Let’s start by saying Merry Christmas to everyone.  Ok, I know it is not Christmas quite yet, but as they say, it is the thought that counts.

We flew back to Grenada in one long shot – almost 28 hours.  Aside from a lot of time in airplanes and airports, it went well, but we were tired when we got here.  The guardhouse at the marina was supposed to have a key to our hotel room here – but surprise, surprise, they didn’t.  They called around (this was a 10:00 at night) but no one seemed to be able to help.  We finally got a room at a small B&B where we could sleep for the night.

Making a long story short, despite my having arranged everything a month and a half earlier – someone forgot to enter all this into the computer.  The next day the Allander (the marina’s super effective manager) managed to sort everything out and we got our hotel room.

For those of you who are not long-term cruisers, this is normal – never trust a boatyard to do anything right.  Surprisingly, Capri was bottom painted and polished.  Unfortunately, the guys who had polished had knocked off some of the lettering on the side and hadn’t bothered to pick up the letters.  So we have to order new letters.

Vinni and I spent a couple of days doing the boat things we needed to do before Capri could splash and 3 days later the lift lowered Capri into the water and we were happy.  A boat should not be on the hard – it should be in the water, where it belongs.  We had reserved 3 days in a slip to get everything else done before sailing away……………….

Ahhh – you thought I was going to tell a short story with a happy ending – didn’t you?  This is a boat story and nothing ever goes as planned.  While Vinni was busy doing other important things, I was opening seacocks and making sure there were no problems.  I opened the big seacock from our holding tank that empties the holding tank (black water) into the ocean.

Or rather, I pulled hard on the valve handle and it didn’t move.  Hmm, stuck.  Ok, that has happened before, just get into a better position where I can get some more leverage and pull much harder. I pulled until my muscles started complaining.  No movement, not even a millimeter.

I worked on that valve for an hour and it never moved.  There was only one solution – it needed to be changed.  Unfortunately, the valve and the whole assembly is under the water line, so we need to haul Capri out again and then change the whole valve/thruhull assembly.  There are several issues here. 

1. I don’t have the big (2-inch) wrenches necessary to remove the old assembly and mount the new.  I could buy the wrenches, but this is big job and difficult for one person.
2. Parts – a bronze 2-inch ball valve, a bronze thruhull and a bronze elbow plus 2-inch sanitation hose are not items you find everywhere.  In Denmark, I could source these within 24 hours, on Grenada, this can take weeks.
3. The marina closes for Christmas holidays on December 20 and doesn’t reopen until after New Year’s.  So if this is going to get done, it has to be before December 20.
4. The companies here that do this type of work are all fully booked; we are negotiating with one that says they think they can fit us in.
5. Well, Christmas came early!!!!  I had no expectations of success, but went into the chandlery here in the yard.  It is not very big and doesn’t carry a huge assortment.  I walked over to the area where they keep the ball vales etc and what did I find?  A huge box was being unpacked and there was everything we need.  A 2-inch ball valve, thruhull and elbow.  Unbelievable and Christmas has come early.

So now, we can only wait until tomorrow to find out if we can get this changed.  We have booked a haul out for early next week.  The company we were negotiating with has a sub-supplier they trust who can change the valve.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Of course, all this means we are unable to use our toilet. 

Hmmmm

So we are using a bucket.  Vinni does nothing but moan and bitch (or bitch and moan), saying it simply isn’t proper for a woman her age to be peeing in a bucket.  And her muscles aren’t in good enough shape to be able to squat over a bucket.  And besides $#¤%&$£…………………

Well, you get the gist.  I tried to mention that this is once again an area where men are superior to women (peeing in a bucket that is), but she didn’t like that comment for some reason (I’m not sure why, seemed perfectly logical to me).

No matter what, we are still better off than this 50-foot monohull that came in and hauled out a week ago.  They are flying the ARC 2024 flag meaning they sailed across the Atlantic with the ARC (a rally for cruisers, usually a couple of hundred boats leave the Canary Islands at the same time).  They would have arrived in the Caribbean in the beginning of December.  They hauled out because they had torn off the bottom half of their rudder.  We heard that they spent about 8 hours with their rudder solidly lodged in a coral reef and finally got loose when the rudder broke.

So they managed perhaps a week of Caribbean cruising.  Now, the boat will be on the hard until they get a new rudder, which will certainly take most of the way into the New Year.

Truly sad and a reminder that what we do is not without dangers.  When see something like that, we always shudder and think; there but for the grace of God go we……………………….

