Injury Log, #XXXX?

20 Jan, evening dinner, felt an "itch" in my left elbow, no big deal. Middle of the night it felt like it was swelling and started to be painful.   Next day suspected mild bursitis, wrapped it loosely, started Ibuprofen, took it easy, that night a fever of 102. Improved quickly but only to a point.

Now a month and some later…still slightly swollen, much less than before but it is just not getting better. Pain now very sharp and along the underside of the elbow with any pressing motion involving extension of the triceps. So been thinking about arthritis, infection, gout, reading everything, even asking the opinion of a great friend in the medical profession.

Got in here in St Lucia to see a doc, exam, blood tests, everything fine except the pain, no extra uric acid or platelets, none of the indicators for the most likely or expected maladies. Today another path, x-ray. Bull’s-eye, yes it is broken, not the usual break, but a nice divot off the back corner.  Here’s the picture, a close look and you can just see the outline of the chip sitting away from the bone. …now if I can only figure out how the hell I did that?

You've Got Mail!

Rodney Bay, St Lucia

One of the things about being 'homeless' is the lack of a mailbox.  (Well, that and the paperboy can't find us anymore.)  We get asked all the time about how we get our mail.  I thought I'd 'splain. Before we left Florida we set up an account with a company called St Brendan's Isle.  They're a mail forwarding service, which means that after we signed a bunch of paperwork, their address became our legal residence and all our mail goes there.  We don't have a physical residence anywhere, so it solves the problem of where we vote and pay taxes, or don't pay, as is the case in Florida.  They scan the front of every piece of mail and we have an account we can log into and see what's there.  Once we see it, we can have them hold it, shred it, forward it to us unopened or open it and scan the contents.  We have the held mail sent to us every couple of months when we plan to be somewhere long enough for it to catch up. So, to all those who sent us Christmas cards, I can't wait to see them next month! Anything that looks important we have scanned and then we can store it on our harddrive and have SBI shred the original.  We also gave SBI a limited power of attorney to open the mail from the US Coast Guard.  Our boat is documented with them and the documentation has to be renewed yearly.  The documentation is free if we do it on time but fairly pricy to renew if it lapses.  There must have been enough cruisers not getting their documentation in on time that it's profitable for SBI to do it for us, as they do charge an extra fee. FYI, the documentation is like a car title or proof of ownership and we must have it to check into Customs and Immigration in every country.

Since SBI handles mail for hundreds of cruisers, we run into our 'neighbors' from Green Cove Springs all the time.

Pictures from a Rainy Day

We usually start the day with fresh bread and/or fruit. These grapefruit were so sweet and juicy, they didn't need sugar. Generally, I share half with Steve, not today.

 We always buy new kinds of coffee and spend lots of time sampling and rating them. Great fun in the French islands, as we're never really sure what we've bought.  French-English dictionaries are limited on food terms for some reason.

 Today's project: screw the floorboards to the hull.  The boards have always been loose on Celebration and that's only a problem if the boat were to go all the way over. Since I just finished reading a book called "Rescue in the Pacific" about a Force 12 storm that caught dozens of boats unaware in the south pacific, I've been looking around our humble home and seeing too many things that could be problems.  Lots of damage and most of the injuries for those involved came from the projectiles launched from cupboards, lockers, freezers, etc. as the boats were tosses from side to side.  This is a project we've been going to do for quite a while, but I moved it up on the list and Steve was nice enough to humor me.
Installing these bolts involved moving the carpets, which meant that they should be taken out and beat while they were up, re-inventorying the stuff under the floorboards, cleaning the shower sump while we had access, cleaning all the parts of the hull we could reach and checking everything else we could see.  It was a tear up the boat day.

  The chocolate had to be sorted and properly stacked.

                                              Adjima was her usual helpful self.

We ended the day sampling some of our newly spiced rum over ice and watching the sunset behind some beautiful clouds.

