by Judy Handley | Mar 10, 2010 | India, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 135, Year 5: Unplugged and Ready to Go
Date: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Weather: Baking Weather-95 degrees F inside
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
Check-out of India went so much smoother and faster than check-in. Nazar picked us up in this boat at about 10 am and by noon we were officially check-out. We had to do a bit of waiting, but really not bad. We had lunch at the government complex and then Nazar took us over to Mattancherry to meet his family. His father who is 85 met us at the dock and then we walked to Nazar’s home. His wife is Kaneth and she is absolutely stunningly beautiful. They live on a narrow dirt lane with homes side by side. A home is a very small living room, a tiny kitchen overstuffed with cooking pots of all kinds, a bedroom just big enough for a bed, and then an outside area with a deep well for water for washing clothes. Nazar has two children but they were at school and we did not get to meet them. We learned today that Nazar is 40 years old and he is very proud of the fact that he owns his boat and his motor. He rents the home for about $65 US dollars a month. He charged us almost nothing for all of his services, so I really don’t know how he makes a living, but he and his wife seem to be very happy. He has been reliable and helpful and we would recommend him to anyone sailing this way. Visiting his home was a great way to end our visit here.
Once we returned to Windbird, we did our last check of email and then headed to shore with the 3G modem we have been renting while here. Unplugging that was really hard. But we will still be in touch through our HAM email system. That means we can only check our Winlink email account, so if you want to reach us, send emails directly to Winlink. We will be able to check the Gmail account when we reach the Maldives, but once we leave there, it will be Winlink exclusively.
We did our last bits of shopping at the market in Ernakulam. The beautiful piles of veggies and fruits, the huge sacks of red onions and potatoes, the stalks of bananas, the barrels of spices, and the sounds of the market will forever be in our memories. I LOVE the market area here and am going to miss it very much. I’m even going to miss the hustle and bustle of the honking horns, the crazy traffic of rickshaws and busses, the swishing of beautiful saris, and the smiles of the Indian people. But I think the one thing I will miss the most is the head woggle. When you ask a question here, people look at you and answer with a head woggle. The upper body stays still and the head woggles jauntily from side to side with a special rhythm. You are never sure if someone is saying yes, no, or maybe so. It is quite unique.
So tomorrow morning we head south to the Maldives. The Maldives are a series of 26 atolls that on a map look like they drip southward from the southern tip of India. We are traveling less than 300 miles from here to the northern most atoll where we will stop in Uligan (formerly Uligamu) for a few days. This is a little developed part of the Maldives where the water is clear and the underwater sights are beautiful. The Maldives are a partly traditional island nation with a very strong Islamic culture and identity. Some Muslims there claim that only Saudi Arabia and the Maldives are the world’s truly Islamic nations. One thing is for sure. The miles from here to there will transport us into a totally different world than we are in here in southern India.
by Judy Handley | Mar 9, 2010 | India, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 134, Year 5: When is Enough, Enough?
Date: Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Weather: HOT with No Breeze
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
Our roller coaster ride with the freezer compressor continued today. This morning we got a call from Anthony, the manager of General Engineering, telling us that the compressor had been checked out and that it was fine. We didn’t get too excited as we have been told this before. But Anthony said they would be coming at 2:30 in the afternoon to reinstall. We worked like crazy to go get water from the Bolgatty, do the laundry, and get ready to go shopping so we could be back by 2:30. Just as we were ready to go ashore, Anthony called back and said the team would be here in one hour. So Mark took me to shore to go shopping alone and he stayed on the boat. I don’t mind shopping alone, but I can carry only so many kilos in my backpack and in carry bags. This meant I would be making multiple trips. At this point we were both asking ourselves, “Just when is enough, enough?” We have spent half of our time in India dealing with this freezer