The Refit as it Happens!

It has been almost a month now since we hauled Wandering Dolphin out of the water at Peakes Boatyard in Trinidad.  Since that time we have been working like a hive of bees on her.  Here is the list of jobs that need to be done in order for her to be ready for the next big passage across the Atlantic next spring.

Our biggest and most unexpected expense this year is a new engine.  We could have opted to rebuild the old Perkins but the expense of a rebuild was really only about 1/3 the expense for a brand new engine.  A new engine will be more fuel efficient and much lighter weight for the same horse power.  We are replacing the Perkins 4108 with a new Beta Marine 50.

  

Being forced to haul the engine out of the boat opens an area of the boat that is never seen and puts a whole new set of jobs on the necessary list just because the only time they can be done is when the engine is out of that compartment.  The hull needs to be cleaned and repaired if there are bad spots.  We pulled out a whole load of old wires that were no longer in use.

We pulled out an old 8-D battery that was lodged in the area and couldn't be removed without that area opened up.  In the spot where that big battery sat we are installing a new water heater which will use shore power or engine heat to give us hot water on the boat.

Back in that area sat an old water tank that we had stopped using because it was so nasty and full of bio growth.  We have been able to clean it up and put it back in with it set up to only receive water from the watermaker and only runs to one manual pump at the sink.  This keeps the drinking water from the watermaker separate from the main tank so if either one was contaminated it wouldn't contaminate the whole supply and drinking water is not drained out if a faucet is left on because it is only drawn up with a manual pump.

The manual bilge pumps have needed servicing for a couple of years but were so difficult to get to that we have put it off until now.  We are re plumbing them with smaller hoses so they have more pressure when drawing up the water through such a long distance.

Both teak pads for the big jib winches were rotting out and I have been afraid that they might just fail when the jib was straining at full load.  They have been removed and new ones made.  This job required us to remove the headliners in both aft cabins to get to the winch bolts.

One of the things I have always hated about our boat is the manual windlass.  Pulling up the anchor has always been a chore and there have been many times where I knew I needed to move but the effort required was to great because of the wind or current so we just waited it out.  A couple of years ago a boat was abandoned near Honeymoon Bay and ended up on the rocks.  We helped with the effort and were told we could choose a salvage item off the boat for our help.  We chose the electric windlass.  It was old but looked workable.  Turns out it is in great shape.  It needed the motor serviced and some new brushes, but with new paint it looks brand new.  Installation means running 4 gauge wires from the alternator to the new battery we have to install up at the bow so the engine can keep the battery up while the windlass is working and pulling up the chain.

Our old friend and welder Larry from last year is making a reappearance this year.  Last year he fixed our bottom this year he will be putting aluminum rails all the way around the boat, replacing the stanchions and lifelines.   A lot of people may think this is ugly and bulky looking but the safety they will provide offshore is well worth it.  He will also be refurbishing our bow pulpit which was damaged when a boat dragged down on us a couple of years ago.  There are also a few places on the deck that Larry will be reinforcing with new aluminum.  The dorade vents on both sides have corroded through the deck and will be replaced and we will ditch the bronze bases which caused the problem in favor of marlon.  He will also be welding supports for our rear chairs mounted on the arch.

Beck has been jonesing for new cushions ever since Jimmy washed our old covers in Charleston five years ago and shrank them all.  The cushions have never fit right since then.  We are replacing them with thicker cushions made with denser foam and a faux suede fabric in a very pretty light green shade.  This will make the boat much more livable.

We have also begun the woodworking projects.  The companionway, running boards, and various removable access panels are being done by us and the floor and interior will be done by a professional here at Peakes.
The last project is a paint job.  We will be doing this ourselves once again.  Seven years ago we rolled and tipped Awl Grip on the topsides and it turned out beautifully so we will try to do it again.  The bottom will need a couple of coats of anti fowling paint and we will be putting on new lettering done by our friend Sheldon. (He's the guy who sandblasted WD last year.)

These projects will keep us busy until sometime in September.  We hope to get back in the water and up to Grenada for the last few weeks before our return to St Thomas at the end of October.