Between Carnival and the Wine Tasting

Ready for Glass

    Way back, now over three years ago we repowered Celebration. One small dilemma was getting the exhaust and seawater mixture from one side of the prop shaft to the other. Simple, sure…but finding the exact right elbow to do the trick was fruitless. Custom one?  $4-600, so I went to my favorite speed shop, Summit Racing and ordered up a stainless steel 180 degree header elbow at around $45, Cut it with my angle grinder, aligned it to fit and marked it for welding. A friend stops by and asks “what are doing with that?” “Taking it in for welding” I say. “I have a TIG welder” he answers, “be happy to help.” So for $45 bucks and a bottle of Captain Morgan to the friend I’m done.

Epoxy Setting

     Fast forward to the wine tasting of a couple weeks ago; The men starting talking about their exhaust problems. Two of them had those $500 custom/production boat elbows rot out from the seawater-exhaust combo in under 3 years, both were running new and looking for a backup. I sat thinking about my home spun $45 version, hmmm? Sure enough when I dug down last week to look there indeed was a tiny pinhole in the weld and a bit of pitting in the mandrel lines. What to do?

Sanded, Ready to Reinstall

Back in Place

    Since many boats now use fiberglass for elbows, I thought I’d give it a try and fiber glassed over the stainless using 4 layers of cloth and epoxy resin. First cleaned up the old mess, steel brushed, sanded it to get adhesion, a little etching with leftover hull cleaning acid, acetone wipe and put down the cloth. Here are some photos of the process. I had to sand off a few rough spots to save the knuckles later, but the end result looks fairly similar to the production models. Except for the Steve Kauffmann/Celebration/Nanni custom shape of course. Time will tell how long it will last. Might be good to whip up another one of these when we get back to the US. Of course while in there, dissembled the shaft coupler to grease the bolts so when I really need to get it apart…it’ll come apart, and fixed a small seawater leak in the water-maker intake, domino’s….

Fresh Market

Five foot tall flower stems from the market.

As our two regular blog readers already know, we think one of the great things about being retired is the amount of time we have to spend on food. We spend a lot of time talking about food, planning, shopping, drooling, cooking.  Steve and I both love to find new grocery stores and markets.  Here in Martinique it's a fun challenge just to try to translate the labels and make sure we're buying what we think we're buying.  I like the 'fresh markets' (small local produce markets) because they have a little bit of everything: veggies, fruit, fresh spices, locally spiced rums, tourist souvenirs, a meat counter and a fish counter. Here, on a French Isle, they also include a baguette lady and lots of locally grown flowers. Our choices vary greatly from week to week and island to island.  We buy what looks good and get to meal plan accordingly.

I have nowhere to put these but I sure like to browse among the flowers.

This week we're having fresh local oranges (which are green), avocados, onions, potatoes, cukes mangoes, bananas and tomatoes.

This  photo is for our families and friends in the frozen north, who may have forgotten what fresh, vine ripened tomatoes look like.  They taste as good as they look.

 

It's been raining a lot lately, so we've had some really spectacular rainbows and double rainbows.  We can usually see two or three a day.  I suppose they'll get old some day, but for now, I still have to make Steve come and see them all. 
We're not doing anything much new here.  Just hanging out, grocery shopping, doing laundry.  We generally come into Ste Anne once a day to walk, have coffee and Internet, buy bread, practice speaking french.  We're on the 'baguette a day' program. I think I'm addicted to fresh bread, with butter, and some kind of sauce to dip it in, and of course, wine.  Hmmm, maybe it's not just the bread I'm addicted to.
We're anchored off a long, white, sandy beach, with a Club Med on the far end.  Our spot affords us an unimpeded view of the beach goers and all the bars and restaurants along the shore. After much observation, I've decided that European men's Speedo's come in one color, black, and two sizes, XS and S.  The size a man buys has nothing to do with his actual body size.  It only determines how far up he wants to pull the suit.  Most men seem to buy the XS.

