Varnishing

They announced a swap meet, to get rid of the old stuff from the boat and get someone else's junk to replace it. So I took the day off from varnishing:


I had a hydraulic pump on the watermaker/generator motor. I needed to remove it. It took two days to get it off and get the generator back together. The pulley for the pump was behind the flywheel so it had to be disassembled this far just to take the pump off.

A view of the galley as I started stripping the old varnish off.


The port settee and galley 'finished. 3 coats most places with a 4th in the high wear areas.

Dive at Enamonet

Now that the Internet is a little cheaper to access (free at Wyndi's), here are a few pictures from Feb at Enamonet Beach in Majuro. It is a favorite picnic and snorkel spot because it is only about 6 miles from the main town on Majuro. Yet it seems like an outer island because the only way here is by boat and only 2 families live here. One is the care-taker of the hotel's property.

Trinda snorkeling where you can't see the other side of the lagoon, but it is not really in the middle of the ocean like it looks.

It was not a very clear day. No one remembers their camera on the exceptionally good days!

Trinda is OK.
Trinda examining the airplane near our buoy.
Why do my eyes always look so 'open' underwater?

Preparing for at Seattle Visit

The time for my flight to Seattle to visit the kids and catch up with Trinda is fast approaching. There is so much to do! Not to mention the never ending re-varnishing.

I have now completed the V-berth stateroom, the port settee, half the galley, the removable floor boards and (almost) the cabinet doors from the galley forward. 4 quarts of satin and 2 quarts of gloss.

I changed the oil in both the generator and main engine and cleaned the bilge, so the bilge pump will operate automatically as advertised. Of course the bilge pump hose is bad and has to be replaced too.

Still to go: filling the diesel tanks, pickling the watermaker, removing anything valuable from the deck/lifelines ( all those ropes Trinda thinks I should live without!) cleaning u inside and storing all these newly varnished doors below somewhere.

I have arranged for friend to watch the boat, including starting the engines occasionally and checking the mooring lines. I need to make a check list for him and written instructions for the engines.

These things need to happen as I say so long to Spike. He is leaving for Hawaii Saturday and I fly out on Monday. Again, the good thing about cruising is the friends you make, the bad thing is the goodbye's to those friends.

April 4 is the Liberation Day celebration in Aur atoll. It is the day the Americans liberated the Marshallese there from the Japanese during WWII. It seems like 6 boats are going up for the event. The American Ambassador was invited and almost went too, but reliable transportation is just not available for their time frame. There is no real scheduled inter-island transport. There is an airline, but with 27 islands and only 2 older planes, they have canceled flights regularly and they often skip a stop if they don't have at least 2 passengers for that stop. (They do tell you before you would have departed though.) But that leads to you can go, but may not be able to come back anywhere near the time you plan, as much as several months go by without flights.

I really wish I could go, it was so nice last year and we have a number of friends there. Maybe when we get back from the visit.

Race-Picnic and Boatwork

Last Sunday was the monthly Majuro Sailing race. I didn't want to take our boat this time as the jib is repaired but still not put up. And all the cabinet doors are in the cockpit in various stages of re-varnishing, so if the boat healed over any, all the stuff (canned goods, etc.) would all fall out of the cabinets onto the newly sanded floors. Therefore I volunteered to be the race committee.

Then at the Captain's meeting only 3 boats had entered. A minimum of 4 is required for the race to count, so we decided to have a picnic to Enemonet instead. There is a new single-hander here, Mike from Tucson, so I went on his boat with some local volunteer teachers (Rue and Mike). The picnic was a nice success. It was a beautiful day.

I ate all the easy to cook food on board so have been going to supper ashore with Denny (Jubilant) and/or Spike (Holokai) mostly. I did make a pizza the other day and had Spike over here. I also had to give up and go to the store for a loaf of bread and some lunch meat for snacks when nothing else happens.

I continue to make progress on the varnish. I have applied one coat to all the doors Trinda had ready and re-sanded them for the next and LAST on these 10 doors, maybe today. I finished stripping the saloon and the forward half of the galley. I put the first coat on all that day before yesterday. The gloss part,(I'm doing the walls in satin and the trim in gloss) didn't dry yet, so I'm planning to sand only the satin part today and maybe strip the extra boards, doors and pieces for the galley.

I have been asked to work on a couple of webpages so I will work on then tomorrow.

I cant believe it has been over a month since I posted an update! Trinda is off to Seattle and I am still working on the varnishing. There sure is a lot of wood on this boat!

Trinda and Marine in front of Shoreline, where we leave the dinghy to go ashore. This was a few days before she left.

Living in the middle of a construction project! The paint stripper we are using is REALLY powerful stuff. We have to make sure it doesn't get on anything it is not supposed to. I think I'm not too far from the half way point.

Australia Day

Today, Jan 26 is Australia Day. The Australian Navy commander here had a Bar-B-Que at his place, Wallaby Downs (funded by the Navy). Lots of beer, wine and soda. They invited the yachts and of course all the Ausies living here plus lots more. They had "snags and dead horse".

Trinda seems over the flu, but may be developing an allergy to either teak saw dust or coral dust. As we arrived at the party she had hives on her arms and more. They cleared up shortly. Within minutes of returning to the boat she was itching again. (And we can't find the benadryl, I know we have some here somewhere! ) It hasn't rained for a few days and the streets are dusty, so its hard to tell which it is. She seems better now, who knows.

Still paint stripping, sanding and varnishing.

Still Here

I noticed the poor blog hasn't been updated in a while.

After the race, we were busy getting ready for the Christmas party for the local kids and the Christmas potluck dinner. they were both a big success. I was back to my normal self for Christmas dinner, at 3 plate fulls. The next day we made turkey soup from the left over turkey carcass. Either that or some other left over must have spoiled as I was really sick for 2 1/2 weeks. Hardly left the little room at the back of the boat!

After finally going to the hospital where they gave me really strong antibiotics and assured me I have no parasites, I seem to be OK again. Trinda was a real trouper through the whole deal.

We started refinishing all the teak wood inside the boat. She kept on stripping and sanding the whole time I was sick. It is going really slow. every cabinet door,etc has little louvers for ventilation. They are too close together to get anything in, but have to have the old varnish stripped off them too. There 30 such doors! one is finished and 6 under way. We have 8 removable floor boards of which 2 or 3 need one final coat. nd the V-birth stateroom is half stripped with the first of 3 coats of polyurethane on it.

We just got tickets for a trip to Seattle and around. Trinda goes Mar 1 and I go Apr 12 both returning about June 12.