. It was a good evening

Today, after compiling the list of things that we needed to pick up, we set out for town to visit a number of different stores to acquire necessary items for the projects we plan to work on, as well as our weekly visit to the grocery store. After we returned to the boat, Enza Marine called to let us know that we would need to drop off copies of our ships papers (needed for duty free) so that Enza could pick up the new DC compressor for our freezer system. I walked to their shop to drop them off. On the way back, I stopped by the office at Spice Island Marina and picked up the replacement warranty furling parts that Hood shipped us. On July 25, Mike moved the switch for the garbage disposal and I took up the aft head to make it easier to install the new compressor for the freezer. The compressor will be mounted under the sink. We found that there was a leak on the input water line to the head. We were planning to redo some of the grout around the head while it was up. As we looked into the leak, we found that the tiles & grout around the head were sopping. So we pulled those up and found another layer of tile under them that was also in bad shape. These turned out to be marble tile but could not be saved as many of them were cracked. We also found the subfloor to be rotted in a few sections. We are going to have to have this replaced, before the head can go back down. So I pulled up all of the old tile on the sole (floor in boat talk). At this point we where both beat, and it was about 1:00 PM so we loaded the dinghy with the old tiles and then got cleaned up and went in to the boatyard restaurant to grab a Chicken Roti for lunch. We stopped by Masade on the way in, they had been going through the project from hell as well. They decided to stop and join us for lunch. A Roti is beef, chicken or fish and Potatoes cooked in curry & spices then rolled in a shell like a burrito. After lunch we hauled the old tile and trash from the dinghy up to the dumpster at the yard, then returned to the boat to collapse for the evening! On July 26, I woke up sore! It was rainy out so I decided that we would take the day off! At 5:00, we headed up to the bar to help Micki celebrate her birthday. It was a fun evening. We returned to the boat and spent a quiet evening aboard

This morning, we continued working to ready the aft of the boat for installation of the DC freezer system. A squall hit this afternoon while we where napping, it woke us up and by the time we got to the helm we were seeing 40 knots on the wind meter. The first gust is always higher so it may have been 50 knots or so. The aft canvas got blown down and the teeth on the zipper came out. I will need to put in a new zipper. We started the engines first thing in case we dragged; fortunately, we did not. When we went to shut down the engines the Port engine would not shut off. The linkage on the cutoff came out, apparently the cotter pin fell out then the linkage bolt. Mike will need to crawl outboard of the engine tomorrow once it cools. On July 28, Mike crawled outboard of the port engine. He quickly located the linkage pin. He discovered that he could not repair it immediately, so we used a coat hanger to temporarily repair it. After he crawled out, we examined the pin and found that the spot weld had given out. July 29 was the fourth day of rain we have had. We ran the generator all day to help get the freezer temperature down in anticipation of our new DC freezer system installation on Monday or Tuesday. On July 30, I went for my morning walk then ran into the marine store for 10/2 wire that is needed for the freezer. The installation was started today, but as is standard in the islands they did not come prepared. They came with the plate and compressor and the freon lines, but low and behold they did not come with lines for the raw water pump that runs the compressor. On the plus side getting anything done here is much cheaper then in the states, but you have to constantly make sure they show up and or do the job right. It makes paying a little bit more to get something done right worth it. On July 31, the freezer installation was completed with the exception of dressing everything in. We fired the system up at 11:00 AM AST. We checked the system periodically all day long and it is working like a champ! The carpenter came and installed the new door for our chargers, it looks great as well!