by Judy Handley | Dec 20, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
091220 Year 5, Captain’s Ramblings 2-Keeping Windbird Fit
Major Re-fitting Since Leaving Boston
As we have traveled equipment as broken down and needed replacement or repair. At the same time we have discovered new ways to make sailing safer and more comfortable. The result is that we have made many additions and changes to Windbird.
The newly rebuilt engine never performed up to par. It ran hot and leaked every fluid that passed through it. Then the transmission leaked so badly that the bearings and seals were shot. We hadn’t even left the States yet! The upshot was that we replaced the old Perkins 4-108 with a new Yanmar 4JH4 along with a new V-drive transmission while in the Chesapeake Bay.
On the way to the Galapagos we hit a fishing net that broke the bell housing and the buffer (or clutch) plate. We ordered a new one and had it shipped into the Galapagos and a small, young mechanic crawled in on top of the engine to install it. Our main computer also stopped working on our to the Galapagos, so we had our daughter bring us a new one. Before she left for home, the old one miraculously started working again. So we now have a backup to our main navigation and email computer.
By the time we got to French Polynesia we had lost our gas grill overboard due to a loose connection and our water maker stopped working. My sister and her husband met us in Tahiti with both items. Now you can see why we say to visitors that: “To you, this is a vacation. To us, it is a delivery.”
Leaving Tonga our autopilot burned out and we ordered a new one from New Zealand. We later bought a new motor for the old one so that we now have two complete autopilots on board. Backups are good!
While in New Zealand the Windlass stopped working. We found a shop in Opua that discovered the motor shaft to be broken. They ordered and installed a new one with more power than the original.
On the way from New Zealand to Fiji we had some rough weather and a jib sheet got away from us. Before we got it under control we had lost two winch handles overboard, busted a solar panel, broken some of the plastic windows on our cockpit enclosure, and bent a stanchion. The stanchion was straightened in Fiji. We found winch handles in Australia when we got there at the end of the cruising season. And we bought a replacement solar panel from a cruiser at a swap meet in Australia. We also sold our folding bikes there as we had never used them.
In Darwin we bought a used outboard as a backup to ours which was becoming unreliable.
In Singapore we replaced our wet cell batteries, which were about 5 years old, with new group 31 Trojan AGMs. No more taking the bed apart to get to the batteries to check the water level!
In Malaysia we had a small leak from the transmission. We had it removed and new seals installed. We also had a welder reinforce the stanchion that we had straightened in Fiji. We also commissioned a new main-sail cover. Our cover was a Doyle “Stack-Pack” and the new one is essentially a replacement except that the main sail is not sewn into the sail.
Thailand gave us an opportunity to make some major “adjustments” to Windbird. Labor was cheap (relatively speaking) and our gel coat was so bad that there were places where it was chipping away. We had been talking of having her painted since New Zealand but this was the first time that the price seemed right. So the hull, cabin top, cockpit, mast, boom, pedestal, and the metal trim on the hatches all were Awl-Gripped. While that was going on, we cleaned all the hardware we had removed to make way for the painting. Some was so bad we didn’t want to put it back on a “new” boat, so we bought new.
Stainless welding was also relatively cheap and very good quality in Thailand so we had an arch built for the back of the boat and extended the stainless rails around the cockpit to the gate on each side. This gave us a better place to mount our solar panels and wind generator and davits so we could raise our dingy when not in use. (e still put the dingy on the fore-deck when sailing.) The arch and rails make for a much safer boat when getting out of the cockpit and moving around on the aft deck. This meant that we had to remove our Monitor windvane, but we had used it very little and still carry it with us, just in case.
Finally, we had new cockpit canvas made for Windbird. The old enclosure was showing its age and we still had some of the plastic windows taped where they were broken on the way to Fiji. We made a few changes in the bimini frame so that the new canvas would provide more sun protection for the cockpit.
