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American Spirit II - Day 166; Wrong Dates in Log This Week, Back Stay Replaced, Indian Ocean Leg Open & Other Minor Repairs; Friday, June 21, 2014



Joel got an email indicating that the dates on my logs since last Monday (June 16) have all been wrong. He's right. The watch I have has a day/date function and though the day is always correct on it the date sometimes doesn't roll over. Don't know why. So I won't rely on my watch anymore for dates. I'll use my phone. But that's also the reason why I list the day with the date. The day is always right, so always go with that to start with.

Up at 7:00 AM. Boy, we're getting a lot of sleep. We certainly don't get a huge amount when we're under sail. Solid overcast, windy, actually too cool to sit in the cockpit without a shirt on. Temperature about 65. Remember, its winter here. Looks like rain. The high should be around 80.

Moved the boat to a dock, side tie to, so the riggers can get on the boat easily. Then I had to walk to a small grocery store about 100 yards away to buy some eggs. We're out. Bought 3 dozen.

Breakfast at 8:40 AM. Scrambled eggs, chilled peach halves and bread. Even though I never mention coffee, you can rest assured that we're having it. Our daily routine is to have a cup of coffee before breakfast, then breakfast, then another cup of coffee after breakfast. I can't cook breakfast and coffee at the same time unless I go to a smaller skillet. The two burner propane stove is only so wide. I may do that eventually. Start using a smaller skillet.

The three riggers showed up at about 10:00 AM, with the new back stay. Changing out the starboard back stay is a much bigger project than changing out the D1 lower shroud Wednesday. A much bigger and more difficult job. First, we had to take two spinnaker halyards and run them to the back of the boat to take the tension off of the back stays; then we took the main halyard and ran it back to also take the tension off of the back stays. Then we tightened down the main sheet and traveler; and then the boom vang. Then Joel had to loosen the SSB antennae on the port back stay. Then both back stays were disconnected from the turnbuckles holding them to the boat, and helping to hold the mast upright. Remember, if the mast comes down, our circumnavigation is over for this year. It's take a month or two to get a new mast and rigging installed. So now we basically have a mast that is no longer supported by our split, metal back stays but by rope halyards. And it is VERY windy today. Glad we're tied to a dock. Then we hoisted one of the riggers to the top of the mast, using the cabin top electric winch to do so. The top of the mast is 58 feet from the water. So the rigger is as high as a six story building. We could have hauled Joel up to the top, but I figured if anything goes wrong, I'd rather it be the riggers fault and not ours. At any rate, the reason we had to undue both back stays and not just the one that is broken is that the fitting at the top of the mast that the broken back stay has to be removed from holds both back stays. That's actually good, because if you had two separate fittings the back stays could unbalanced (?). Something like that. I'm not the technical guy. At any rate, the Fijian rigger was on top of the mast for about 45 minutes to an hour. Finally, he attached the new back stay while not dropping the pin holding both back stays together at the top of the mast. That would have been a BAD fumble. Once back on deck, we had to reattach both back stays to the turnbuckles on each side of the cockpit. Reattaching the new one was hard because Bruce, the main rigger, had cut this back stay shorter because the previous back stay was actually cut a little too long. Than God we had a good rigger fixing the boat. Getting the new back stay into the turnbuckle was tough because it was shorter. And it will stretch over time anyway. The job was done by 12:30 PM.

About this time I took my first Bactrim tablet. As I stated yesterday I'm going to try a different antibiotic instead of Doxycyline to finally get rid of the leg infection. The infection doesn't hurt, and it doesn't look ugly like it did 3 weeks ago. But its still there, oozing just a tiny bit every day. A drop. I'm also taking some Vitamin C and Zinc tablets. Heather from Adela said that that was something she does whenever she is trying to combat an infection in its early stages. Can't hurt.

We moved the boat back onto the mooring ball at 1:15 PM. Then we started pulling wires and rewiring the AIS antennae. The AIS splitter is bad, or so we think, so we're running an antennae without using the splitter. This will give us greater range on detecting boats and our boat being detected by other boats. We also tore off the metallic tape on the port window so we can put on new tape. Before doing this, however, we need to use mineral spirits and acetone to get rid of all the previous tape's residue.

I called the sail loft to see how our mainsail was doing on getting new spreader patches put on, and the owner told me that the current patches were sewed on, not glued, that they were in great condition,and that he only had to repair one small area and the sail was as good as new. He said we didn't need to extend the spreader patches to the first vertical batten as I'd requested. That the sail just didn't need it it was in such good shape. So I said OK. He also indicated that the 3 AIS pouches I'd given him were done (new belt loops sewed on), and that we could bring in the two parts of the dodger window Tuesday at 8:00 AM to get a new zipper installed. The zipper we have now is missing a couple of teeth, which makes it difficult to open and close this window. And the window is too 'tight.' We're going to have more slack put in the zipper so its not so tight to zip up and down anymore.

We headed into the marina to shower and shave (Joel only), then to the hair style saloon for a haircut. The saloon couldn't take us. Too busy. So we got an appointment Saturday morning at 11:00 AM.

Back on the boat at 5:15 PM. Had coffee. Read. And ate some REAL Oreo Cookies. Noticed that the huge catamaran NDS Darwin was tied up at the dock that we were at earlier in the day. They're in the rally with us. A 62 foot catamaran. Sitting in the cockpit, it was so cold with the wind that we closed the dodger window to cut the wind and cold down.

While checking email I received one from someone who was going to sail the entire Indian Ocean leg with us. Unfortunately, he had to back out of this leg due to family and business reasons. This is a two month leg from September 14 to November 12. So, anyone reading this log who wants to spend two months on our boat needs to send me or Joel an email indicating your interest. You don't have to be a world class sailor. But you can't get seasick and you need to stand watch. (Chuck from Tampa, this is a leg for you if you're interested). If we can't get someone we know to fill this slot, then I'll advertise in one of the cruising web sites for crew.

I finished another book, American Sniper. OK book, not great. The author was a Navy Seal but a jerk; and his neck was even too red for me. But he did get 160 confirmed sniper kills in Iraq and another 95 unconfirmed kills (no witnesses). So good job on that account.

We dingied into the marina for dinner at 6:30 PM. After ordering, we had to move to a warmer table. The restaurant even had some of those propane heaters on poles like I have at my house in Tampa. First time the restaurant has had them out this winter.

After dinner, back to the boat and another movie. This time is was Escape Plan, staring Sylvester Stalone and Arnold the ex CA Governor. I can't spell his last name. The movie wasn't that good. I'd give it 1 1/2 stars out of 4.

Lights out at 11:00 PM. Or was it 12:00 AM for me? Joel always goes to bed first when we're in port. He needs or wants 8 hours of sleep a night. I'm happy with a solid 5 1/2 or 6. I only need an 8 hour sleep every 2 or 3 weeks to get a full recharge. At any rate, under sail no one ever gets 8 hours at a stretch. And even 5 hours is not likely too often. Just because you're off watch for 5 hours doesn't mean you're sleeping the whole time.

Just as I finished typing this log I highlighted everything on this page and it disappeared. Prior to a week ago I would have said Oh sh..! and then retyped the whole thing. But I asked Joel how to 'recapture' what I'd deleted by mistake and he said all I had to do was hit 'edit' and 'undo.' That simple. And it works.

Brian Fox




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