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…