Sitting Ste Annes Martinique

 

Last Night's Sunset, Best with Cabernet Sauvignon

      Weather is beautiful. The solar and wind power are up to their job. Almost all systems are go, even though saying so is often a bad omen. The days are going by fast. Each filled with a bit of boat work, a bit of walking, a bit of gathering from the local markets, sometimes a walk on the beach, a bit of wine at sundown, and all usually followed with a bit of food preparation put together from the local fare. Most often it is a great feast, often with the deliberate overproduction offering a nice lunch for the day after. The exchange rate is fair, the choices are great so we choose wisely for our budget, eat at home and have had some fantastic meals.

New Dingy Cover or "Chaps"

    On the boat side, we have now (finally) completed the dingy “chaps” protecting the material from the Caribbean sun so I’m posting a photo here. A bit of adjustment is still needed but until they have to come off for another reason, they will do what they are designed to do. Today, wiring the second solar panel through the charge controller. With enough wind and sun to keep the batteries full, this has suddenly moved up in the priorities.

St Lucia ... Martinique

St Lucia at a Glance

Market Haul

Anchorage at Rodney Bay St Lucia

    We came in to St Lucia to watch the Old Year’s Night fireworks and were not disappointed. Once recovered from the rough sail up and a bit of maintenance on Celebration, we were off exploring. One of the first things for us is always a trip to the local market and St Lucia didn’t let us down. Lynn already mentioned the local food and we found ourselves getting a plate there every Saturday after.

Pitons and Soufriere

Volcano  at Soufriere

Always interesting to us is how many folks travel but fail to see or experience beyond the “touristy” spots. In this way our weekly food plate at the market turned into some great fun. While many tourist types and cruise ship passengers walked through, some even bought crafts and trinkets, we were among the few non-locals buying fruits, vegetables, and eating street food there. In every case we’d be sitting at our favorite vender with people walking by staring at our giant plates while we ate away. Sooner or later one would stop and inquire “Is it good?” or “have you eaten here before?” Our answers of “great” and “yes we eat here every week” would inevitably bring on the “and you feel OK after?” line of questions or the “you’re not from a cruise ship, are you” comments. Not many minutes later the vendor’s tables would be full of non-locals with the food and beer overflowing. Slowly we’d head on our way looking for the bus back or the next street over for another discovery.

Off to Martinique

Wine Tasting

Looking toward Martinique

    Almost a week ago now we left St Lucia and headed north about 25 miles to Martinique. The sail was sporty and the wind from the direction we wanted to go but the trip short so we tacked and tacked, eventually sailing up to the anchorage. We are anchored off of the southeast corner in front of Ste Annes.  The area is beautiful, shopping for wine, cheese and bread is exemplary. Of course as we arrived we saw old friends from other anchorages and we were soon over at s/v Jammin’ (Dave & Helen) for a small wine tasting. All the couples had gone into town and found several low prices bottles/boxes. So that night we each arrived with our new found bargain beverages and proceeded to taste them around the cockpit, compare thoughts, prices, and take thumbs up/down photo’s so we could remember which ones we liked. One of our favorites turned out to be the Grands Prelats Janfort…made even more favored with the $2.01 Euro price.

Anchorage at Ste Annes

So for around $2.67 (US) a nice red for cooking as well as the table. Sure went well with the seafood chowder and great company (Rod & Mary, s/v Sheer Tanacity) last night. So far we are loving Martinique; clean, friendly, great food shopping, beautiful beaches, and the US Dollar/Euro exchange rate is much better than our last visit. If there is a negative it is a distinct lack of free internet. But a coffee at a local shop will allow a connection as part of the bargain. Throw in a couple Pain du Chocolate pastries and it’s just about perfect. Now to get to work on my (currently lack of) French. We could be here a while…

Boat Repairs in Exotic Locations

Orriginal Delco 12si Layout

    Some say that is the true definition of cruising. We heard that many times before leaving on this journey so we tried to keep our systems as simple as possible. Regardless, there is always something. We minimize power consumption as much as possible but we do enjoy a large dose of ice with our small (ahem) dose of rum in the evening. We have a minimum of solar/wind power which usually does fine, but when the engine runs, I want as much power out of it as I can get. I set the plant up with two 100 amp alternators—one for the engine bank and a second for the house bank.  After arriving in the Caribbean heat the house bank was left wanting thus a conversion to a 200 amp for the house bank. The big alternator is built on a Delco 12si case and put out power as advertised. Unfortunately the builder had a smaller non-AGM battery bank and thus good success with the stock diodes. We proceeded to blow out sets of diodes regularly when we taxed the system.  Not good.

