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.
by Judy Handley | Mar 4, 2010 | India, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 129, Year 5: Birthdays
Date: Thursday, March 4, 2010
Weather: Hot and Hazy
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
If my mother were still living she would be 102 today. I was too stubborn to let myself be born on her birthday, so my day is tomorrow. But today is my brother-in-law Joe’s birthday, so “Happy Birthday, Joe.” March 4-5-6 are birthdates of other friends as well. Happy birthday to Susan on Sea Bunny and Alan Kanegsberg back in Concord, NH.
I spent my day doing laundry and baking once I found out that no one would be coming to work on the freezer today. We don’t know why, but no one was available even though the team that left late yesterday evening said they’d be back this morning. When we called this morning, we were told that someone will come tomorrow and will definitely get the freezer running. We shall see. Mark found a place that works on alternators so he took our big alternator there this afternoon. We are not sure how long that repair will take, so we just have to take one day at a time. We are still planning to check-out on Tuesday and leave on the high tide on Wednesday. Lynn will be returning from the US early Saturday morning and once she is rested, the final provisioning will begin.
Now it is time to start the boat cleaning process. Everything on the deck is just filthy from a month of Cochin pollution, so sunshades and cockpit seat covers were sent home with Nazar today to be washed. We will start soaking lines tomorrow. You cannot tell that they were once white. Most everything is a lovely shade of dark gray now. I will also work on cleaning the waterline tomorrow. So tomorrow is a cleaning day for me. Mark will be working with whoever is here to work on the freezer. And if there is time at the end of the day, we are planning to make an artichoke (out of a can) pizza for my birthday dinner. I love artichokes and think I have had them on my birthday for the past 36 years. Don’t want to break that tradition.
by Judy Handley | Mar 3, 2010 | India, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 128, Year 5: Two Compressors, but No Freezer
Date: Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Weather: Hot and Hazy
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
Three frustrating weeks and a thousand dollars later we find out that we may not have needed a new compressor after all. So now we have two compressors but no freezer. A different team was sent today. They thought they were coming to fix a refrigerator, not to install the new compressor. They had no knowledge of the previous problems and it took Mark and hour to try and explain why we had been told we needed a new compressor. And then it took ALL day to do the installation because the new compressor had different connectors from the old one so the day was spent making new connectors. When it was finally connected, the compressor worked great but this team is saying that the problem is a leak in the expansion valve connected to the cold plate or the cold plate itself. And that in order to diagnose this, the cold plate has to come out and go to a shop. We honestly don’t know what to do. If we take out the cold plate, we have no idea if anyone here can really get it reconnected corrected. So tonight we are sorting through the options. We can remove the cold plate ourselves so we know it is done correctly, but then if there is a problem they can say it was because we removed it improperly. We can do nothing and just not have a freezer for the next eight to ten months, but then we have the same problem when we reach South Africa. We could go to the Chagos and then return to Thailand or Malaysia in June to get things fixed, but then what? We would either have to stay there for another year or head south to Cocos Keeling and across to Mauritius and South Africa late in the season. That is feasible, but it means we would miss seeing Madagascar. All I can say is that this is just no fun. So that’s great news from Windbird for today. I hope I can be a little more upbeat by tomorrow.
I left the boat today before the refrigeration team came just so I would not be in the way. My birthday is on Friday, so I decided to go over to Fort Cochin and buy myself a birthday present. Our settee covers are micro-fiber and have been wonderful, but where we sit on the port settee cushion constantly, it is wearing. So I went off in search of some sort of cover. In doing so, I learned all about pashmina and Kashmir wool. The pashmina comes from the beard of the goat and the Kashmir comes from the stomach. When the pashmina is truly authentic and in natural colors, you can smell that it is real. Some scarves are hand embroidered in the finest embroidery that you can imagine. They are out of sight expensive. One scarf costs $200 US and would be $600 in the United States. It takes ten goats and one month of labor to produce such a scarf, so I am sure they are worth it. I just can’t afford them. But they were thrown over my shoulders and I was walked to mirrors to try to persuade me that I just had to own one. I resisted. And there are so many beautiful quilted wall hangings here. I was sure I could find one that would make a great cover for the settee. But unfortunately, all of them have sequins sewn on and they just wouldn’t be comfortable. But I did find an embroidered silk throw rug that had just the right colors, so I bought that. I also found a State-supported cotton shop where pants and shirts are made as you watch. Everything there costs 150 Rs which is about $3.50 US. I just had to buy a few shirts and colorful baggy pants for women that are so popular here among tourists. I love them for their comfort and their kicky colors. Unfortunately my good day ended when I returned to Windbird and found that things weren’t going so well. I just had to sit in the cockpit and read for the remainder of the afternoon while the work continued below. The refrig team didn’t leave until after 6 pm and if they return tomorrow morning, I think I’ll leave again!
