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American Spirit II - Day 169; Another Slow Day in Port Denarau Marina; Monday, June 23, 2014



Up at 7:35 AM. Coffee and breakfast.

I left the boat at 10:00 AM to go book some excursions when daughter Angela and husband Chet arrive June 29. Then was able to get our mooring assignment extended 3 more days. Getting the extension was huge. Would have complicated matters if we had to leave our mooring ball before we were ready to do so. Joel picked up the mainsail from the sail loft and we headed back to the boat.

Once at the boat we put up the mainsail. Not as easy as it sounds. We had to attached two shackles to the head and foot of the sail first. These shackles were to be placed inside of the mast. Performing this procedure (getting the shackle pins into the shackle while its in the mast) is a task that needs to be done perfectly. If the shackle pin or shackle itself is allowed to fall down into the mast cavity, its not going to be recoverable. Once the shackles were attached to the sail and the outhaul line was tied off at the end of the boom, we started raising the sail. As we did so, we had to stop 4 times to insert the vertical battens back into the sail. These battens were about 4-5 feet long and made of fiberglass. Once the mainsail was up we rolled it back up into the mast. When the mainsail was off the boat the roller mechanism in the mast would bang occasionally when a boat came by and their wake would rock our boat just a little. Aluminum on aluminum. It was annoying at times. More so for Joel as the mast is nearer the V-berth than the rear cabin.

After that I swept and cleaned the main cabin and bleach cleaned the bathroom (head in nautical parlance). Joel cleaned the cockpit area. We had invited Tommy and Marianne from II Audeacious over for dinner at 6:00 PM, so the boat needed to be 'inspection clean.'

Dinner consisted of champagne, red wine, Captain Morgan, chips and salsa, grilled marinated chicken legs, baked potatoes with New Zealand butter, creamed corn, vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce and topped off with cappuccino (coffee). Its always a joy having dinner with Tommy and Marianne. Unfortunately they will be leaving the rally in Australia to head home to San Francisco (the left coast). We'll have to find another boat to chase around the oceans as we continue westward towards home.

After dinner Joel did dishes, which was a new 6 month record with the amount of items needing to be washed. We then took off the dodger center window and starboard side window so I could drop them off at the sail repair company at 8:00 AM tomorrow morning. Two teeth on one of the zippers had broken off, making it difficult to zipper the center window up and down. The tension between the zippers was also too tight and I was going to have the zippers 'separated' so they zipped up easier. Of course it started to rain while we were doing this.

At 10:00 PM I went to bed as Joel was still up trying to add to his Sudoku record of games played before his brain self-destructed for playing so many. A rare event, my going to bed before Joel while in port.

Brian Fox



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