Boat Life
Well… WildChild had a few lovely days at anchor in La Parguera recently. We went snorkelling in the mangroves on the outer reefs, we visited the local town and we lived a relaxed and easy life. BUT… it’s not all paradise living on a boat.
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Puerto Real
I know that people are going to make fun of me for this… but I recently discovered the most amazing new food, I just love this Puerto Rican dish, its my new ultimate favourite new food discovery. Elena and I were on shore a few days ago in Puerto Real, where I last had internet access and uploaded the last few blogs to you, when we got hungry and wandered the local streets in search of local good and cheap food. We found a bar just a few buildings down the road that had like an outdoor food stand setup. We wandered past and I was kind of curious about those yellow half moon shaped pastry type things they were selling.
Elena is more food adventurous than I am and on the way back to the marina she suggested why don’t we just go over and try it out? So we did. As always with us Elena is too shy to speak to people and makes me the extrovert do all the talking. I chat with the vendor, a lovely and very kind man with a charming smile, and he thusly informs me that these are Emapnadas.
I had heard the word before but had never seen one before and certainly had never tried one. He said it was a “turn over”, a pastry with minced meat and sauce inside, the closest thing I had to compare it with was like a pizza pocket. We bought a Pollo (Chicken) empanada and tried it.
OK… now you can begin making fun of me for discovering this “new food” that you have known about your whole life, but understand… there are no empanada’s in Canada. It’s not a Canadian food and we do not have a lot Mexican or Latino influence in our northern culture.
A real empanada made authentic in Puerto Rico was AMAZING…! the flavour was so delicate and delicious, a gentle balance of spices in a flaky yellow pie crust. Later some friends tried to explain to me that the yellow appearance of the dough comes from this special process of extracting the essence out of some spice thing into the oil used to make the crusts.
Lexi likes Emapanada’s now… Yum..!
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Winch Problems
We noticed when we lifted the dinghy onto the deck of WildChild a week ago in Luperon that it seemed extra heavy to lift using the spinnaker halyard winch we normally use. It seemed odd as that winch had been working fine when we arrived in Luperon 4 months earlier. I dismissed the problem as a maybe the halyard is twisted of the block up in the mast might be a little stiff.
Since we now had some free time to work on boat projects in the calm safety of Puerto Real I had decided to have a look at that particular (very expensive) Barrient 23 self tailing deck winch. Much to my horror… I discovered it was seized up. Grrrr….
I do admit to being a bit lax about winch maintenance, they have all always worked, they are all very expensive and complicated old winches, and hey… if it ain’t broke don’t flippin touch it!
I found the old original manuals for these winches in the pile of old papers I secured in a sealed water tight bag years ago. I grabbed some tools… and sat my butt down on the deck to introduce myself to my now disabled winch. I do not know if you have ever read the book “Zen and the art of Motorcycle maintenance” but I sort of tend to take that approach to these unknown mechanical problems. Talk to the winch… go slow… stay calm… slowly remove 1 piece at a time… and see where that leads you.
Bit by bit I get to the Step 4… okay now pull / lift the winch drum up and off the spindle…
Yep… that certainly sounds easy… didn’t happen.
I could, with great effort, get the winch to turn a bit with a winch handle and lotsa force, so it wasn’t completely seized, but no amount of banging hammering prying lubricating persuasion was going to convince that freakin drum to lift. !!!!! Grrrrr…. Lexi frustrated… cannot fix winch if I cannot get to the bearings and gears and pawls inside the drum.
I borrow a pulley puller in town from Annibal the next day. I set it up on the drum which had been soaking in lubricant overnight, and slowly and gently began applying specific upward force on the drum… NOPE… I tried for about 40 minutes to persuade that freakin drum to budge but it just wasn’t gonna happen.
Lexi lost… I am now down one deck winch for the spinnaker halyard. It will probably cost like a $1000 to replace… and that isn’t going to happen with me.. and definitely not here or now.
The good news is we did achieve another small victory that same day. Another smaller LEWMAR 10 deck winch used for the reefing lines for the main was not locking. We did get this little winch disassembled, cleaned, lubricated with the correct grease this time and reassembled and reinstalled back onto the deck within about 2 hours.
This I must confess was my bad. This winch had failed on me about 2 years ago… and I “fixed it” but did not have any of the (very expensive) proper white lithium grease to lubricate it with so I used petroleum jelly… yep Vasoline, which worked great in a pinch and lasted 2 years… but had eventually gummed up thick. Thick enough to seize up the pawls into the open position. The winch was spinning freely in both directions.
Oh well…. this kind of thing is just boat life…. this is normal stuff you deal with when you live on a sailboat.
