Almost.  That’s how far it seems when you’re going up the mast.  Or in the case of Bright Angel Bob who volunteered to “grind” me up it felt like an eternity.  Even on a 4:1 purchase with a self-tailing winch it’s a very long way when you’re grinding someone who tips the scales right about – let’s just say the size of an NFL linebacker.  Really, I wasn’t built for mast work, but the local rigger has just retired and we’re not sure who to trust yet – so I voted for me.

54 feet off the deck. Start at the top and work down lubricating anything that looks like it moves and checking the rigging for cracks.

Charisma looks pretty small from up here.

Nice view upriver...

...as well as downriver (where we hope to be headed in the days ahead).

And besides the view I got another treat as soon as I reached the top.  It rained.  Fortunately only for about five minutes or so, but my “crew” all ducked down below out of the rain and left me hanging.  I had a few things to check on so not too big a deal.

The other big project today was replacing the two fuses to the fluxgate compass.  They had corroded last season in Fiji and I did a temporary fix using alligator clamps and electrical tape to hold the fuses, but back in NZ I bought some real fuse holders and today finally soldered them in place under the port settee.

No I'm not taking a nap. Look closely and you can see my headlamp zeroed in on the fuses. The harder job was moving all the junk that was sitting here into the quarterberth so we could get under the cushion (and then back again this evening so we had somewhere to sleep).

Ann’s still working on inventing the new rain cover for the cockpit but hit a snag.  She ran out of canvas and it’s Sunday in NZ so we have to wait until tomorrow when the stores are open.  One catch – it’s supposed to rain fairly heavily all day.  Oh well, just another day in pre-voyage prep.

So…we’re getting down (mostly) to the small stuff.  At least for me.  Ann still has a couple of big sewing projects.  More on that below.

We think Charisma is getting excited about heading out again. She's sure looking good.

Yesterday, Ann put wood oil on the cockpit teak (protects the wood, but not slippery).  We had cleaned and bleached the grey wood a couple days ago and were waiting for it to dry before oiling.

Always nice to see the teak with that new "honey" color that you get after bleaching.

Once it's dry, we add teak oil to protect the wood and keep it from turning the ash grey color that some people like, but it's not Ann's favorite. This better matches the new varnish work.

Ann’s also been sewing up a storm.  She warmed up with a couple of canvas covers.  One for the hydro-generator in the cockpit to (hopefully) keep it from rusting again and the other, a cover for the watermaker high pressure pump (pictured below).  It’s in a vulnerable spot right under the head porthole where it’s easy for a wave or rain to splash it.  I’ve been just throwing a rag over the top of it, but this is a bit more elegant looking.

This covers the exposed electric pump that provides the first stage pressure to the watermaker.

Warmed up now, she’s tackled the “big one”.  Ann’s making a rain cover for the cockpit for those rainy days sitting at anchor.  With a cover we can still sit in the cockpit instead of having to retreat to the hot and humid cabin.

We moved the big blue monster (the Sailrite sewing machine) up to the BBQ gazebo where it's easier to spread out.

I’ve been picking off lots of small stuff that I never get around to because it’s never quite important enough…One such project that I got an inspiration for how to attack was the cockpit light.  We bought a nice LED last year in Fiji that hangs just inside the dodger and the cable snakes inside the fabric that covers the structure down to the cabin top.  From there I’ve just been pulling it through the quarter berth porthole and connecting it inside the electronics cabinet circuit breakers whenever we anchor.  The problem with this (beside an errant cable snaking across the cabin and having to screw it onto a circuit breaker when we want to use it, is that when it rains the porthole can’t be closed.  When it rains really hard – usually in the middle of the night – rain starts to pour in and we have to jump up and unscrew the wires, throw the cable out the porthole and then close it.  It’s a bit of a “kludge” but it worked.  Sort of.  And it solved the problem of how to connect the darn thing.  The light is physically located a long way from any regular circuit that is easily accessible for a permanent connection.  I thought.