You might think this would be enough to keep us busy but we also have Sweetest Thing here and although we are not doing the work itself we are overseeing a number of jobs on her as well to get her ready for another full season of chartering in the Virgin Islands this summer.... Come book a charter with us so we can pay for that huge list of work on WD!

Hot and Sweaty in Beautiful Trinidad,
Captain Tofer, Beck, EmilyAnne, Kanyon, Kaleb, and Benny

St Thomas to Trinidad

Our sail from St Thomas to Trinidad was great.  We motored out of Crown Bay Marina and pulled up a double reefed mainsail, hauled up the stays'l, pulled out the Genoa and shut off the engine.  I was mildly concerned by the fact that there seemed to be a little exhaust smell down below but shrugged it off because we really don't use the engine for much.  In fact, we set sail for the west end of St Croix and forgot about the engine.

Wandering Dolphin, true to form, kicked up her heels and began to beat to windward with a big grin on her boat face.  EmilyAnne and I smiled at each other, both of us thinking the same thing, having just spent weeks on board Sweetest Thing, "Now we are sailing!"  With the double reefed main our angle of heel wasn't to bad and she was cutting through the seas quietly, no Cat banging, slapping, groaning, and creaking.  Wandering dolphin is very quiet because she is metal so she doesn't flex and bend like even the best fiberglass boats, and her compartments are shoved so full of the stuff a family of six need to live that there's no room for stuff to shift and bang back and forth.

We rounded St Croix and set a waypoint for Grenada.  Emily and I had just done this passage on Sweetest Thing and it was totally cool to see Wandering Dolphin grab a 33 degree wind angle and still haul along at 6.5 to 7 knots in 15 to 18 knots of wind with her double reefed main, full Genny and Stays'l.  By midnight we pulled down the stays'l and reefed in the Genoa.  Our Genny had a foam luff which we added back in Oriental 5 years ago and it is wonderful.  When you reef in the roller furled Genoa with a foam luff, the middle of the sail rolls in tight and so the sail still keeps a great shape even reefed.  I am really not sure why everyone doesn't have a foam luff.

The rest of the sail to Trinidad was pretty uneventful.  We never started the engine, just sailed.  The boys watched movies when the solar was pumping during the day and even Beck says,
"It was better than most!  Everyone worked hard and treated me like the princess I deserve to be!"
This simply means that Tofer reefed in the sails at dusk so we didn't have to do it in the dark and we kept the sails reefed enough at all times to keep the gunnel out of the water.  We even heaved to just for supper one night!

                                                    (current in the Dragon's Mouth)

We approached the Dragon's Mouth on Friday morning and I had an uneasy feeling about the engine.  This is one of those places where you really want a working engine, the tide rips through the narrow cut and the wind almost disappears between the mountains of Trinidad.  Atlantic swells meet rushing current and a boat can quickly become a play toy with these forces at work.  My concern for the engine must have been a subconscious thing that had been working on me for the five days of the passage.  I had been mulling over the exhaust smell and when I did an inspection it all looked ok but I noticed the oily color to the coolant... my head started thinking head gasket.  I also noticed a lot more oil on the engine... if you have ever had a Perkin's 4108 you will realize that noticing "more" oil is often difficult as they are known for leaking out of their gaskets like water out of a battered bucket.

                                                    (standing wave generated by current)

We decided to test the engine while we were still 10 miles offshore.  Good thing we did, it started but kicked up a billow of exhaust into the cabin, spewed oil and a huge chocolate colored cloud rose from her ass like a fat mans fart.  No power.... We shut her down.

                                                              (our little "tow" boat)

Now what to do?  I got on the sat phone and called Bob (the owner of Sweetest Thing) and he came to our rescue arranging with Peakes Yacht Services for someone to come out and tow us to the dock.