This is a brief summary of all of the major work we have done to keep Windbird going since leaving the United States. Of course, I have not included the almost daily fixing of one thing or another. Where there is a boat, there is always room for improvement. Remember the definition of cruising: working on your boat in exotic locations. We are hoping that the upgrades done to date will get us back home to the US. That is wishful thinking of course, but cruisers are dreamers and we are hoping this dream comes true.
by Judy Handley | Dec 20, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 55, Year 5: Last of the Big Spenders
Date: Sunday, December 20, 2009
Weather: Partly Sunny Day; ENE Winds 15-20; Rain in the Evening
Location: Ao Chalong, Phuket, Thailand
For two days we have been sitting here on Windbird watching the water in the bay ruffle in the wind. Windbird bounces up and down, not bad enough to cause us any problems, but being out on the water in the dinghy is another matter. That’s what has kept us sitting still for two days. But rough harbor or not, we are heading in early in the morning to make our Christmas Skype call to Justin, Jo, and Ziggy, and then to get our rental car for the day to do a ton a shopping. We’ll have to take extra precautions to wrap things in plastic as they will surely get wet on the ride back out. I’ll take some black plastic garbage bags and just put each bag of groceries in one of those. And some things we won’t buy tomorrow. We’ll just locate the store with the best price and then rent a car on another day right after Christmas when the anchorage is not so lumpy and bumpy. This means all shopping will not be done before Christmas, but that was just a dream.
Mark spent his morning doing sewing projects. The new stack pack cover for our mainsail that Ben in Langkawi did for us is great, but he got the zippers backwards on the front cover. So this morning, I ripped them out and Mark sewed them back in the right way. Then we worked on a new mattress cover for our bed. It is an odd shape and we made a fitted mattress cover for it in New Zealand that has needed to be replaced for some time now. We had bought this fantastic wide elastic material in NZ that allowed the cover to fit snugly. The elastic was still fine, so we cut it off the old one and sewed it on a new pad that we cut to fit the odd shape. And then I was actually able to save enough of the old pad to make a pad for our starboard settee. It is so hot and we are always perspiring and it is starting to show on the microfiber. Tomorrow I will buy material to cover the pad and we will sit on that and then use it as a mattress pad when we use the starboard settee as our main bed on passages. I’ve been using beach towels, but this will be much better. And while all of this was going on, I also did a laundry. That job is never ending.
Reality set in today. I have shopped in Langkawi and shopped in Phuket, and I thought I was getting close to having most of what we need for the next few months. But that spreadsheet we have developed awakened both of us. For instance, I splurged and bought six small tubes of Ritz crackers. I thought that was a lot. But it takes one tube for each can of salmon to make salmon cakes and I have 20 cans of salmon. Duh! I need 14 more little tubes just to make salmon cakes. And if I find more salmon, I will buy it and will need even more Ritz crackers. Or let’s take pasta sauce. We eat spaghetti about once a week and we have 40 weeks in the next ten months. I bought enough tomato products to make 15 small batches of spaghetti sauce, but I need enough to make 25 more batches. Yikes! And then there is olive oil. I have one 5 liter can and one 4 liter can, plus a 2 liter bottle in the galley cabinet. But when I look at the spreadsheet, the two cans I have are just enough for making granola and bread for ten months. And the 2 liter bottle in the galley cabinet will last us until we are about half-way through our stay in the Chagos. Since there’s no place there to shop, I guess I’ll have to shell out the small fortune that olive oil costs and buy one more 5 liter can. So I thought I was all set with a number of items, but not so. Even though I have felt like I was buying way too much and spending way, way, way too much, we haven’t even made a drop in the bucket. So the last of the big spenders will venture out tomorrow and buy what’s on the spreadsheet. It is really, really hard to buy so much food at one time. But as I’ve said before, we have been told that there are few places in the Indian Ocean to buy the kind of canned goods we are looking for. In fact in the past two days we have received emails from two boats we know and love that are still waiting to round Cape Horn to get to Cape Town. Both have given gentle reminders of just how much food you have to have on board when you leave Phuket So this is the place, and tomorrow is the first of a couple of days of massive shopping.
