February 1 - 20, 2003 -- The Ongoing Saga This was an interesting time. We were starting to get pretty grumpy about being on the hard for so long, and the distractions were getting fewer and fewer as the strike moved on. We guessed that the strike would end the week before they announced it. Between the raids on warehouses and threats of taking over food production plants (ironically, it was beer and soft drink production that was being most threatened), it was only a matter of time before the opposition conceded. The work on the boat continued. As promised, epoxy was put on starting Monday, February 3. Unfortunately, they got a late start so they only put epoxy on the port side of the boat. The next day, they did the starboard side, and finally on Wednesday they did a final coat on the entire bottom before starting on the Coal Tar epoxy barrier coat. While the yard worked under the boat, we worked inside the boat exercising thru hulls and reorganizing our tool locations. Now, at least, our tools are completely accessible again! On Thursday, February 6, the first coat of bottom paint went on and we continued our inspections and exercise of the thru hulls. We found a potential problem with our engine room bilge pump hose, and had to shorten it by a little bit. On February 7, we over saw 2 thru hulls installed in the boat. One was a replacement thru hull for the replacement speed transducer and the other was due to a sea cock that died. We didn't like the location of the old thru hull so we had it closed off and relocated. Then we put on the shaft and prop zincs today. Finally we discovered a problem in the structural fiberglass mounting for the rudder. We noticed some weeping (mind you, the barrier coat and a coat of bottom pain had ALREADY been put on the bottom of the boat, so theoretically, any moisture still in the hull SHOULD have been trapped there. It makes us nervous to think that if water can get out through the barrier coat, then it can also get IN through the barrier coat as well!) so the yard ground the spot down and drilled a few holes. There appears to be some voids that are filled with water. We will let it dry over the weekend and then put a vacuum on it Monday. Which led us to a very quiet weekend. It was a relatively quiet first part of the week, which led to Wednesday February 12. Now, admittedly, we woke up grumpy this morning. The dogs had been barking all night long, and the wind died early, so it was a little warm in the boat. However, that does not mitigate what we had been seeing for the last few days (absolutely NO ONE was working on the boat, and the 2 boats that had just been hauled had the entire yard staff working on them) as we became progressively more unhappy with the progress of the work. We spoke with Luis about this and gave him some observations based on our experience in the yard. Luis gave a lot of excuses, and then finished by telling us that CMO worked to the standards of Florida. We can only assume that he means the worst of the yards in Florida! However, amazingly enough after lunch, we had just about the entire yard crew working on our boat! On February 13, once again, the same pattern occurred. There was no one working on our boat today, when 2 boats that were just hauled out had people working on them! Not that we begrudge other boats having work done, but we had a whole bunch of pieces of work orders left that each are going to take several days to complete. Finally, we snarled at Efreal about the fact that no one was working on the boat. After himming and hawing, Efreal said that the reason nothing else was happening is because the boot stripe would be painted. We pointed out that during the entire first half of the day that valuable time had been given up that could have moved our boat closer to being done. Efreal then said that it wasn't him, that he would have to talk with his boss to resolve this issue. We told him to do it. Later, Luis came out to the boat to let us know that we would be launching on Wednesday afternoon - guaranteed. He also said that our project would receive the highest priority in the yard to ensure that we would launch on Wednesday. They painted the boot stripe, and we could see several problems and imperfections. We made note of these to ask about in the morning. On Friday morning, February 14, we asked about the boot stripe this morning, and Efreal explained that they would be block sanding the entire thing to find the low spots that will need additional faring. OK, we figured we would give them the benefit of the doubt on this. The worst that could happen is that when we repaint the boat, we will have to repaint the boot stripe. I think we had the entire yard working on our boat again today, and it lasted even after lunch! By the end of the day we had the new thru hull installed, the bottom patches ground and fared, the other port lights ground and prepped for primer and the boot stripe completed. However, if the boot stripe was to the standards of Florida, it MUST HAVE BEEN A YARD WE WOULD NEVER TAKE OUR BOAT TO FOR ANYTHING! We could actually launch by Wednesday. We went to dinner at Ballyhoo. We ran into several other boaters there. We chatted with them for a few minutes before settling down to order dinner. A humorous note. There are several waiters at Ballyhoo, but only one person that speaks English. The waiter said that he didn't speak any English and that we would have to wait for the English speaker who