                                                      (Wandering Dolphin - Flying)
Wandering Dolphin was hauled out Monday and we have been stripping her decks and getting her ready to pull out the old engine.  The next big question we were faced with was... do we now repower her or rebuild the Perkins.  After getting bids on a rebuild it seemed a pretty obvious choice to get a new engine.  The Perkins is original to the boat, 1989 and has been in salt water cooling operation all of her days and even rebuilt it would only be a few years before we probably faced block issues.  The new engine will be more fuel efficient and much lighter and smaller.  After a lot of reading on the internet and searching for the best replacement we will be replacing the old blue Perkins with a fire engine red Beta Marine engine.  The new engine will bolt right into our existing power train (Borg Warner Velvet Drive).  This whole process will give us the chance to clean out the whole engine/battery area, set it up more efficiently, replumb the formerly unreachable extra water tank and throw out an old 8-D battery that is buried under all of that stuff and couldn't be removed without the engine being pulled.

                                                (clean bottom after 8 months in the water!)

The engine is a whole new unexpected expense.  The engine added to the other work she needs done this year and the work done on her bottom last summer makes for a complete refit and by the time this is all done old tired Wandering Dolphin will be like a new boat ready to face the Atlantic next year!

Just a note, have a look at the bottom when she was hauled.  She has been in the water for 8 months!  We had NO barnacles and didn't even need to pressure wash her!  Gotta love this Island 44 bottom paint we can put on her down here!

Well I'm off to WORK!
Captain Tofer, Rebecca, EmilyAnne, Kanyon, Kaleb, and Benny

Sailing To Trinidad

Wandering Dolphin is ready to sail south! Her intrepid crew of sailors for this passage includes the notorious and often ignored Captain Tofer and his beautiful if sometimes green (offshore at least)mate ( in ALL meanings of the word)Rebecca. The Crew is lead by the young and beautiful offshore veteran and whip cracker EmilyAnne. She will be continuing the training of her padawan learners, Kanyon (who will be on the watch schedule for the first time this year)Kaleb (who will be killing monsters and finding Pokemans for the majority of the trip)and Benny who is our very best fisherman and night watch assistant. The boat is loaded to the gunnels with junk food and the lee cloths are set. We've taken our Sturgeron for sea sickness and SPOT is up and running. If you would like to follow our progress offshore just click on the little link that says SPOT on the side of the blog.(doesn't work with the mobile blogspot app) Looks like the wind will be light for a few days and on Wandering Dolphin we sail even when the wind is light, so our progress will be slow. The great thing with light winds though, is calmer seas. There will be some suntanning and fishing happening for a few days for sure. To answer the most asked question.... No we didn't buy a new boat. We wanted to but in the end things just didn't work out and we really didn't want a loan again so we are back to continuing our refit on WD this year in Trinidad. Sweetest Thing will be right next to us in the boatyard so we will be wearing two hats and working on two boats. We still hope to get in the water in August so we can enjoy some family time and relax for a couple of months before bringing both boats back up to St Thomas for the charter season next October. We will try to keep up some blog posts over the summer so you can see the transformation of WD from a worn and tired cruising boat Into a pretty sailboat once again. And They're OFF! Captain Tofer

Just some Pictures of what we have been doing

filling the waterline

First layer of primer and filling

just another bad spot

after some sanding

we got bottom paint on!

sanded and primer in hole

filler in thanks to our friend Jack!

working on Port waterline

so happy to be taping

It is coming along, only 1 more short week before we are back in the water.  We all will be thankful to have our home floating again. 
We will post more pictures soon. 
Rebecca and kids

News Flash!!!!!

October 13th 2011

"Sweetest Thing" and Crew are on the move.

Follow spot and send messages when you can.

http://messaging.iridium.com/
you leave the number 8816 that is already in the number slot and add our number to it 32521786 then just type in your message. Don't bother putting your email in the email line as it just uses up the number of letters you can type. (160 total per message) But you can send as many as you like and they are free. When the beep goes off from the phone we always jump to see what it says...

Island Tour

The Island Tour

One thing I still have trouble getting used to in this crazy gypsy life is that, at least in the Caribbean, because we have white skin, we are immediately targeted by every shyster, bum and con-artist.  They assume that we are rich, on vacation, and if they find out we are on a boat, they suddenly think we are mega-wealthy.