We are still having a little power struggle. Something is just not right and Mark keeps working on tracking down the problem. Tomorrow morning we will find out if Him has been able to get our big alternator rebuilt. That won’t solve the current problem of the boat not starting when we turn the key, but it will be nice to have it back if he has been successful. Doing all of these little repairs, and watching me work on getting information to Justin to update the website, inspired Mark to write his second Captain’s Ramblings of this season. This one is a summary of all of the major projects we have undertaken to keep Windbird happy since leaving the United States. He didn’t include the price tags for each of the jobs. I don’t think you want to know!
by Judy Handley | Dec 19, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 54, Year 5: Power Struggle
Date: Saturday, December 19, 2009
Weather: Partly Sunny and Windy; E Winds 15-20
Location: Ao Chalong, Phuket, Thailand
Our little power struggle has gone on for days now. This started when we were in Ko Lanta on December 10. At first we were just getting erratic readings and then we discovered, while at Phi Phi Don, that our main alternator was not working. We replaced the faulty alternator with a less powerful back-up, and we thought things were fine except that we needed a new starting battery. We bought the new starting battery a couple of days ago and thought we had the problem solved, but today when we tried to start the engine-nothing. We can usually jump start it, but that didn’t even work today. So Mark got out Nigel Calder’s book, Boatowner’s Mechanical and Electrical Manual, and this helped him trace the problem to the current issue. A side note here-No one should EVER go long-term cruising without this book. We had a short in the starter switch and that was somehow causing the new starting battery not to charge. We’re not sure we are at the end of this saga, but everything is finally charging beautifully. The next test will be whether or not the engine will start in the morning. We’ll report on that in tomorrow’s log.
I feel my first cruising article coming on. It will be about provisioning for the trek across the Indian Ocean. Mark and I worked together today to really figure out just how much food we really do need. We have been using past experience as our guide so far and even when we know we need to buy more, we have been reluctant. It just seems so crazy to buy 40 cans of green beans at one time, so we have been buying a few of this and a few of that each time we go shopping. We decided that this is silly and we needed to do a spreadsheet to help us understand what we really need. Breakfast cereal is the really crazy one. We eat homemade granola six days out of seven. Or we substitute Grapenuts when they are available. But the cost of Grapenuts here is outrageous (but you can get them at the Villa Market) so we decided to figure out just how much we are spending on making our own granola. In this part of the world you buy rolled oats (when you can find them) in 750 gram bags. That is seven cups of oats. Each of us will eat a half cup of granola each morning, so when all of the figuring was done we now know we need to buy 25 more packages of rolled oats plus more honey, oil, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, to make enough granola for the next ten months. That is when we should reach South Africa where we can buy most anything we need. We did this same calculation for all of our other staples and unfortunately the shopping list is growing and growing. But at least we now really know what we need. The days of avoiding reality are over. We know we can buy certain staples in India (rice, vinegar, spices, eggs) and then we can buy cheese, eggs, and fresh fruits and veggies once we reach Mauritius. But there is a three month gap between India and Mauritius, so we need to fill that gap. And then things like canned vegetables and rolled oats are hard to come by anywhere in the Indian Ocean, even southern India, so those things have to be bought here. We are recording everything we have onboard and will be very interested to see what is left when we reach South Africa. I know we won’t starve, but I think we will get very creative.
It is a bit rocky and rolly here with the Northeast monsoon winds blowing, but we have had no rain and the anchor seems to be securely in place. We will spend another day onboard tomorrow and then head to town early on Monday morning for our first Christmas call with Justin, Jo, and Ziggy. We actually put up our Christmas tree today. Now ‘Christmas tree’ is a bit of a stretch, but we wound artificial garland around our compression post and we will now start to decorate it. At this point it only has the enameled elephant we bought in Singapore last year. We gave that same ornament to our kids and grandkids and to Kevin and Claire. So at this point, we all have one thing in common. Tomorrow I’ll tie red bows all around the ‘tree’ and on Monday when we go shopping we will see what else we can find. I have some tiny red and green hot peppers, and I think I will string those as a garland around the garland.
