Category Archives: 2013 South Pacific Adventures

Here We Go

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One of the new i70 Instruments and the hole I'm going to need to enlarge to make it fit

 

 

 

 

Here's where the other three are going to go. More holes to enlarge and new cables to pull

 

 

 

 

A few of the cables in the nav station that are going to need to be rerouted

 

 

 

 

 

Ann getting an early start on the boatwork is polishing the stainless. A punishing, thankless job. Thanks anyway!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today officially started “Boat Work Week”.  Well actually it will be two weeks if we’re lucky, three if not.  More than that I don’t want to think about.

Anyway, we motored down to Ray Roberts Marine and Boatyard.  I think it’s actually called Riverside Marine, but “Ray’s” sounds better.  Just getting here took a little drama.  Two days ago I realized I had no clue as to where the key to the engine was.  I had a couple hazy memories that I might have hidden it in case of robbers while we were gone (note to self: Don’t do this again)!  Then after searching high and low through all the boat, I thought; “Well, maybe I gave it to Sharon, the marina manager”.  Problem was, that was yesterday which was a holiday in NZ so we couldn’t call Sharon and see if she had it.  No worries we thought, I probably did leave it with her and we’ll just get it in the morning.  Come morning, Ann went over to the Marina office while I met with Roger the Doyle Sails rep who wanted a couple last measurements before cutting the fabric for the new sails.  We got the measurements but No Bueno on the key.  Oh crap!  Our time to go down to the boatyard was past since the tide had changed.  Rats!  So we decided to double down on looking in drawers, under boards, etc, etc.  Each of us went back to drawers we had searched yesterday and dumped everything out on the floor and voila-The Key!  Turns out it was exactly where it should have been, but I outsmarted myself by taping a piece of grey duct tape over it with the words; “No H2O” on it to remind myself that I had closed the raw water through-hull intake while we were gone.  This was to avoid a potential catastrophic leak while we weren’t aboard.  But the grey tape made the key impossible to see in the dark drawer.

 

Oh well.  We’ve both decided that next year we will write notes about where we store everything and hide them so no burglars will find out where our good stuff is.  That way we’ll be able to find everything…once we find the notes.

 

On to business!  Now that we’ve found the key and were able to start the engine, we have now relocated to Ray’s.   We’re spending a nice, calm evening on their dock and then will haul out tomorrow.  I always get stressed hauling out.  Boats aren’t meant to be out of the water sitting on the ground.  We’ll be living aboard and will have to climb seven feet up a ladder to get to the deck and in the boat.  We have four pages of projects to complete. The biggies are:  bottom paint, varnish the brightwork, wax and polish the hull (makes it easier to clean as we travel) and install the new electronics (Crappy B&G instruments gave up the ghost.  They were only four years old and the line has been discountinued. No replacements available and they are not repairable-we’re switching to Raymarine which at least is easier to find replacements for). These days software compatibility is the issue and I’ve purchased a converter to allow my old network to talk to the new one (hopefully).  For you techies, we’re going to try and get the older NMEA 0183 standard network to talk to the new NMEA 2000 SeaTalkNG net.  Good luck to me.  More on this as the next couple weeks progress.  In the mean time, I’m drilling new holes for the different size instruments and pulling new wire, since the old cables are not compatible with the new instruments.  Grrrrr.

 

OK, time for a glass of wine and some sunset.  More pictures later of tomorrow’s haul out.

 

P.S.  On a more positive note:  We got a knock on the hull and a “Ahoy Charisma” this afternoon.  Turned out Jim Fair from Berkeley Yacht Club is docked right next to us.  He and his wife left Berkeley a year before we did and we’ve heard they were down here.  Funny what a small world.  We’ve agreed we are going to get together in the next couple days to swap lies about our trips.  Yay!

Tsunami Alert!

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That got our attention!  We’re back on Charisma after a wonderful holiday back in the States with Family and Friends.  Today, we were sitting on the boat in the Town Basin at Whangarie and a friend came over and knocked on the hull:  “Ahoy Charisma!”  We shouted back and climbed the companionway ladder to say hi and saw Tom from “Tanga” who said that there was a huge earthquake in/around Vanuatu (an 8.0 as of this writing although it will likely get downgraded over time) and there’s a tsunami alert for most of the South Pacific.  Wow, talk about getting our attention.  After a bit of chat, we went back down below straight to the internet and found….mixed results.  NOAA cancelled the alert, but the local Civil Defense authorities didn’t.  Anyway, long story short, as we’re sitting here an hour after it was supposed to hit New Zealand, we’re still floating without a care.

Got us back into the swing of cruising though.  So, with this blog, hopefully we’ll kick back into the habit of charting out what we’re doing and where we’re going.
Tomorrow, we go out “on the hard”.  Not our favorite thing.  Basically we’re getting hauled out in a local boatyard to get the bottom painted with antifouling paint.  You have to do this at least once every other year or so to keep the crud from growing on the bottom of the boat.  That’s the main reason we’re hauling, but we spent much of this afternoon planning the other projects we’re going to work on while we’re in the boat yard.  Everything from pulling all the anchor chain out onto the ground for inspection, to varnishing all the woodwork (a much bigger task than it sounds-this alone will be a week or more of solid work), to sewing some new covers for worn out cushions a version-2 of our bimini, etc.  Not the least project (which is on Ann’s list) is cleaning and waxing the hull!

 

So, at least two weeks of work where we’ll be living on Charisma in the boat yard.  Not the most fun thing since to leave the boat, you basically climb down a six foot ladder, but hey, this is an adventure.  We’re going to make it fun.  Ann already did some planning and announced that we will be eating meals in the lovely park next door to the marina.  Trees, views onto the river, grass and picnic tables.  I announced that we’ll be eating pizza in town at least two nights a week.  Beer, pizza, Rugby on the TV.  So, we’ll have some entertainment.  Stay tuned.  I’m still going to write up what went right during the last year and what we could do better; a perspective of our sailing experience over the last year.  I just have to get back into the writing groove and get inspired a little.  Is anybody reading this, and/or interesting in that?  Please let me know.