I have developed some unorthodox tactics to deal with the actual bums... my favorite one is to head them off and before they ask me for money I ask them for money.  I always do it just like they do.  I put an arm around them and say,

“Hey buddy, I know times are tough but I have five kids I need to feed tonight... do you have a couple bucks to help me buy a pizza?”

They always look at me like I am crazy and start to back pedal about how they don’t have money but they can’t very well ask me for any now that I have already asked them.  Believe it or not, this has worked so well in St Thomas, the bums between the marina and the grocery store will actually cross the street to avoid me when they see me coming.

It didn’t work so well the other day in Grenada though.  I saw the bum crossing the street toward us as we came out of the grocery store with our arms loaded with food and quickly asked,  

“Hey buddy you got a couple of bucks to loan me?  I ran out of money and still need to buy some milk.”  I looked at him expectantly.

This bum was a master though and, believe it or not, must have run across my tactic before.  He just looked at me, didn’t miss a beat and said,

“Can you give me a dollar?  Just one dollar mon?”

Now I was the one confused.... I stammered,

“But I just asked you for a dollar... I have five kids to feed... you got a dollar for me?”

Now he was getting ticked off.

“Hey Mon!  It’s not my fault you have five kids!  You did that!  Give me a dollar!  I built my own yacht, I’m no beggar!”

He had made a good point about the children.  My hackles now risen, I replied,

“You ask for a buck but you’re not a beggar?  Give me a buck man!  I asked first! Just one buck!”

My much wiser wife has started the dingy and she reaches up and yanks me down into the boat and we motor home... I looked at the guy mumbling and yelling to himself shaking his fist like a mad man and then realized that I was sitting there in the dingy doing the same thing.

My second favorite tactic with bums is one I started doing back in the Bahamas.  I noticed that the bums and shysters who follow you down the beach getting more obnoxious with every “No” you say, ignore the white folks who don’t speak English.  I don’t speak any other language but that doesn’t stop me.  I just answer them with a bunch of crazy nonsense words and big hand gestures.  For example, they may ask,

“Hey Mon! You Wan corn rows?  I make your hair like mine with corn rows! Jus fifty dollars Mon!” and I reply,

“Han sac pulla?  Toocha mosta phallas?  Ma phallas mosta!  Joo tina phallas.”

They just shrug and walk away.   The problem in Grenada is that you have multi-lingual bums and the C.I.M.L.B or Confederation of International Multi-Lingual Bums which has a members agreement whereby if one bum with in the confederation doesn’t understand the language a mark speaks he is first obligated to try his own three languages... maybe English, German, and French... if that doesn’t work he gets his fellow confederate who speaks, English, Russian and Mandarin... this continues until they are pretty sure that you are full of shit then they all mug you.

So the title of this blog is, “The Island Tour.”  You have probably figured that I have wandered so far off from the title that I can’t get back but that is not the case.  I needed to set the whole story up with-in the proper “bum” context.  See the bums mentioned above are the easiest ones to deal with.  The really difficult ones are the ones driving taxis.  They get you captive in their fast moving vans, zipping around hair pin curves at speeds still not attained by Indi-cars, then once you are pretty sure your life is about to end, they start to negotiate prices for an island tour.  If you start to disagree with a price or call into question the safety of their van they swerve into the oncoming lane until you agree.

Here’s what happened to us:

Our friend Eric was down here visiting us from ST Thomas.  We decided it would be fun to find a cool place on the island to take him for his birthday lunch.  Beck asked around and was told by the folks at the Marina that a place called CocoNuts on the beach was a fun spot.  They told her to just get on a number one bus, (hmmmm ok the number one bus requires explanation for all of you non-islanders- see note #1 below for explanation) and all we had to do was ask the driver to tell you where to get out to go to CocoNuts.