by Judy Handley | Dec 18, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 53, Year 5: Alone in a Crowd
Date: Friday, December 18, 2009
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Hot; E Winds 15-20
Location: Ao Chalong, Phuket, Thailand
Our early morning was spent on the boat. I was working to get more photos named and organized so they can be put on the website and Mark was working to get our BIOT Permit for the Chagos filled out and ready to send. He was also doing some route planning for the upcoming season and somehow the whole morning was almost gone before we realized it. So before noon, we headed to town. We saw Ed and Lynne of Constance on the jetty and then ran into Robert and Tina of Shirena on the little main street in town Both were headed back to their boats to move across to the eastern side of this bay. High winds have been predicted and it will be much more protected over there. But we have decided to stay put unless it gets really untenable. We want to be back here early on Monday morning to make a Skype call to Justin and Jo. It will be our Christmas call to them as they are leaving on Wednesday for England. We might get to talk to them again once they are there, but we want to see Ziggy opening presents from us and that will happen on their Sunday night.
We also stopped and bought a CAT international calling card on Ed and Lynne’s recommendation. We paid $10 US for this card and evidently it will give us upwards of ten hours of long distance calling time to anywhere in the world. We call an 800 number on our little cell and then enter our card number and the number we are calling. And BINGO, we are connected. So watch out, you might be getting Christmas telephone calls from us. Since we plan on being down in Nai Harn Bay for Christmas and we are not sure about the internet situation there, we figured we should buy this card just in case. We are also renting a jeep on Monday and headed back to Phuket to look for a 3G phone. Many of our friends connect to the internet right from their boat as long as they have a cell signal. And in Thailand, you have a cell signal almost everywhere. But you have to have a way to connect your cell to your computer and right now, we don’t. So that will require a new phone. I’m not sure how Skype works with this system, but we’re going to give it a try.
It was time for lunch and we headed to the Twin Coconuts. We both thanked the young waitress for her help yesterday, had a great lunch, and connected to the internet. I’m still doing research on the possible destinations for this coming year and Mark uploaded photos and did a variety of other things. But we didn’t stay for five hours this time. We wrapped things up fairly quickly and headed to the new Villa Supermarket. We went there on the first day in town, but I just had to return to absorb all that is there. It is really unbelievable. There were Butterball turkeys of all sizes, fresh salmon from Tasmania, from Scotland, and from Norway, prime beef from Australia, Grapenuts, pecans, sage (couldn’t find this anywhere in Malaysia), safflower oil, grape seed oil, every Old El Pasa product you can think of, Carnation evaporated milk, Paul Newman’s Balsamic Vinaigrette salad dressing, Kraft and Hellman’s mayonnaise, canned artichoke hearts from Spain, whole wheat flour, spelt flour, and on and on and on. You pay US prices, but it is all there. We’ll buy most things at other places where it is cheaper, but for Christmas we will definitely give the fresh Tasmanian salmon a try.
We pulled our little cart back through the traffic and back down the little main street in Ao Chalong to the jetty. And then we started the half mile walk down the jetty. It must be the longest jetty in the world. The next time I am on the internet, I’m going to research that one. We got back to Windbird, weaving through a multitude boats, but no one we know. Barbara and Cory on Increscent Moon are still here, but every one else we know has either escaped to the other side of the bay or have moved down to Nai Harn. We will stay here until Tuesday and then we will move to Nai Harn, hoping to connect with some of the folks we know that will be there for Christmas. But in the meantime, it is strange to be so alone amidst so many boats.
by Judy Handley | Dec 17, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 52, Year 5: Free Ride
Date: Thursday, December 17, 2009
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Hot; Afternoon Thunder; Evening Rain
Location: Ao Chalong, Phuket, Thailand
The number of old, white men with very young, beautiful Thai women here is really shocking. So Mark goes to shore alone today to buy a starting battery. He went back to the little restaurant where we spent the day yesterday to ask if anyone there knew where he could buy a car battery. They discussed the situation and the young waitress that we had yesterday walked Mark down the street to a Michelin tire place to ask where batteries are sold. She found out and told Mark to hop on the back of her motorbike. Too far to walk, so would take him. They drove about 3 kilometers, got the battery, and headed back to the Twin Coconut. Mark had left his hand cart for toting the battery there, but the young woman told him to get it and get back on the bike. She insisted on taking Mark and the battery down to the pier. On the way down the street to the pier, Mark said the other women on the street were smiling and waving to the young waitress and pointing to Mark. The young woman just smiled big and waved back. We are sure this young woman was just being a typical kind and helpful Thai, but now Mark’s a marked man, so I’m not sure I’m going to let him go back into town alone!