Stock rectifier shown but with new
holes already in the case

210 Amp rectifier
Trial Fit

    The fix: I found 210 amp bridge rectifiers specifically designed to “fit” the Delco 12si case and had a couple brought down with Hannah and Cameron. Well “fit” clearly means different things to different folks. Yes they would “fit” in the case and slightly (very slightly) clear the stator and rotor. But they really didn’t “fit” as in none of the holes or electrical connections lined up and lots of in-case mountings and ridges blocked the position. What’s to lose I thought and after some contemplation I busted out the dremel with cutting wheel and went to town. I removed all the pesky ridges and mounting studs, drilled and tapped new mounts, and reset the location of the main power connection. After a bit of aluminum fitting fastened down with JB Weld to provide additional support for the main power stud it all went together. Well almost. I also had to cut off the stock regulator connection so the brush and connections would clear the bridge rectifier. 

Aluminum fitting being "welded" to
case for main power stud

Final Assembly, Close but Functional

     With some trepidation I mounted it, wired it all up and it didn’t work! Aw crap. Bad news, I had to take it apart again, good news, the problem was simple. A small piece of the toothpick I used to retain the brushes during assembly had broken off when I removed it and was still keeping one of the brushes from making contact.  Now loving the power it produces, quickly pushes the bank into absorption stage so the solar and wind can easily finish the job. Time to buckle down and build the backup with the new kit as well. The only problem has been as Lynn referenced, the big stator as well as the electric refrigeration and watermaker clutches all spinning at once threw off the auto helm compass. Now repositioned, I'll report back on that some other time.

Starting a New Year,

Interesting, always colorful architecture.

this time in St Lucia.  We took advantage of what we thought would be a fairly good weather window and left Grenada for the 160 mile trip north to St Lucia.   Coming down through the Caribbean last summer, we only spent 2 days here and had put it on the top of the list of places to revisit.  Our sail turned out not-so-nice, with me, and Adjima, fetal position sick the whole way. Nothing like barfing for 30 hours to make me really glad to see Rodney Bay appear from behind the rocks. Steve had to single hand the entire day, in winds upward of 30kts and big confused seas.  It was one of 'those' sails: the nav computer quit, the auto helm wouldn't work while the engine and the water maker were both on (something about too many magnets spinning too close to the compass), it rained and rained, the sunbrella on the jib ripped and at 5am the fuel filters clogged from all the gunk getting stirred up in the wild motion. Steve was very kind when I dragged myself to the cockpit to stand watch while he changed the filters.  He said and I'm paraphrasing here, "Don't do anything. Just keep us on course."  And I did. Until I got just the faintest whiff of diesel...  We were only a mile or so off the rhumb line when he came back up an hour later.

We ran into some friends as we were leaving the grocery the next day and went along with them to the market in Castries, a few miles down the road.  It was a great outdoor fresh fruit and veg market, with lots of trinkets for the cruise ship people thrown in alongside. There was a restaurant row, with all local food and we of course had to sample.  On my plate, above, I had: fall off the bone delicious chicken legs, baked mac and cheese, lettuce salad, beans and rice over breadfruit, pasta, and plantains. Steve was the only one in the group to clean his plate. This lunch for 2, including beer, was less than $12. I was definitely over my sea sickness.

This is 'the season' in the Caribbean.  Tourists from all over the world come here to soak up the sun.  We're anchored off a Sandal's Resort and their guests are jet skiing, windsurfing, para sailing, diving, horseback riding, Hobie-catting, having funning all around the boat.  It's great to sit and watch.  The large sailing cruise boats come right up into Rodney bay and anchor for the day.  I love this picture of the old wooden La Graceau against the new Wind Spirit.

We have a few repairs to make here and some sightseeing to do, so we plan to stay a couple of weeks. Come on down.