Friday, June 9, 2017

Boat Works in Trinidad II

So, we've run out of our 2nd visa extension here in Trinidad. 255 days have come and gone, and we still have a long list of boat projects and repairs to do before we can launch, albeit shorter than when we first arrived in September last year.

Our engine, which was one of the main items on our to do list, unfortunately could not be completed in time! Just as we were close to putting the engine back together, we discovered the crankshaft pulley was not seated straight on the crankshaft. Of course, we accidentally discovered this only after a week of troubleshooting why the pulleys for the alternator belt didn't align. Well, looks like a replacement crankshaft pulley is on the shopping list.

We'll be flying out to Miami tomorrow for a visa run. Looking forward to the 6 day break! {very excited} Even though I know we'll be running around looking for boat parts, it'll be a nice change of scenery. There's a limit to how long one can live in a boatyard without a break no matter how "lovely" the boatyard may be.

Hopefully the new pulley will resolve our issue, and we can finally get the engine installed upon our return.. And sail again?

 Here's a quick update on what we've been up to since our 'Boat Works in Trinidad' post.

Jobs completed:

Painted markers on anchor chain
Applied linseed oil on anchor chain
Replaced all clam shells under the boat
Installed anchor windlass in anchor locker
Replaced engine for dive compressor (Bauer)
Painted our engine (Yanmar)
Installed new engine mounts (Polyflex)
Installed new insulation in engine compartment
Serviced steering wheel chain
Re-sealed windows in saloon on starboard side
Re-sealed chain plate on starboard side
Replaced bungee cords on shade cloth
Added a spin-out in the head


Jobs In Progress/Not Started:

Re-assemble dive compressor
Re-assemble main engine
Re-bed remaining deck fittings
Install backing plates for all deck fittings (cleats, winches, clutches, etc)
Paint the galley, head, port side forward cabin
Repair crack in starboard forward cabin bulkhead
Service outboard engine (Yamaha)
Re-seal front windows in saloon
Re-seal chain plate on port side

Replaced all clam shells under the boat
Installed new insulation in engine compartment
Installed anchor windlass in anchor locker
Serviced Steering Wheel Chain
Painted markers on anchor chain at every 5m
Applied Boiled Linseed Oil on Anchor Chain
Re-sealed windows in saloon on starboard side
That's all for now! Miami here we come!
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Thursday, June 1, 2017

List of Sailing Blogs


Five years ago, I started a blog account but was too self conscious about my writing skills or lack thereof to post anything. I'm not a gifted writer; my vocabulary is limited and my grammar is somewhat of a hit and miss. So you can understand why I wasn't ready to share that with the world.

So why now? Well, perhaps I'm a little older, my skin is a little thicker or hopefully it's because I'm a little wiser to know that I can't always worry about what others might think. But it was really after chatting with our dear friends about our travels late last year, that I realised it's such a good idea to have a blog as a way for us to document our travels. Let's face it, we're not getting any younger; I can barely remember what we did last week! 

It's been 5 years, 2 oceans, 18,750 nautical miles and 19 countries. It's very unlikely I'm going to remember our journey in detail 10 years down the line {okay, realistically a year, at best.. two years}. Of course I'll always remember that time when we were chased by five different Sri Lankan fishing boats, or when the water was so rough the helm fell off or when we were drifting in the Indian Ocean for 5 days and subsequently saved by the US Navy. 

 But that only accounts for about 5% of our travels. Would like to look back and remember all the places we visited, what we ate, the people we met, the repairs we did, etc, etc and share the stories with our family and friends. So good writer or not, I decided to face my fears and just blog it {yikes}. 

Since then, I've been searching for fellow sailing blogs to follow and oh my, there are many wonderful blogs out there. I truly enjoy reading their stories and getting their perspective on life aboard. It's also comforting to know that we're not the only ones on a budget with a never ending list of boat projects & repairs.

Here's a list of blogs I found inspiring and informational. There are plenty of lists already but I wanted to have one of our own because it never hurts to keep sharing :)




We hope you'll enjoy our blog as much as we enjoy these blogs.

If you'd like your blog on the list, please drop us a comment and we'll be happy to add you in! ;)
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Tuesday, May 30, 2017

May 2017 | MONTH IN REVIEW


Here's a quick summary of what we were up to this month.

