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American Spirit II - Day 162; First Day of Repair Off to Good Start, and Dinner with Celebrate; Monday, June 15, 2014



Woke up at 4:00 AM. Probably due to having taken a nap late morning to early afternoon today.



Before getting out of bed at 7:00 AM I noticed that I had a text message from daughter number 2 - Elizabeth from Tampa, Florida; wishing me a happy Father's Day. Thank you Elizabeth. Her text also stated that her daughter, Kayden, (my grand daughter) and her went to the University of Gainesville for some sort of gymnastics training. Looks like Kayden is taking after her mother, who was an excellent gymnast with national potential when she was young. Angela, daughter number 1; and Kayden also texted me Happy Father Day messages. Thank you Angie and Miss Kayden.



Had breakfast of eggs, chilled pear halves and bread.



Joel and I met with Yacht Help people at 8:00 AM. Yacht Help is a company that arranges and coordinates vessel repairs. They also arranged for my reservation at the marina I'm at. They pay companies that work on our boat, then we pay them that amount back plus a 15% commission - for parts and labor. We had a similar agent in French Polynesia, and I was very satisfied with the results.



Today was our first 'repair day.' We had contractors scheduled to come to our boat to deal with a number of issues; and we had to visit other vendors to order vital supplies and set up other repair appointments. At about 9:00 AM we met with an electrician (George) about the charging problem in non-American ports. We can't charge due to an electrical issue. Foreign electrical dock boxes are wired differently than American ones, with 240 volts versus the US at 120 volts. However, in order for the electrician and us to solve this problem we need to get to a dock with shore power. We can't access shore power from a mooring ball. Next we met with a representative from a rigging company (Bruce). Our lower, left shroud was broken and needed to be replaced; plus we needed a full rigging inspection; and we needed a new in-haul sheet put in the place of our old in-haul sheet. A somewhat complicated issue as we'll have to dismantle part of the mast to do so. In doing so we can't afford to drop any vital bolts. The in-haul sheet is needed to roll our mainsail up into the mast. We also went to a sail loft to talk to the owner about putting longer spreader patches on our mainsail. Otherwise we may end up tearing this sail by having the spreaders cut into the sail when going downwind.



Bruce, the rigger, seemed to think that the shroud failed due to being tightened too much. If that is the case, and we're not sure it is, then the broken shroud is a self inflicted wound, since we tightened the shroud when we tuned the boat. All boats need to be tuned so they sail most efficiently and to keep the mast from 'pumping.'



We spent a couple of hours trying to determine what type and size batteries to buy. We need two new house bank batteries. Each of these house batteries weigh about 120 pounds. These batteries run all the electronic components on the boat - navigation, auto pilot, refrigerator and freezer, lights, etc. We wanted to buy 8D Deep Cycle Flooded batteries, but not only are 8 D batteries not available in Fiji, flooded batteries are also not available in the size we need. So we ended up ordering two 4 D Deep Cycle AGM batteries; plus one AGM Group 27 type starter battery. We should have them by Thursday latest. However, when we get new batteries we need to charge them for 12 to 24 hours first before using them. We can't do that on a mooring ball unless we run our generator for those hours. Unless we can have them charged on land by Yacht Help first, we'll just have to run our generator for 12-24 hours to do so. That would be a bummer.



At 12 noon I called Janet, who was entertaining my brother Andy and Patti; and Diane and Bill, neighbors,at our house. Its strange calling someone at 12 noon on a Monday when it is 8:00 PM Sunday night in Tampa, Florida. It was good to talk to my wife, brother and friends. Thanks guys. To make calling easier and cheaper in the future, Joel and I both went out and bought a cell phone and a sim card, which will allow us to call the USA at a charge of $.10 per minute; versus about $3.00 on our regular cell phones. How cool is that? We'll just buy sim cards as we go around the world in every country we visit that we're in for a while. With our spending 5 weeks or so in Australia, and 6 weeks in South Africa,that should be quite a savings.



I also bought some groceries, and for the first time in months I was able to find a store that had coffee creamer and Equal. Haven't been able to find either of those since leaving Panama.



We were the guests of Charlie and Cathy from Celebrate at Lulu's for dinner. Cathy's treat. Thank you Cathy! We hadn't seen them in a while, and they had preceded us to Fiji to undergo their own extensive repairs, which included their boat having to be pulled out of the water twice. Ouch. Needless to say, Celebrate contributed a lot to the local economy! Vinaka vakalevu; which means 'Thank you very much' in Fijian. Christoph and Dagmar from Flomaida II visited us during dinner, and then left with their daughter, who was visiting from Germany (?). Dinner ended at 8:45 PM.



One of the topics of conversation included the rally organization doing more to help coordinate obtaining parts for boats in need of repairs; or to at least educate them in the pitfalls of parts being shipped in; the large number of boats having to undergo major repairs; and the lack of a coherent plan to deal with infections in the fleet.



Once back on the boat, I emptied out the freezer and put a rubber wine bottle cork into the drain at the bottom of the freezer. Charlie had suggested to me over dinner that the reason I was having to defrost my freezer every week was possibly because the drain in my freezer was injecting warm and humid air into the freezer compartment. Ironically, two days ago when I last defrosted the freezer, I noticed that the food at the bottom of the freezer, which should have been frozen the most, was not as frozen as food in the top part of the freezer. As a matter of fact, some of the food was not frozen at all. I think that Charlie may have not only saved me from the drudgery of defrosting the freezer once per week for the next 11 months, his fix will also mean that we're going to consume less energy keeping the freezer cold due to eliminating the warm, lower temperature at the bottom of the freezer. It goes to show you how a small thing like a wine bottle stopper can have a big impact on something having nothing to do with wine.



While charging our hand held VHF radio tonight I noticed that the charging light on the base of the charging unit wasn't lit up. It should be red when the radio is charging and green when it is fully charged. With no light showing, we probably can't charge this radio any more, making it worthless. If Joel can't fix it tomorrow, I'll have to order another one. Something is always breaking on the boat.



Finally, the leg wound is still oozing a tiny bit, so not out of the woods yet. Still taking Doxycyline and changing the bandage once per day. Will probably go visit a doctor later this week if it doesn't heal up completely. Enough is enough. It may need one more lance.



320 Days until home.



Brian Fox


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