compressor situation. But I headed out alone to do the provisioning, and Mark once again waited on the boat. I bought tomatoes, 4 more kilos of onions, 4 more kilos of potatoes, 60 eggs, another kilo of garlic, a kilo of ginger, some flower pots for growing more basil and arugula, and headed back to Windbird. I was carrying about 16 pounds on my back as well as the carry bags and that was about as much as I could handle in this heat. When I got back to the waterfront, I called Mark on the VHF portable radio to have him come get me at the dock. I was a bit surprised when Mark showed up with Nazar in Nazar’s boat. They took me back to Windbird where Nazar the refrigeration guy, Ajayan the mechanical engineer, Anthony the manager of the company were sitting in the cockpit waiting for the freezer system to be vacuumed. I decided I wasn’t getting on that boat, so I dumped all the food, gave Mark instructions to wrap the tomatoes in newspaper, and took off again with Nazar to continue shopping. When we got to shore, Nazar walked with me to the market area by the jetty. He told me that he would be taking us to check-out of India in the morning and then said we would be going to his home to meet his wife and two children, a girl aged nine and a boy aged six. This was a bit of a surprise, especially since time is short and there is still so much to do. But we would like to meet his family and we’ll just have to squeeze in the time. On this trip to shore, I had lunch at our favorite restaurant. Just as I was finishing, Ed and Lynne arrived, so I stayed for a bit and talked with them. I have hardly seen Lynne since she returned from the US, so the lunch break gave us a bit of time to catch up. I filled my pack with rice and whole grain flour, cabbage, cauliflower, more tomatoes, backpacks for Nazar’s children, and hurried back to Windbird. It was about 4 pm and I thought the refrigeration team would be long gone. But no. Mark explained that despite their best efforts, the compressor was still not able to keep the necessary pressure to cool. So when we arrived at Windbird, I got onboard but saw that Mark and Anthony were deep in discussion in the cockpit. So I busied myself taking down the laundry. After folding each piece I threw them down the front hatch into the v-berth. Mark and Anthony were still in an intense conversation, so I just dropped down through the front hatch and landed on the v-berth when I heard, “Madame!” Nazar and Ajayan were in the main salon and very surprised to see me drop down the hatch. I thought they were in the cockpit with Mark and Anthony and was a bit embarrassed by my not so graceful landing. But it gave them a chuckle. They explained to me that despite their best efforts, the compressor was just not going to work. So the bottom line is that we are out about $900 for the compressor, shipping, and Custom’s duties, and Anthony is out for seven days of work. It is our understanding that we are not paying for the work since most of the time was spent undoing problems they created. Anthony still believes the compressor is fine, but because it arrived with connectors not compatible with our system, and since connectors are not available here, Anthony believes the “fashioned” connectors might be the problem. Some other year when we are back where connectors are available, we’ll give the compressor another go. But for now we are without a freezer. We just simply have to learn to live with that fact.
Nazar was coming to get the refrigeration team but was not yet here, so we left them on the boat and headed to shore to do one more market run before the end of the day. Mark wanted a new set of fan belts and we went on a wild goose chase that got us nowhere. It was now after 5:00 pm, so we went to the market to get limes, oranges, more tomatoes, more cabbage, another pumpkin, eggplant, and okra. Then we walked to the supermarket near the waterfront and got even more whole wheat flour, more toilet paper, a couple of packages of frozen chicken breast that we will have to eat quickly, some freeze-dried peas that make a wonderful addition to almost any dish. By this time, I was quite ready to get back to Windbird. Again, we were asking ourselves, “Just when is enough, enough?” One little sailboat can only hold so much stuff. We had hoped to have sundowners with Ed and Lynne, but it was too late when we got back. Hopefully things will be more relaxed when we reach the Maldives and we’ll get to be sociable once again. In the meantime, we wrapped tomatoes in newspaper, wrapped limes in aluminum foil, covered eggs with Crisco, and decided to use our freezer space to store pumpkins, cabbages, egg plants, and ginger. After I finish writing this log, I still have to find space in the overloaded refrigerator for the remaining veggies.