We all jumped on a number one bus which had seventeen people on board already (see note #1 below to get a little perspective) and Beck told the driver we were going to CocoNuts and to please let us off at the right place.  He nodded and smiled at her with, what I thought at the time was a very nice smile, but in retrospect I realize it was actually an evil grin.  We drove all around the number one bus route... people kept getting out and he had stopped picking up any new ones, pretty soon we were the only ones in the van and he had driven up a small road which was quite obviously not on the bus route.  He stopped the van in a parking lot, a very deserted parking lot of some industrial complex, turned and smiled at us.  He looked a lot like a big, fat, black TV mob boss or at least a body guard of one, huge jowls and rolls of fat around his neck, and beads of sweat rolling off his brown, bald pate.  He gave us his best “trust me” smile and said with his deepest sing song island lilt, 

“CocoNuts is no where near where we are.”  He smiled and let us look around while this fact sank in before continuing,

“Who told you to go to CocoNuts?”  He asked with a frown.

“The people at he marina told me it was a very fun place to eat on the beach.”  My pretty wife said in a voice that next to his sounded very much like a little girls.

“Ya see they pass on the problems to the drivers... CocoNuts is no where near here but I can take you to a very nice place on the beach to eat.  I will give you the cut rate deal too since you are visitors here to Grenada.  The normal price for three people would be $50.00 one way from here but I will take you there and back to the marina for $60.00” (Refer again to Note #1 for the actual price we would have paid to go to CocoNuts on the #1 bus... which we are still on actually.)

“Ok that sounds great!”  Beck looks at me and smiles like we just made a great deal.  On a side note; Several times in this process I had tried to voice my opinions but was quickly shut down by both Eric and Rebecca due to the confrontational sound of my voice so I just shrugged and smiled at the Mob Boss.

Once he had made his deal he began driving to the very far end of the island to a little restaurant on the beach which was truly fantastic... it might even have been as beautiful as CocoNuts but we will never know for sure because we drove past CocoNuts both coming and going.  

 

Once we sat down in the little restaurant we were accosted by a basket weaver with 12 kids and 800 grand kids who had to support the whole bunch by selling baskets he had made out of palm fronds, and a young fella whose grandmother needed surgery for goiters so he sold necklaces made of fishing line run through a few shell beads and a bunch of spices like nutmeg, ginger, and stuff in order to pay for her hospital bills.  The necklaces smelled great and Beck asked if they kept away Vampires.  The guy said, “yes!” so we bought a bunch of them.  I really was hoping to find one that would keep away bums and shysters but he said they didn’t have any like that.  We bought a cool basket to hold all our necklaces and sat back and enjoyed the view.

Our taxi driver showed up to take us back to the marina and, no sooner had we got in the van than he began to make his bid for an island tour.  He gave us his evil grin and said,

“So I can take you on an island tour where you will see (here he listed off five or six well known island attractions including monkeys)  I will give you the cut rate deal and you can have the whole bus to yourselves.”

We had already been told that the only time to do these tours was on weekdays because everything was closed on the weekend and the traffic was so bad on weekends that you couldn’t get anywhere fast enough to see anything.  I began to object to his idea of doing it on a Saturday... but he interrupted me and said,

“Noooo Mon!  Saturday is the best day to go.  All of the venders are out selling food along the road if you get hungray... joo go on a weekday and no ones there to sell food...”

I am pretty sure Saturday was his day off as a bus driver... but I could be wrong.  I began to point out what we had heard .... but both Eric and Beck gave me the stink eye for daring to question the authority of our venerable taxi driver so I quickly shut my trap.

Soon it was agreed that he would meet us the next morning at 9:30am for an all day tour of the island for only 200 US dollars, the “cut rate” deal.

The next morning we all made our way to the tree in the parking lot where we were supposed to meet the Mob Boss.  9:30 came and went and at around 10:00am another taxi driver called him for us and told him to get his butt over here or he would take us on the tour.

When he finally showed up and we picked up Eric from his hotel the taxi boss found a pull out and as soon as the van stopped he turned around and, with our whole family now held captive, he started in on his next angle and with a frown he said,

“So I could give you the tour I mentioned yesterday...” (in which he had listed basically every possible attraction Grenada had to offer including all of the waterfalls and even monkeys) “orrrrrrrr....” now he smiled,  “I could offer you the special whole island tour... where you get to see the whole island including everything I listed yesterday... but of course this would cost more.”  He gave us his evil grin.