Well, yesterday I had an inspiration.  I realized I could drill a little hole through the cabin top right where the wire came down the dodger structure – virtually unseen – and into the cabin inside the overhead covering it would be right next to a cabin light and the wires would be invisible, tucked away above the ceiling.  The cabin light has a switch, but upstream of the switch is 12 volts so we wouldn’t be dependent on the cabin light switch.  OK, but what kind of switch could I use and where would I put it?  This is one of the things that’s kept me from even thinking about this.  I thought there was no where I could elegantly put a switch that wouldn’t look completely out of place, hacked into a wall or ceiling somewhere.  Then I realized I could simply drill a hole in the side of the existing light fixture and add a second toggle switch (pictured).  Yay!  It looks like it was done at the factory.  No more midnight porthole races.  We can toggle the cockpit light on and off to our heart’s content.

Light in the cockpit. A great thing. No more dinner by headlamp. The new switch is the one on the right.

Silly how I can be so excited about these little projects, but each one makes life on the boat just a little easier.  It adds up.  Who knows, maybe someday we’ll put in a shower so we don’t have to take our baths naked in the cockpit, with warm water out of a teapot.

Nah.

It’s looking like we’ll head out for a shakedown cruise mid next week.  Somewhere along the coast to test all the systems.  We’re getting the final stuff done.

Ann’s diligently finishing the polishing of the cabin and stainless steel (stanchions, winches, windvance, etc).  It’s a grueling job but almost done. All of the residue from the blue tape needed to varnish has now been removed. Today we cleaned and bleached the teak decking in the cockpit.  It looks great!  Ann will oil it tomorrow once it completely dries.

Yesterday our sails came back.  They were new last year but we needed some changes as they didn’t universally work.  The main was great so just had some minor reinforcement work to shore up some weak spots; the jib is new as the previous one just didn’t work; the stays’l has been recut.  We’re crossing fingers that this time we’re good.  They certainly look good at the dock.

Checking out the recut stays'.

Main looks good (other than rigging the reef lines wrong. Fixed that when we dropped it).

We’re down to where we’re doing some of the “I don’t know how I’m going to do this” projects.  Two in particular have now been solved.  Today I borrowed a really strong hand pump made for marine use from Bright Angel Bob and used it to pump out our “grey water” tank.  We don’t use it since we don’t have the shower hooked up.  Normally you would have it attached to an electric pump and just flip the switch when you’re offshore.  But…the pump broke years ago, so the tank has just been slowly filling each time we spill water on the floor or the sink splashes over.  Now it’s become a nuisance.  The tank is full and each time the boat rolls the grey water splashes back UP out of the tank into the head (bathroom for you lubbers).  Bob’s pump worked great and I pumped about 30 gallons, which is the capacity of the tank.  It was mostly old stagnant water – with a little soap mixed in, so it smelled like a swamp and I made sure to run three gallons of chlorinated water and five more gallons of fresh water Bob’s pump before returning it  😉

The other more crucial repair was finally figuring out what the little broken part in the mast was that WASN’T holding the mainsail slides in anymore.  It’s a threaded thing that holds a screw, but I thought it was a heli-coil, and have been studiously ignoring it because they can be a disaster to dig out and replace.  But it finally completely gave up and I had to take it out.  It turned out to be a threaded rivet.  To keep this short I’ll just say I spent a couple hours locating both a replacement and the special tool you have to have to put the new rivet back in.  Hint: it’s not a plain old rivet gun.  In fact, it takes a good half an hour or more to read the directions to figure out all the adjustments on the gun to make it work.  Anyway, here’s a picture of the thing that has been making life hell every time we reef.  Since it didn’t work, all the slides would fall out of the mast.  But no more (cross fingers)!

Here's the special tool with the directions. It has five special adjustments but nothing on how to calibrate the adjustments. I took a good guess and it worked!

A close up of the threaded rivets and the plate that the screw is supposed to hold in the mast slot to keep the sail slides from falling out.