Other notes to let you know what we are doing – both Vinni and I put on several kilos when we were in Denmark – too much good food, wine and the fine company of good friends.  So once again, we are on a diet.  I need to lose 8-9 kilos, Vinni less.  So no sundowners, few carbohydrates, more exercise and isn’t life just dreadful?  A wise man once said – you gain weight in kilos, but lose weight in grams.

I hate wise men.

On to other more cheerful news.  Amongst many smaller issues, there are a couple of larger ones.  Our bow thruster only turns the boat to starboard.  Turning to port doesn’t happen.  Just like everything else on a boat, diagnosing this problem is simple in theory, but virtually impossible in practice.  The bow thruster is located underneath the forward berth.  The electrical connections are turned in against the hull, requiring two elbows, three wrists and many fingers to get a probe in.  All this, of course, while the rest of your body in contorted in ways that would make an escape artist envious. 

Turns out the solenoid and master relay are bad.  We need to order these, which will take a couple of weeks so we have ordered them to be delivered to Martinique.

Our radar is also on the fritz.  The little motor that turns the radar array has died and a new one in needed.  These are not easy to get – we are still waiting for confirmation that we can get one.

Oh, the joys of boat ownership……………………

But we don’t want to cheat you of a picture of our Christmas tree.  This little tree was purchased 8 years ago on St. Lucia for $5 and has traveled with us ever since – the lights still work!

UPDATE-UPDATE-UPDATE

I can hear you asking – “So did they get the thruhull changed?  Without incident?  Inquiring minds want to know!”

Friends – I’m not sure you can handle the truth! (ok – I stole that line from the movie, “A few good men”).  Here we go.  As I noted above, Christmas came early, I could buy all the parts, which I immediately did, before anyone else could snatch them.  We hauled out and the fun could begin.  The old valve and thruhull were frozen solid, no way to unscrew them.  Out came the angle grinder and with a delicate touch grind some slots in the outside ring of the thruhull, then break off that ring with a chisel and hammer –all the while ensuring the fiberglass hull is not damaged.

Excellent – only a couple of hours work and things are already looking up – it should be a cinch to install the new parts.

I mean – how hard can it be?

It’s a boat, so it can be very hard.  And always filled with complications and complications on top of complications.  The new parts when put together are just a bit too long to fit, jamming against a bulkhead.  No problem, we can just cut off a piece from the thruhull section.

We decide to make a dry run, assembling everything the way it should be without sealant to make sure it will all fit.

Oops!  The threads on the thruhull are different that those on the valve.  The valve is NPT and the thruhull has a parallel thread.

#”¤#&#¤!  and more words unfit for mixed or polite company.  There is no solution readily at hand.  The chandlery doesn’t have a thruhull with the right threads so now we have to get creative.  A very light (VERY LIGHT) touch with an angle grinder on the threads of the thruhull allow us to get it 4 threads into the valve – that will have to be enough, but it means the whole assembly is now still too long to fit.

We cut another centimeter off the thruhull, grind the threads again, and now it will fit. Using a lot of elbow grease and curse words and skinned knuckles, it finally goes and gets tightened down securely.

The big question is; is it watertight?  No way to know until we splash, which we do later that afternoon.

It seems to be watertight, so Vinni and I sail out into bay to drop anchor (in the middle of a squall).  Hook safely down, we kiss and congratulate ourselves on a repair well done, have a drink and dinner and to bed early.

Next morning a 6:00am just after I get up, the bilge pump starts.

Bilge pump?

Uuh – Houston, we have a problem.

Bilge = leak.  The very last thing you want to hear on your boat after you have replaced the biggest thruhull (2”) on the boat is the bilge pump starting up.  This kind of things leads to major heart attacks.  Our immediate thoughts are that the valve repair is leaking.  A thorough inspection reveals no leak there.  Further inspection, all through the boat, shows no leaks.  It turns out is the hose from the bilge to the bilge pump.  The pump is located about a meter higher than the bilge and when it pumps the bilge dry, the hose is still full of water.  When Capri is then jiggled, the water from the hose runs back into the bilge and the cycle starts all over again.

Thank God, no problems.  We emptied the bilge with a sponge and that means there is no water in the hose.

Next item is the watermaker. It has been pickled for almost 6 months so it needs a thorough flush.  After flushing for 10 minutes, we fired it up and it produced the usual clean fresh tasting water.

You know, of course, that in a way these problems are a good thing.  If we didn’t have all these maintenance issues then we wouldn’t have anything to do all day and we would just end up drinking from morning to evening………………………………

A little later today, we will sail around to the other side of the island and clear out.  Tomorrow we sail northward for Union Island.

Once again a Merry Christmas.