Once again I couldn’t keep my big mouth shut and began to point out that he had already set a price for a full day tour with quite an impressive list of attractions and that was exactly what we expected for the same price we had already agreed upon.  He frowned deeply...

Beck and Eric gave me the stink eye again so I folded my hands in my lap like a good boy, closed my mouth and started to read my book on my kindle (which I had brought because I was pretty sure this day was going to end up being a bust with a lot of sitting around.)

Pretty soon Eric and Rebecca decided that Eric would make the call for what we would do and he opted for the new full island, not so cut rate priced, tour.  I kept reading my kindle, gritted my teeth and when I looked up the taxi driver was looking at me in his rear view mirror with an evil twinkle in his mob boss eyes.  

We began to drive around the island, the traffic was crazy so we were forced to drive slowly around the hair pin curves so that was good.  We mentioned that we were all pretty hungry so, if we could please stop at one of the many road side stops he had mentioned to pick up some meat pies, that would be great.  He said he would but every shack on the side of the road was closed for the weekend so he kept driving.  We just looked at each other and shrugged.

Our first stop was a beautiful waterfall called “Concord Falls.”  We paid our buck each to hike down to the waterfall and we had a blast jumping into the pool.  The water was cold and clear and felt great on such a hot day.  

At the top again, as we got ready to leave, we were once again beckoned into little booths to see all of the must have items, made right there in the little booths by the guys... it seemed strange to me though that all of these little hand carved necklaces were identical no matter which booth you went into...  We did buy a little bottle of fresh vanilla and some cocoa balls which looked a lot like a bag of little brown testicles.

Back in the van, we had now seen one of the many waterfalls and... well nothing else really and it was well past lunch time.  We told him we needed to stop for some food and we drove, and drove, and drove.  And then.... with a bump and hiss the back tire went flat.... Eric and I pushed on the side of the van to get it high enough for the jack to go under and the mob boss got out the spare... which was flat.  He hitched a ride into town for a tire while we all sat by the road.  Beck took some pictures of the local dogs and was told that if she wanted to she could go down to the bathing hole to take pictures of the local men who were taking baths.  She declined.  When our driver arrived with the tire it was at least as bald as he was.  We shrugged and got back in the van.   

Around 2:30 we stopped for lunch at a quaint little spot over looking the sea.  We had a great local meal... well great for the adults, but it was good for the kids to eat something different than peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.  We had stewed chicken or fish, salad, plantains, avocado, calaloo (spinach mush), and rice. 

When we all got back in the van we were a little sleepy but our next stop was just up the hill.  We saw “Leapers Hill”  where the last Carib indians jumped and committed suicide rather than submit to the French.  After hiking down the hill to the cliff Eric said,

“They jumped because they didn’t want to hike back up the hill!”

When we made it back to the van it was past 3:00 and we realized that we wouldn’t be seeing all of the waterfalls, much less any of the other sights or monkeys... Eric told the mob boss that we would at least like to see the chocolate factory.  He smiledand began to drive... he looked a little confused and pretty soon he was pulling over every few miles to ask someone walking along where the chocolate factory was.  They would point and he would drive.  I said to Rebecca,

“They should call this ‘Captain Ron’s Island Tours’  and have the selling line, ‘If we don’t know where it is, we can just pull over somewheres and ask directions!’ ”


When we finally made it to the chocolate factory.... yep it was closed for the weekend....

Well, in the end we just asked him to please take us home and we would cut our losses.  

The little brown testicles make a hell of a cup of cocoa though!

  

NOTE ON THE #1 Bus:  The number 1 bus  is any tiny small mini van which was originally designed to carry a family of seven but has been retrofitted with bench seating to carry 15 passengers... the cost to ride this bus is $1.00 US or $2.50EC dollars.  The island of Grenada has about a thousand of these little busses running around.

Diving September 30th Grenada

Under Water Fun!

We are hooked!