The next story started two days ago. On Tuesday morning when we took the dinghy in for repair, I walked to the dinghy shop to make sure they were coming to pick up our dinghy at 9 am while Mark stayed behind at the boat ramp with the dinghy. He also had our 220 amp alternator with him that was not working. We were going to take it to the Boat Lagoon to a shop we are familiar with there. But while standing on the shore, some cruiser brought his dinghy in to shore to drop off a mechanic. Mark could see all of his tools, so he asked the man in the dinghy if the mechanic was good. Excellent, he said, so Mark showed Him (that’s the mechanics name) our alternator. Him shook it and examined it and said he thought he could fix it. Mark wrote his name and phone number on a piece of cardboard and away went Him with our alternator. We didn’t know the name of the cruiser in the dinghy so we were really hoping we had the right phone number written down. Otherwise Him would have been hard to track down. But today he called to explain that Mark needed to come to shore to see the problem. So Mark went in and saw that the cast aluminum frame that holds the diodes has broken in several places. Him wasn’t sure Mark would want him to find a machinist to make a new aluminum frame as it will cost about a hundred dollars US to get it done. But you can’t buy an alternator anywhere near this size in Thailand, so Mark told Him to get the frame made and replace the diodes if needed. We are currently running on a 125 amp alternator and that works fine but takes almost twice as long to run the engine to charge the batteries. So we want our big baby back if possible.
Tonight we went to shore to have dinner with Ed and Lynne of Constance. They knew of a great Mediterranean restaurant about a mile from the dinghy dock, so off we hiked. We had a great dinner and enjoyed cruiser talk. We then walked next door to the supermarket to get a few groceries. Then it was back to the dinghy dock where we found our dinghy bobbing up and down with great gusto. The northeast monsoon has set in for a couple of days with expected heavy winds. This anchorage is totally exposed and we understand it can get quite rowdy. We could move across the bay to the eastern side or go to another anchorage in the southern end of the island or stay here and rock and roll. We’ll make that decision in the morning.
by Judy Handley | Dec 16, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 51, Year 5: Twin Coconuts
Date: Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Hot with Evening Rain
Location: Ao Chalong, Phuket, Thailand
We spent most of our day at a little restaurant called the Twin Coconuts. Our friend Barbara on Increscent Moon had recommended it to us as a great little café with good wireless internet, so once we returned the rental car this morning at 9:15, we walked to Twin Coconuts and didn’t get up to leave until 2:30 in the afternoon. Mark spent the time uploading photos to the website while I worked on organizing and naming even more photo albums and did a bit of research on our planned route for this year. After our five hour internet marathon, we walked to Tesco Lotus. This is a major supermarket chain here on the island, but this one doesn’t hold a candle to the big Tesco closer to downtown Phuket. So we can cross this one off the list as a possible place for provisioning. By the time we walked back down the jetty to the dinghy, the afternoon was slipping away. On our dinghy ride out to Windbird, we stopped by Constance to say hello to Ed and Lynne. A quick hello turned into an hour or more and when we finally got back to Windbird it was time to turn around and go back to town to meet Larry and Peg for dinner. Larry has been working at the chandlery at Boat Lagoon for the past two years to make the money to buy new rigging for his boat. When he arrived here after coming through the Med and the Red Sea, he had his boat hauled out of the water. The mast and rigging were on the ground. During this time, all of his rigging and winches were stolen one night, and he has been working ever since to get the money together to continue sailing. Today was the day that he told Scot at East Marine that he is cutting back on hours and will be leaving here in February. So it was a night of celebration. Peg is delightful and it was wonderful to finally meet her. We’ll hopefully see them a few more times before we leave Thailand.
We’ve promised ourselves a day on the boat tomorrow and then will head in to town to dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant with Ed and Lynne. We are still hoping that they will be heading around South Africa this year, but boat problems keep cropping up that might divert them. We’ll keep hoping that things can be resolved and they will be back on track.