I also “fixed” the head door latch.  It had a broken spring that I replaced, but it also is showing wear exactly like the last one which makes it so when you turn the handle clockwise it doesn’t work anymore – you have to turn it counter-clockwise.  I just replaced this one a year ago, but it’s made of very cheap cast aluminum.  Perko is the brand and as a marine supplier they should make a product more robust for the marine environment.  I hate it when you pay a lot of money (because it’s for a boat) for something made so poorly.  (Rant over – back to earth).

I also installed a new LED light in the galley.  It has three brightness levels and a nighttime “green” light so you won’t lose your nighttime vision.  It will be a big help on passages when you don’t want to wake the “off” watch person by turning all the bright lights on just to make a pot of coffee or a snack.  Yay!

OK, boat geek out time.

We were working on maintenance projects (as usual) today.  Ann is polishing still.  I decided to tackle the leaky chainplate.  I’ve re-bedded this thing about 8 times since Mexico and it keeps leaking.  I think I might have found a solution – but that’s not the neat trick.

I was unscrewing the screws that hold the chainplate covers down on the deck (four very small screws) and as I got to the last one the head twisted off.  Oh, great!   It’s about 1/16 wide and 1 inch long and broke flush with the deck.  Nothing to grab onto with pliers.  I tried to drill a hole in the end of it to insert a screw extractor, but it was too small and stainless steel is too hard.  Usually the only solution is to start hacking away around the screw until there’s a big enough hole to grab it with vicegrips and twist out.  The only problem with that solution is then you have to fill the huge hole that is left with epoxy and let it cure for a couple days and then redrill the hole, etc., delaying the whole project a couple days.

But…a mechanic friend once told me about a trick that I used successfully today.  When you have a situation like this, you put a cutting wheel on your trusty Dremel tool and cut a groove on the top of the screw.  Then using a standard head screwdriver you can back the screw out.  It was a very awkward angle I was left with but – Yay – the trick worked.

Try it sometime when you have nothing to lose.  It works!

Yup, I beat Ann again in cards! That’s six to two.

Oh, wait that’s not it. We’re lucky in that we’ve been married for one glorious year so far. Yup, that’s it! Tonight we officially celebrated that with a lovely dinner out at Amici’s (late celebration but lots of fun…had to wait for a break in the weather and the boat work). Really nice Italian food and spectacular desserts! Ann had a monster Mocha something or other and I had a chocolate, pistacio sundae with whipped cream, sliced almonds and Frangelico poured over.

Just for the fun of it...a picture from our actual anniversary and the lovely brunch on Orcinius!

Ann is doing the final polishing of the cabin top now that the varnishing is done and the tape is coming off. She has also starting the provisioning and today also cooked up some peppers to make three large jars of pepperocini. You can’t find it anywhere in NZ or Fiji and it adds so much to canned tuna which is a convenient lunch staple when we’re cruising.

Lately, I had a bit of a triumph today when I was able to take apart the hydro gen. I bought a bearing puller a couple years ago and haven’t had a chance to use it until today when it was called upon twice (!) for duty in pulling the casing apart and then a recalcitrant bearing. Yay! I have a bearing replacement kit so that’s good. The bad news is the Ferris Hamilton unit has the crappiest paint you can imagine for something that’s made for sea-going use, so I’m going to have to strip it and start from primer with a proper paint job. That will add a few days to the project.

Lots of other stuff getting done. Looks like we’re a week or so from being ready to leave for the tropics. Well, at least ready for a weather window for leaving. The reality is it may be a few weeks before there is favorable weather for the ten day voyage back up to Fiji.

OK, that’s enough for now. See you later.

Today, Ann had the dubious pleasure of going into the “pit”.  This area of Charisma is also known as the lazarette but when you see the pictures, you’ll get the idea.

One of the items on our project list is – “tighten wind vane bolts”.  It’s one of those projects that sounds simple, but the reality is this:  you have to empty the lazarette of all the junk that accumulates down there; you have to remove some cockpit drain plumbing and then someone “slim of frame” (note: this is not me) has to slither into the “laz”, then aft pass the steering gear to the farthest aft reaches of the boat to hold a socket wrench against the bolts that hold “Wilson” firmly to Charisma.  Check out the process.