by Judy Handley | Mar 2, 2010 | India, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 127, Year 5: Strike in Kerala
Date: Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Weather: Hot and Hazy; 92 degrees F inside at 6 pm
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
We are not buying fuel here in Cochin because the price is way too high for this part of the world. The prices here are more like Australian fuel prices. And evidently the entire state of Kerala has been in an uproar about this. So today they declared a 24-hour transportation strike. Mark, Ed, and I took the dinghy to shore about 1:30 this afternoon. We walked along the waterfront and saw no ferry activity, but that didn’t clue us in. We then rounded the corner and found no auto rickshaws, no veggie and fruit stands open, and even the little shops that sell snacks and cold drinks were all wrapped in tarp. We looked up Bannerji Street and there was NO traffic. We felt like the end of the world had come and we didn’t know about it. When we reached the street there was a vendor selling lottery tickets and we asked what was happening. He said, “Strike.” And then an English speaking couple wandered by and explained that the transportation workers were on a 24-hour strike. All transport workers including bus, taxis, and auto rickshaws. And very few stores in town were open, probably because no one could get to work. The people of this country depend heavily on public transportation, so Ernakulam was like a ghost town today. We walked up to Market Road just to see if the main fruit and veggie market was open. Some stalls were, but most weren’t. But the ones that were open allowed us to buy what we came for. Supposedly, everything will be back to normal tomorrow. Since nothing was open, we couldn’t buy a newspaper, but what I read on the internet suggested that the strike will end tonight but that the bus system will go on indefinite strike as of March 11 unless they are allowed to increase fares. Evidently even the educational institutions were closed today and the annual examinations in the schools scheduled for today and the University examinations were postponed. Our latest planned departure date is March 10, so on this front our timing is good.
Evidently not all transportation was closed today as our compressor was delivered by Blue Dart, a subsidiary of DHL here. We cooled down a bit overnight and decided that we had no choice other than to pay the unfair duty costs. We still plan to investigate this with the Customs officials here, but we really expect to get nowhere. Tomorrow morning the refrigeration team will come to install the new compressor and hopefully it will be up and running by tomorrow night. The toilet repair kit left New Delhi yesterday morning, but we heard nothing about it today. Maybe because of the strike. Hopefully tomorrow that will arrive and we can be finished with worrying about whether or not things are going to arrive. We received another package from our daughter today, so the West Marine toilet repair kit is the last thing we are waiting for.
But now we are having a diode disaster. Tonight when we turned on the engine to charge our batteries, Mark saw that the voltage output was not as high as it should be. When he looked in the engine room, he could see one of the diodes on our main alternator sparking. That is the same alternator we had rebuilt in Thailand, but something is not right. I have no idea if we can get this repaired here, and I know we can replace the main alternator with our spare, but I also know that means that we will have to run the engine much longer to charge. I’m not sure we can carry enough fuel from the Maldives to Chagos to make this work, and if we continue on, we will still have four to five months after the Chagos before we reach South Africa where repairs could be done. Soooooooo . . . we will have to have this checked out and then make decisions on what to do or where to go from here. This has definitely not been our year. We just go from one big problem to another. I’m hoping that St. Patrick’s Day might turn all of that around!
by Judy Handley | Mar 1, 2010 | India, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 126, Year 5: Back to Reality
Date: Monday, March 1, 2010
Weather: Hot and Hazy
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
We are back on Windbird after a wonderful little trip north to the Chinakkathoor Pooram. We got home mid-afternoon and had Ed over for dinner tonight. It is always good to get home, even if only after one night away. But unfortunately we got home to more unsettling news about the shipment of our compressor. As soon as we got home we got on line and found no update. That was not good. Then we got a call late in the day from the shipper saying that the compressor is now in Cochin and he will bring it to us tomorrow morning. BUT we will have to pay about $130 US in Custom’s Fees. We should not owe that much at all, but now the problem is whether to fight it or just pay the price and get our compressor. That will be our decision tomorrow morning, so we’ll have to report on what happens in tomorrow night’s log. Let’s just say that this whole Indian shipping process has been one of the most frustrating things we have ever had to deal with in our time sailing around the world.
