January 20-31, 2003 -- Boat work continues

From January 19-23, we watched as the faring of the bottom of the boat continued. They are doing a good job, if very slowly! On January 24, we met with a woman who is highly recommended for making sheets. We discussed what we wanted with her, and she took two sets of sheets and the mattress pads from each of the forward state rooms. She said that the sheets should be done in approximately a week. On January 25, we decided to go out for the evening. We had a surprisingly good time. The music wasn't too loud and we met several new people. On January 26, we woke up late. After breakfast, we attended Karen's surprise (and late) birthday party. Karen runs the mini market in the adjacent marina Bahia Redonda. It was a fun afternoon. On January 27, I went running around with Anne and Marla. Anne runs a chandlery that caters to the big tankers. She hasn't been working since the strike started so she ran me around looking for the items I needed and acting as translator when necessary. Marla and her husband Kaj (pronounced Kai) have a wooden boat. She was looking for a few things they need to repair their boat, so I invited her to join us. It was a fun morning! On January 28, we started running the new wire for the VHF on the fly bridge (the old one died last week). We decided, instead of replacing the radio, we would run the Ram mike out to the fly bridge. On January 29, we completed running the new VHF wire. We have a VHF on the fly bridge again! Next, we ran the wire for the new B&G sensor. This didn't take nearly as long as we expected. That evening, we went to dinner with a local friend at De Giorgios. It was an excellent restaurant and a fun evening. On January 30, we looked for the suction leak going to the forward tank. The hardest part about it (so far) was taking the floor in the starboard head up. The screws stripped out and we wound up having to drill them out. Once the floor was up, we saw immediately that the pipe elbow was loose. We disconnected the water feed and found that the Teflon tape had disintegrated. We retaped and put 3M's 101 on the threads and reconnected the system. We will find out if this was the problem or not over the next few days. On January 31, we had a quiet day. They will finish up the faring coat today and start Monday with the 5 coats of epoxy.