The big move

Well, another step closer. We moved to the boat today. We have enough of the place set up to at least sleep on the boat and cook on the boat. We still haven’t gotten in the water though. That is planned for Monday. This is in part because Kevin was still fixing the rudder but also because the Travel Lift, or the big boat crane, was fully booked for Friday and they weren’t able to do us anyway. We have it booked for Monday though. It will be great to be in the water because then we can use the fridge. We are using an electric cooler right now, but that doesn’t have much space for food for a family of 6, especially one with a 14 year old boy who is working hard around the boat. We will also be able to use the toilets and the watermaker. Right now we have a hose carrying non-potable water to the boat and then the use of the marina washrooms and showers.

We have gotten pretty comfortable here with regards to living everyday life. We are going to the grocery store to buy food just down the road. We have to go daily because that is all the cooler with hold. There is a very limited selection of food so our menu has been more limited than at home, well, in some ways, but then better in others. We made ourselves chicken fajitas for dinner, but there was no salsa and no avocados to make guacamole, something our kids have come to expect. On the other hand, we had blue marlin and mahi-mahi the other day. There are red peppers some days, but then other days there are not. All the meat is frozen so I have to remember to account for defrosting the meat when planning for meals. Luckily, with the heat down here, things defrost quickly! Also, all the veggies come wrapped in styrofoam and plastic wrap, so there is so much extra garbage. And of course, there is no recycling. It is hard to break my habit if separating out my paper, cans, styrofoam and plastic and just throwing them in the garbage. This is something that I have always strugglined with/hated about traveling. It seems nobody recycles and composts as well as we do back home.

The rudder is getting very close to being done, and will be done by the end of the day. After cutting holes in it to see where the leak was coming from, Kevin had to repair it. First, he had to grind down the fibreglass around the holes. Then he had to fill the holes. The larger hole was filled first with a closed-cell foam (what most rudders have inside their fibreglass shell, although this one had a polyester filler). This was a fast forming and hardening foam created by mixing two chemicals together. The kids enjoyed watching the foam form, especially since there was a bit too much and it created a mushroom of foam on the outside. Kevin then filled in the smaller spaces with an casting epoxy with filler in it. He used casting epoxy because it doesn’t get as hot as a curing epoxy. This hardened and the foam hardened and then he cut the extra foam off. After the casting, he sanded down foam and cast epoxy to removed surface layers that are poor for adhesion and added a strengthened and thickened epoxy to promote adhesion of the fibreglass layers and fill in the voids. Then he closed it all with fibreglass. There are many layers to the fibreglass and usually one fills the hole with either progressively smaller or progressively larger sheets, applying epoxy between the layers. Kevin did progressively larger sheets, so that if put under tensil load it will keep it’s shape. He then sanded down the top. Then he applied two layers of an epoxy faring compound on the outside to create the smooth surface. After he sanded again before appling an epoxy barrier coat, to make it waterproof. Then finally, he applied two layers of anti-fouling paint, to prevent marine growth. At the top where the shaft enters the rudder he ground out a small channel around the shaft to create a sealant pocket before applying a new adhesive sealant (3M 5200, which cures very hard) to create the water tight seal it was supposed to have. It was then cut flush with the sounding rudder. Now we have a functional rudder! As you can imagine, this took several days. And let me tell you, it is very difficult to maneuver an approximately 100lb rudder into place.

I was working on setting up the cabins, emptying the place of extra baggage from the charter company and moving stuff into storage spaces (the crew cabin and under the beds). Later we will clean up the crew cabin for the guests we hope to have. There was a lot of extra stuff from the charter company – including dozens of sheets and towels. It is nice to have extra, especially when you don’t have laundry on board yet, but too much and you can’t even store it! We were told never to throw stuff away as well. So we place it outside our boat and it will be taken by the locals and put to use. This is recycling that they do better than us!

So, it has been a productive week but there have been a few challenges. Halyna got the flu that Norah had. Norah’s eye wasn’t getting better despite topical antibiotics and I finally decided to give her oral antibiotics for a perorbital cellulitis. Here, like home, they need you to see a doctor to get a prescription for antibiotics. I have the appropriate antiboitics on board, but didn’t want to use the supplies when I can readily get them on the island. I want to save my medical supplies for when we can’t get it easily. This was a trip to the hospital. The experience was a good one. They were lovely and helpful and now Norah is starting to mend with her antibiotics. Unfortunately, we also had to go to the hospital with Simon. Our rambuntious guy climbs and runs all over the boat, and took to the ladder off the boat too fast and fell. It was a decent fall of about 1.5 meters so he got some scraps and bruises, probably a mild concussion and a very sore right forearm. I bandaged him up but took him to the hospital to see if he did in fact break his arm. Their x-ray technician wasn’t working so we have to go back on Monday. They did put on a new backslab/splint for us though. We are hoping it is just a bad sprain, but we will see. I have had to use my medical skills way more then I thought I would in the first few weeks – I am hoping we have gotten this out of the way and have a smoother time when we are finally underway!

We are excited to put the boat in the water and start sailing. While we wait for a cockpit enclosure to be sewed up for us and put around our helm and deck space, we will do practice sails around the island. Time for further sailing lessons for the kids! I will post pictures of the boat on the water in the next couple of days. And see if I can get Owen to put up a small video tour of the boat. Also of note, I will try to post every Sunday, if not more frequently at times.