was handling the other boaters. We explained that our Spanish was fine for ordering. He nodded and took our order. This actually worked out to be a good thing. While the other boaters could only deal with one person, we had the rest of the wait staff (3 waiters and a bar tender) who served us and 1 other table. It was a fun evening. Even knowing that we had a lot of work to do, we decided to go out for a little while to the bar, and were surprised to see one of our oldest friends from Margarita! We spent the evening chatting with him and made plans to go to lunch tomorrow. On Saturday February 15, we met our friend for lunch at an Arabian restaurant, and then that evening we went to dinner with Luis and his wife. Away from CMO, Luis is an interesting person. On Sunday, Mike was a slave driver! He made me do more than 2 projects in one day! We started out with going to EPA (the hardware store) to try to find fiberglass resin. We stopped for lunch at Wendy's, and then came back to the boat to get to work. We started with the thru hull that we have closed off. I finally got the sea cock off, and the parts we bought to cap the thru hull are tooo small. We will need to buy new parts tomorrow! Next we cleaned out the Port and starboard staterooms. Then we tried to install the power switch for the wind gen that we are installing on the boat. We got that most of the way done, but need a fuse block before we can complete it. We thought we had one on the boat, and I am still sure we do; unfortunately, it is LOB (lost on boat). Finally, Mike made me enter the maintenance items for the wind gen and the windlass. One of these days, I will teach him how to use Yacht, and then he can do this kind of stuff! What can I say, I have to suffer to enjoy the things I love. In reality, we didn't work all that long today. On Monday, February 17, we continued getting the boat ready to launch. I managed to find the parts we needed to cap the old thru hull, and we figured out a problem with our forward companionway light. It turned out that the light switch failed, not the usual fixture. Finally, Wednesday rolled around. Remember Luis' promise that we would launch on Wednesday? Didn't happen! We spent another night on the hard. On Thursday, February 20, we splashed. Back in the water where we belong! We took care of the final items on our list to ready the boat to leave in the morning for Porlamar in Margarita. It was a long day!

On February 21, we left the dock at CMO at 1100 GMT. We wanted to beat as much of the wind as we could since it had been unusually strong for the past week or so. Each mile covered before the wind was a mile comfortably traveled. It wasn't a terribly exciting trip. We were never able to sail. However, we averaged 7.5 knots! At about 1500 GMT, the wind came up with a vengeance. It blew 20 to 30 knots for the entire trip. Since we were heading in to it, we our apparent wind was 27 to 37 knots! As I said before, it wasn't an exciting trip, but it was a wet trip! We were taking spray on the fly bridge because the seas were so choppy. We dropped anchor in Porlamar at 2000 GMT or about 3:00 pm AST, and that was when the fun began. First we tried to start Tink, our 12.5 KW generator. He started, but without water flow, so he could not be cooled. Then we tried to start Ling-Ling, our 25 KW and she wouldn't even turn over. We checked the voltage on her battery and it turned out that her battery had completely died and was reading about 3 volts! So, we borrowed Tink's battery, and got Ling-Ling started. Then, as we were bringing power on to the boat, we experienced the same problem that we have experienced 3 other times aboard Nightwinds. Our HEART FREEDOM 30 (WHITE BOX) INVERTER/CHARGER COMBI unit made by XANTREX CORPORATION had a circuit board that burned up. We have spent many hours on the phone with Xantrex and we have paid an electrician to double check the wiring and hook ups and we have never been able to find a problem! We knew this was going to happen soon. It happens like clock work about every 10 to 14 months. This inverter was 12 months old. Actually, more specifically, the board that had burned up and been replaced was 12 months old. This wouldn't be so bad, except that it was also the main source for charging out 12 volt bank. Next the swell had picked up in Porlamar harbor, so we decided to deploy a bridle. While we were doing that, the windlass control shorted out and started going nuts! Finally, it blew its fuse, literally and calmed down. We got the bridle set using the windlass manually, and then spent the evening writing up our to do list. We were stunned to see that the list totaled almost 2 pages of things! Between February 22 and February 28, we started working on our list of things to repair, and our list of things to order, including a second 50 amp 12 volt charger since we knew we could get that quickly and a new inverter/charger from a company other than Xantrex. That eliminated the top 3 available inverter/chargers on the market since Xantrex bought Heart, Trace and Prosign! In the process of researching inverters, I prepared a list of questions. Without mentioning names, I relayed the problems we have had with our Heart. Invariably, each company we spoke with told us the brand of equipment we had! One person even went on to describe our exact usage of the system. It seems that from our experience the Heart equipment is good as long as you only use it intermittently!