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Boat breaks again…
We later made a 2 hour sail from Puerto Real to Boqueron bay in the later afternoon. It was around 5:30pm when when we were ready to drop the sails and motor upwind into the anchorage. I was furling the genny alone and Elena was on the helm. I asked to go ahead and get the engine started… when there was a click.. tink tink sound and Elena gasped in surprise. As I was busy with the genny I asked whats up..? She dropped some of the pieces of the engine start switch into my hand and says “I was not expecting this”. Funny girl makes me smile sometimes… yep… that’s an understatement… it is going to be hard to start the engine just now with the switch corroded into pieces.
We were suddenly un-powered and floundering in the ocean right on the edge of the reefs near the channel entrance protecting Boqueron bay. This was suddenly an emergency! Well we still had daylight and light winds (10 knots) so I pulled a small amount of genny back out to get some steering control back, turned WildChild out to sea (downwind) and had Elena steer us slowly and safely past the shallow reefs out into deeper water to give me time to effect a repair.
The good news is, of course, Captain Lexi is the girl who can fix or build anything and happens to be a marine electrician among many other things. So once the yacht was safe I ran down below to grab my electrician tool bag and to dig around in my many spare parts boxes to find a new replacement switch. It was almost a loss as I could not find the same type of automotive on/off 20 amp switch I had used originally until something digging at the back of my mind led me to the V-berth to dig for a little box of parts under our clothes.
Beautiful new engine start switch installed in 20 minutes while at sea, we turned the engine on a mile after the mishap began and turned tail, genny furled up again, and motored into the safety of the bay just as the sun was setting.
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Flooding Disaster
When sailing upwind WildChild does heel over pretty goodWe sailed 2 days ago from Boqueron bay around the point to La Parguera. We left really really early in the morning to beat the thermal wind acceleration along the mountains that builds up in the afternoons. We left at like 5am before the sun even came up. Two very tired blurry eyed girls stumbled outta bed in the dark, dawned our life jackets and sailing gloves and tumbled into the cockpit to begin the days “easy” 20 mile sail around the corner in the “light” morning winds.
Doesn’t that all sound lovely..?
Well… it seems we made a tiny, but completely horrible, little mistake.
There is a very simple and very basic little part of our “lets go” ritual that we missed.
There is a Seacock valve under the bathroom sink that we always close before we go sailing… you know… “just-in-case” the flapper valve ever failed on a Port side lean (Starboard tac).
Yeah…. our super bad… we forgot to close it.
After all it is going to be an easy gentle sail in light winds “before” the winds pick up in the “afternoon”…. right.
Well the penalty for this little mistake was pretty severe.
See the diagrams to explain a little further for all you non-sailor people out there.
We ended up getting some pretty sporty winds out there about 3 miles offshore of the point at like 8am and WildChild did tuck herself into a pretty good port side rail in the water close hauled lean for about 40 minutes.
Which… did happen to put the entire bathroom sink well below the outside water level.
And… the flapper valve happened to be pretty clogged up with long girl hair, and therefore was not closing.
And… mucho salty ocean water did pour its way upward filling the bowl of the bathroom sink… and just for that extra lovely kick in the teeth spilled over to fill our cupboards full of water before spilling onto the floor and down into the bilge to be pumped away.
The big disaster part was… those cupboards had all of our personal hygiene stuff in them. You know… like hundreds of dollars worth of makeup ruined… like toothbrushes and hair care products ruined… like Elena’s contact lens stuff… like medications….
…like my personal medication that I cannot seem to be able to get the prescription refilled by anyone other than my family doctor. Like pharmacies guard with my freakin life against letting me buy the meds I need. Like my nearly impossible to replace meds that I need.. and have been stretching out my supply to last another year before I can get home to refill. Like a 3 month supply of pills I really need…. flooded… bottle filled with salt water… 3 months of meds turned into pasty goo.
* FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK *
**** FUCKIN OCEAN FUCKIN RUINS EVERY FUCKIN THING I FUCKIN OWN ****
and I bet you thought living on the Ocean was just lovely romantic huh.
Did you know that if you live on a boat in the ocean… the salt air will corrode and ruin everything electrical…? Did you know your cell phone and computer are electrical… did you know that your charging cables will rust and need to be replaced every 4-6 months? Did you know that the plastic zippers on your back pack will corrode and seize up? Did you know that all your spices in the galley will clump up? Did you know that the hooks on your bra will all rust and fall apart after about 6 months?
Sigh…. and this is boat life. This is the ever so romantic cruising life all those YouTubers make look like your greatest fantasy come true. You sit safely at home and dream of coming out here sailing the Ocean… be smart… stay home.
Or better yet… trade places with me.
Captain Lexi…. today the frustrated
Cheers Sailors