Everything has to come out before we can go in.

Some of the stuff even has to go on the dock.

Here we go, got the headlamp on and everything.

You know I give Ann all the fun jobs. Here she's about to enjoy lazaretto diving with her socket wrench.

All I can say is; “Ah Oh!”

"Did the big one go with the little one, or the wide one?"

Fortunately, I had a picture of what it looked like before I took it apart.

We’re celebrating today.  Three days of winch tear-down and eight winches.  Done.   Now onto those other projects…

The storm blew through last night.  Lots of rain and wind into the high 30’s but no damage at least around here.  Today was partly cloudy with occasional rain so we couldn’t finish the exterior varnishing, but I have the dorade boxes and some wood frame screens up in the workshop where I can varnish those without threat of rain.

Two other projects:

1. Lisa gave us a couple hard drives with movies and we spent some time downloading them to our drive so we have some “rainy day” entertainment.

2. Winch maintenance.  All the winches need some work, but the big cockpit winches haven’t been overhauled down to the gears in a few years.  It’s very time consuming, detail work, but cleaning out all the old grease and crud helps the winches last longer and work better.  We got the starboard one done.  Tomorrow the port side and maybe a couple others.  Depends on the weather which is supposed to be cloudy with some rain all weekend

The gears were pretty cruddy. I did the rough clean with a toothbrush in mineral spirits and then Ann used polish for the detail clean.

The trick is remembering where all the little gears, bearings and shafts go back together. I lay them on a towel on the deck in the same configuration as they come off.

Here's the brains of the operation. No, not me - the thing in my hand. This has four pawls with little tiny springs that engage the gears and let the winch operate at two different speeds. The trick is not to let the little springs fly out over the side when you're disassembling the thing.

Back in the water!  No more climbing up and down the ladder just to go to the toilet.  Yipes.  It was fun once, some years ago, but I’m over it (as is Ann).

So…we’re back in the water just in time for the remnants of a tropical cyclone to pass over us (not Passover).  Heavy rain should hit at midnight tonight and maybe some wind, but since we’re on an inland river, maybe not too bad.  On the coast they might get over 60 knots of wind and 25+ foot seas.

We’re happy to be back in the water.  We’re snugged up tight.  I put chafe gear on all the lines and tied anything that was loose to the deck.  More tomorrow…

Here's what we're looking at for 0600 tomorrow morning.

Always great to take that crane ride back to the water. Charisma's looking good with a new coat of bottom paint and waxed and buffed topsides. (Photo credit: Lisa Danger, Orcinius)

I think "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" comes to mind. (Photo credit: Lisa Danger, Orcinius)

Setting up to back in the dock. (Photo credit: Lisa Danger, Orcinius)

Whew, back in - no crashing. Those of you who know Tayana know that backing in is not a trivial exercise. Especially with wind and a 1 knot river current. Many thanks to those who came to manage our lines! (Photo credit: Lisa Danger, Orcinius)

As I have written this the wind is starting to come up (2200 local time) and the barometer has dropped 15 mb since this morning!

Bring it on!  We tucked in and going to watch a movie tonight on board.  Possibly with some Scotch, Baileys and chocolate.  Yay for cyclones!

Yup, a day early.  We’re done with the “out of the water” stuff.  Ann has finished polishing the hull and the bottom paint is on.  She timed the final polishing in between squalls today polishing in the lighter areas of rain.  What a trooper!

We’re hoping to get in the water before the remains of a cyclone that’s due to hit New Zealand gets here.  Looks like it will start mid-tomorrow and go through the next day (Friday here, Thursday in the US).  For our area, heavy rain and wind into the 30’s is what’s in the forecast.  Further south though, NZ will see some 50+ knot winds.

All the new varnish on the deck looked so good Ann convinced me to completely strip all the dorade boxes. More work (strip, sand, bleach, sand, sand sand) but they are going to look great. First of four coats went on today (the picture is after stripping and bleaching, but before three rounds of progressively finer sanding).

Spraying on the paint...

Charisma is looking good with new bottom paint, and polished hull.