Tomorrow is check-out, meet Nazar’s family, do our last bits of shopping, take back our rented modem (so no more internet after tomorrow morning), and get ready for our trip south. It should take us only two to three days to reach our first destination. We’ll still be communicating from there, but only by HAM radio, so no more Skype calls to our kids. We have heard that once we reach the southern most atoll in the Maldives that we might be able to connect to the internet by phone modem. That will be a great present if it proves to be true. Because after that we have three months with absolutely no way to communicate other than the HAM radio email. I am going to miss those Skype connections with the kids terribly, but we have been out here for 134 cruising days, and I really don’t feel like we have gotten started. So it is time to unplug and move on.
by Judy Handley | Mar 8, 2010 | India, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 133, Year 5: Little Things That Make You Smile
Date: Monday, March 8, 2010
Weather: Cooler, but Still Hot
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
Ziggy Milo, our son’s baby boy, started our day with a smile. We finally connected via Skype video. Ziggy and Justin were just getting out of the bath when we called, so Ziggy was in the altogether. Thank goodness Justin put clothes on! Ziggy has been sick with some sort of virus that has been circulating, so he was not his usual smiley self, but Justin and Jo were able to cajole a few smiles out of him. We might get to have a video Skype call from the southern Maldives, but after that it could be six months or more before we have internet that can handle video. There is internet in Madagascar, but it evidently is not working most of the time. So Justin and Jo sent us a video through Skype of Ziggy playing, eating, crawling, and giggling that we can watch over and over during the next few months. We had no idea that you can send video via Skype, but you can. How wonderful! Both the Skype call and the video made us smile.
Nazar arrived just after the call with Justin and Jo, so we loaded our outboard engine on Nazar’s boat, and Mark and Ed headed out with him. They went to a Yamaha dealer on Fort Cochin Island. Mark was very impressed with the professionalism in the Yamaha shop, and thankfully, the motor checked out fine. It seems the vibration problem is coming from water in the fuel. So we’ll filter the fuel and hope all is well. We were just glad to hear that there is nothing major wrong with the engine. Hope the guy is right about this one. Nazar then took Mark to General Engineering. This is the company that has been doing the refrigeration on the boat. Mark went to vent and to let them know that we out about $900 US and that we don’t intend to pay them for the work done unless they can get something working. Since they have already told us that the new compressor doesn’t work, we don’t really expect anything to start working. But evidently Mark made an impact as they came to pick up the new, non-working compressor this afternoon to check it out in their shop. We have almost zero hope that something can be done, but at least they are checking into the issues.
Mark and I had planned to go to the Post Office this afternoon to mail off tax forms, and then go food shopping. After that we were going to pick up the alternator. So we left the compressor on Constance and called Nazar to tell him to pick it up there. We took a rickshaw to the Post Office and then another one back to the market off Jew Street. We did a hunt and kill shopping trip for garlic, carrots, and potatoes, and then hailed a rickshaw to take us to pick up our alternator. Since the alternator shop is in a different town, we were very surprised that the first driver we stopped seemed to know exactly where we wanted to go. He said something about it being the end of the school day and then we took off. Shortly we understood the importance of knowing about the end of the school day. He stopped and picked up seven little bright-eyed girls, ages five to nine, and off we went. This is in a rickshaw that is meant to seat two, or at most three adults. We did the ‘quick tour’ of the suburbs outside of Ernakulam delivering the little girls to their homes. This was an unexpected side trip, but it was very interesting. We drove down one street that was lined with homeless people staking out their territory with bags of who knows what. We turned the corner and there were lean-to homes made of sticks and old pieces of tarp. We have not seen this kind of poverty here before. But then we entered the ‘burbs’ with narrow little lanes lined with walls and gates. Behind every gate there was a neat little home right next to another one. We dropped off one little girl at a time and with each departure, we would wave and they would smile and wave back. And we would smile. When we reached the alternator shop, he dropped Mark off and told me to stay in the rickshaw. He said we’d return in 20 minutes. So I stayed in the rickshaw to deliver the last four girls. We then went back to pick up Mark and drove back to the Bolgatty jetty. Although we had not bargained for all the side trips, it was a highlight of our day.
