Get Lost On Purpose

Category: Repairs

  • Always something broken on a boat

    Last night I decided we need a logo. Not a crappy logo either. I don’t want it ending up on this site. I’m in the market for someone who can turn the pic you see to the right into a basic logo design. If you know any good graphic designers, send me an email.

    I measured the output of the watermaker yesterday. It’s supposed to make around 1.5 gallons an hour. I’m getting six cups an hour. Now I’m no expert but I’d say the thing is broke. The Katadyn Powersurvivor 40 is the purchase I regret most of anything on the boat. I’ve hated that thing since the first time I turned it on and saw it dribbling water like grandpa at the urinal. It doesn’t make sense to have a watermaker that produces that little amount when I could have bought one that makes 30 gallons an hour. Yes, the small Powersurvivor only uses a fraction of the electricity but I would rather run the engine for a couple of hours and almost fill up the tanks with a big power hog. Next time, next time. I took it apart for the fourth time in a year to see if I could fix it and once it was back together I was up to 6.5 cups per hour. That’s with the brand new membrane I brought back to Tahiti with me. I’ve checked and double checked everything so I sent off an email to Katadyn this morning.

    I did a few searches and there are barely any cruising boats using Twitter. Others ought to look into it. I set up an account that will allow us to email Tweets (updates) from anywhere, even the satellite phone. It’s a great way to follow a cruising yacht in real time as they move about the globe. Not to mention, I get constant updates from the marine industry on news, products, sales, etc. Yeah, it’s one more thing to monitor and take care of but it’s also one more way to stay in touch with family and friends. And I’ve yet to meet a boat where that wasn’t important.

    Almost one week has passed since I moved over to Moorea and the only cash missing from my pocket was spent on a horrible meal at a roulotte. I’m determined to eat all the Ecuadorian food on this boat before I buy anything new and the selection is getting sparse. The one thing from Ecuador I’m truly sad to see dwindling is the peanuts. The crunchy coated peanuts from there have become my favorite snack on board. I wish I would have bought 50 cans. I’m sure I could have found somewhere to store those and about 25 more rolls of paper towels. I need to sit down and write an article. “What to overload your boat with before you cross the Pacific.” Peanuts and paper towels. There. The article is finished. I would like some fresh meat though and I may have to wander over to the store today. That grill is dying to be cranked up. It is Easter so I’m sure the picking will be slim. Hopefully I don’t get over there and find a sign like this on the door.

    No meet

  • Bloody Mary’s to the Bora Bora Yacht Club

    I’m over in Bora Bora now. I’ve been here for 2 nights. I spent the first night over at the moorings in front of Bloody Mary’s Restaurant. It’s considered somewhat of an institution down here. Margie and I hung out there last year when we took the cruise on the Tahitian Princess. Dosia’s motor was being overhauled in Tahiti and it was cheaper to take a cruise than to get a room and stay there. Anyways, I figured I’d visit again and have a few beers. It’s an interesting place with a sand floor, a shoe check at the door, and the bathrooms resemble some sort of water-garden orgy. The only thing I’ve actually eaten at Bloodys was last year when Margie and I put in for an order of wings at $18 and got four, yes four whole chicken wings. Our friends Matt and Alicja ordered the kabobs at the same price and got a good laugh when one little kabob arrived on the plate. They lay out a huge spread of fresh seafood near the door and the patrons are brought up from the tables to order their cuts right off the ice. A lot of guests eat there as part of the package tour, some come from a cruise ship visiting the lagoon, others just show up. Regardless of how they find it, the reviews of the food at Bloody Marys are usually less than stellar so I’ll let those with the “vacation dollars” in hand partake in the eating and I’ll partake in the relatively cheap beer.

    The next morning I moved over to the moorings in front of the Bora Bora Yacht Club and got a bunch of odd jobs done. Every project takes forever cause I’m suffering from CRAFTs disease (Can’t Remember a Flipping Thing). I don’t know what I was thinking when I last reorganized the boat but I must have been intoxicated. I put tools and parts in places I can’t fathom so I spend twenty minutes looking for things just to start a particular job. Last year, the problems that left us sailing 1500 miles without an engine eventually spawned a major overhaul including the purchase of a new bottom end. If you don’t know what that is, visualize a motor as a big cardboard box, cut off the bottom two-thirds of it, and replace it. It was no small job but Harvé and Pascal at Ocean Carenage did quick change out with a used Perkins 4-108 they happened to have laying around. So now I have a Perkins 4-108 bottom-end with a Westerbeke W40 (essentially a Perkins 4-107) top-end. It’s an interesting mix but it seems to work and that’s what matters in this part of the world. Without an engine, the reef passes are scary especially when they are in the lee of a mountainous island like the situation we ran into in Ua Pou. Just ask Margie about the bag she packed to jump overboard with as we “sailed into” that harbor last year. So anyways, I had a little work to do on the engine to calibrate the new parts with my existing gauges and it took most of the first day here.

    Last night I headed over to the Yacht Club to check it out and have a few beers. As far as real estate goes, this place blows Bloody Mary’s out of the water…literally. The thatched roof, the deck that stretches out over the reef, the attached over-water bungalows, it’s the quinessential South Pacific scene. Once again, I wasn’t there to eat but I can tell you the kitchen smells spectacular. The new owner, Teiva is a well-trained chef who worked at some famous restaurant in California. He and his wife Jessica live in one of the attached bungalows with their kid. They are working to turn the bad reputation of the BBYC into a shiny new future and it looks like it’s working. I wish them the best of luck.