Tomorrow is a shopping day. We have to buy all of the perishables that you put off until just before departure-eggs, limes, oranges, more potatoes and carrots, and green peppers. We will probably wait until Wednesday afternoon to buy bananas. We are coming down to the wire. I have to share one funny thing that happened this morning. I was on the back deck doing laundry. One of the tour boats that constantly ply through the anchorage cut right in front of us and someone yelled, “Live Free or Die.” Concord, New Hampshire, is the home port printed on our stern and evidently someone from the US was on that tour boat. Small world.
by Judy Handley | Mar 7, 2010 | India, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 132, Year 5: The Day After
Date: Sunday, March 7, 2010
Weather: Weather Changing, North Winds and Cooler
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
I’m still not rebounding from the compressor disaster. I’m spending way too much time being ‘musu.’ Mark is doing a little better, but still very upset. We have still not been able to reach Anil. He is the head of General Engineering and he is the one who sends people to our boat to “fix” things. No matter what your religion, Sunday is a day of rest here, so we will just have to catch up with Anil tomorrow. There’s probably nothing that can be done, but Mark really wants a chance to vent. But then Mark is headed to the local Yamaha dealer tomorrow with our dinghy motor, so he won’t be here. Unfortunately, our one year-old dinghy motor has been idling roughly, so just one more thing to add to the list.
Today was cleaning day on Windbird. Mark dove down and cleaned the prop. The water is so murky that he really couldn’t see the prop, but he could feel it and actually it wasn’t too bad. The whole bottom is covered with a jelly-like layer of algae and some small barnacles, but we will wait and clean this when we reach Uligan in the Maldives. I hopped in the dinghy and washed the top sides with fresh water and cleaned the algae from the waterline. By mid-afternoon a film of yucky stuff came in with the tide and made a mess of my cleaning job. I’ll have to clean the bottom half of the top sides once again before we leave. And I continued soaking, washing, and rinsing every rope on this boat. The next big job is buying and storing fresh produce. We need kilos of potatoes, more kilos of onions, limes, carrots, green peppers, oranges, and bananas. We still have eggs left from Thailand, but we will buy fresh eggs here to take over when the Thai eggs have run their course. So there is plenty to fill our time before we leave here on Thursday. I thought we were leaving on Wednesday, but Mark and Ed talked this morning while getting water from the Bolgatty and decided that the tide is more favorable on Thursday. So March 11 is departure date.
by Judy Handley | Mar 6, 2010 | India, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 131, Year 5: Just Unbelievable
Date: Saturday, March 6, 2010
Weather: Hot and Hazey
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
4 pm–I am being held prisoner in my own boat. Right now I am standing in the forward head, jammed in with about 90 rolls of toilet paper, 20 kilos of onions, and crates filled with rice, crackers, etc., etc. The two refrigeration repair men, Nazar and Rafik, have been here all day again today and every time they think they have found the problem, they find another one. It is late afternoon and we had all waited expectantly for an hour while they vacuumed out the system. They then filled the system with refrigerant gas and we waited to see the freezer starting to chill. Not. Now they think a valve on the cold plate is the problem. That will cost another $65 for the valve and who knows how much we are paying for labor. I had to escape to the bathroom because they were going to start releasing refrigerant gas from the system and I was sitting in the line of fire. This is the second time today and probably the fifth time this week the system has been vacuumed while we wait and wait, only to find that the leak just fixed is not the only culprit. And all of these leaks are in fittings they have applied. I know these guys are sick of working on this system and Mark is really tired of standing, watching, and waiting. And just now I am told that they have to go to shore to buy a part. At best it will 6:30 pm before the part can be installed, the system vacuumed AGAIN, and then filled with refrigerant gas in order to see if it is working.
7 pm-Now I am sequestered in the aft cabin. The work continues, but now that everything has been checked we are told that the new compressor is not working. Let’s see, we paid $600 for the compressor, $150 in shipping fees, in excess of $125 in Customs fees, and have wasted untold days trying to get the compressor from Customs in Chennai and seven full days of having people working on the boat since we arrived here. And we have no idea how much that is going to cost. But, it is not working and that is that. It was working yesterday, so we can only believe that they have done something to cause the problem. But as a last resort, we had them try the old compressor, but they say it is not holding pressure either. It is just too much. I have never seen Mark so upset and there is absolutely nothing we can do about this. I know a lot people sail without a freezer and many without a refrigerator, but this is just not our style. It is going to be a very, very, very, very long fifteen months until we get home. We don’t think there is anything we can do about this fiasco, so we will just have to move beyond it somehow.
The good thing about today is that Lynne returned safely from her trip to visit with her mother in Florida. Ed, Lynne, and I made a quick trip to the supermarket this afternoon to do a little provisioning, but we didn’t get much of a chance to talk. We thought we would do that this evening over dinner, but that was not meant to be. I don’t think I’m ever going to get that artichoke pizza.
We did put our woes behind us long enough to talk to Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah on Skype. The video worked great and we got to see Jonah crawling and pulling up. And we got one great big smile. Sam wanted to read a book with us tonight, so we read Animalia by Graeme Base. We have a copy of the book and Sam has one as well, so we could read together. He then decided that he had to get the whole family to hide in the closet and we got a couple of good Skype photos of the Goldstone clan in the closet. We missed talking with Justin, Jo, and Ziggy again this morning, but we did talk with Justin and will talk to them on our Monday morning, their Sunday evening. We are really going to miss being able to see our grand babies via Skype. That, too, is going to make this a very long cruising season.
by Judy Handley | Mar 5, 2010 | India, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 130, Year 5: 64 Will Have To Be Better
Date: Friday, March 5, 2010
Weather: Not As Hot, but Still Hazy
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
Today was my 63rd birthday and somehow everything seemed to go the wrong way. So I am thinking a year ahead and am hoping that 64 will be better than 63. Mark turned 64 during our first year of cruising and I am still needing and feeding him. Hopefully a year from now he will still be doing the same for me. So here’s a salute to the Beetles and their song, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?”
I got up early to check e-mail and to call Justin, Jo, and Ziggy during their early evening. I got on the computer, turned on the modem, but no internet. I tried all the tricks, but still nothing. So then Mark tried. Still nothing. So we assumed our month was up and we were out of time. That meant I would have to go to town after 10 am to have the modem checked. We then turned the engine on to charge, and it wasn’t charging. Thank goodness it was just a loose fan belt, but it was just another one of those things that seem to be going wrong these days. Mark hesitated to leave the boat until the refrigeration team arrived, so at 10:30, instead of the promised 9:30, they did arrive. Well, at least one man arrived. It was Nazar, the original man sent about a month ago. Once Mark brought him up to date on what happened the day before yesterday, Mark took Ed and I to shore and then returned to Windbird. Ed and I first went to our favorite electronics shop that keeps us topped up on our cell phones and rented us the modem. The modem was fine, so I have no idea why it wouldn’t work this morning. It was just a nice little trick to play on me for my birthday. Maybe we have Gremlins aboard! While Ed and I were at the market, we got a call from Mark. He needed to know where something was and he reported that after an hour, nothing had happened with the refrigeration. Nazar was just thinking. Not a good sign. Ed and I finished our shopping jobs, had lunch, and headed back to the jetty. Just when we arrived, we saw Mark getting into our dinghy with two other men. We waved to try and get their attention and finally did. Mark was taking Nazar and another man named Rafik to shore with our cold plate. Something had finally happened. Nazar and Rafik got out of the dinghy on the rickiest remains of a pier that I have ever ventured out on. But Nazar and Rafik got off the dinghy safely and Ed and I got in. The cold plate needed to go back to the shop to have a crack in a connector brazed. This crack might have been our problem all along, but it was difficult to find. We waited all afternoon on the boat, but no one returned. We called at 3:30 pm and were told they would be coming. We called again at 5 pm and were once again told they would be coming. They arrived at 6 pm and just left at 7 pm. As the sun was setting we are waiting while the system is being vacuumed. After that we watched the gauges to see if there is still a leak. And unfortunately, there is. So this goes on tomorrow.
My artichoke pizza dinner had to be put on hold until tomorrow, but I’m determined to have artichokes on my birthday. So Mark has promised to fix an artichoke omelet for dinner. I didn’t get a working freezer for my birthday, but one thing I did get was beautiful silver starfish earrings from Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah, and a great photo of Ziggy from Justin and Jo. I’m still hoping to talk to Heather later this evening, her morning, but will have to wait until late tomorrow morning to try and catch Justin, Jo, and Ziggy again. I did get a wonderful email from my sister-in-law Conda this morning. She has received cards from so many people, memorial contributions to the church, flowers, emails, and an unbelievable number of phone calls. She has just been overwhelmed. Both my brother and Conda touched the lives of many and those many have certainly sent their love and affection. Conda is keeping busy and is doing well, and her email was a very special birthday present.