  • The rainy season came early this year and was officially announced on May 12th.
  • It's been almost 9 months, and we're still working through our ever growing list of boat projects and repairs. We're slowly making progress, but many times it's like we're regressing {big time}. It's one step forward, few steps back.
  • We spent a lot of time re-assembling the engine, but hit a roadblock with the alignment of the alternator belt. We spent another couple of weeks troubleshooting it.
  • We also replaced the insulation in the engine compartment, serviced the steering wheel chain, replaced the nuts and bolts at the base of the jib stay and back stays (read '8 Bolts in 5 hours!' post).
  • To be honest, it's been kinda hard trying to keep motivated. The never ending work list really takes a toll on us.
  • We met our friend Rene on S/Y Yoyo again whom we met when we first arrived in Powerboats in 2015.
  • We tried our best to complete the jobs before our 2nd visa extension expires (June 13th). But realistically, we knew it wasn't going to happen, so last week, we bought the cheapest tickets we could find to Miami, Florida.

Check out our posts this month:

How to Remove Rust Stains from Fiberglass | FSR Review

8 Bolts in 5 Hours!

Recipe | Alex's Famous Salad


April 2017 | MONTH IN REVIEW >>

June 2017 | MONTH IN REVIEW <<

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Saturday, May 27, 2017

Photo of the Day | 2017-05-27


Here's our photo of the day! Super-sized bag of chips from PriceSmart in Trinidad @ 425.2 grams! 😃 Placed our 4½ inch teddy bear in an attempt to illustrate its size. We're used to the usual 184.2 gram bags, you can imagine how our eyes lit up in delight! 😆 {okay, so Alex will deny that his eyes lit up, but he sure had his fair share of the chips}


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Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Recipe | Alex's Famous Salad


Alex's Famous Salad
If you're salad lovers like us, do try out Alex's salad recipe. It's famous! ;) Finally decided to post this so that we could share it with our friends and family. A healthy, hearty dish for you and your loved ones.

Serves: 2-4 people

Ingredients:


Base Salad
  •     1 Red Onion (finely sliced)
  •     1 Red Capsicum (diced)
  •     6-8 Tomatoes (diced)
  •     4 Cucumbers (preferably Lebanese - sliced)
  •     1 Apple (Granny Smith or Pink Lady - diced)
  •     1 Eggplant (cubed & pan fried)
  •     ¼ cup of Cashew Nuts (roasted, unsalted)
  •     Handful of Snow Peas (sliced)
  •     ½-1 Avocado (cubed)
  •     Cheddar cheese (cubed)

 Season With
  •     Salt
  •     White Pepper
  •     Fresh Lemon/Lime juice
  •     Olive Oil
  •     1 tablespoon of Apple Cider Vinegar (optional)
  •     Sour Cream (optional with chicken)

Variations (choose at least 5 others)
  •     Handful of Alfalfa/Bean Sprouts
  •     Handful of Baby Spinach
  •     4-5 Red Radishes (sliced)
  •     1 small White Radish (sliced)
  •     4-5 Eggs (soft boiled & chopped)
  •     4-5 White Mushrooms (sliced & pan fried)
  •     Chicken (pan fried & cubed)
  •     Coriander (chopped)
  •     Bok Choy (chopped & pan fried)
  •     Asparagus (pan fried, but still firm) 
  •     Zucchini (cubed & pan fried)
  •     Feta Cheese
  •     Smoked Salmon

Method:

  1. In a large bowl, add all the prepared ingredients.
  2. Season and mix it all up.
  3. That's it!
In this combination we (by "we" I really mean Alex) made the base salad with bean sprouts, baby spinach, red radish, white radish, mushrooms, chicken and sour cream. See photo's below.

Radishes, Snow Peas, Capsicum
Apple, Cheese, Baby Spinach
Cucumbers, Onion, Mushrooms
Tomatoes
Pan fried Chicken breast
Cut Chicken into cubes
Season, Mix & Enjoy!
We hope you'll enjoy this recipe!

If you made this, we'd love to hear about it! :)

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Friday, May 19, 2017

8 Bolts in 5 Hours!

Today we replaced 8 bolts at the base of our jib stay (the stay on which the jib is set). It took us 5 hours to complete the job! Yes, that's right 8 bolts in 5 hours. 

Very glad we decided to change them though, because 6 out of the 8 bolts were so badly corroded that when we tried to remove them, either the head of the bolt or the nut at the bottom snapped off; a couple of them even snapped off at both ends!


Corroded bolt snapped off at both ends
Base of the jib stay (view from under the boat)
A close up of the bolts replaced on the Starboard side (excuse the Sikaflex mess)
It was a real hassle but definitely necessary. We shudder to think what might happen if they snapped off at sea. It would without a doubt be a real challenge. Not one that we'd want to take on if we could avoid it.

 The next day, we decided to replace the 8 bolts for the back stays as well. Fortunately, none of those bolts were as corroded as the ones on the jib stay so replacing them were easy peasy.

Before (port side)

After (port side)

The Old vs New - Nuts & Bolts

Just another typical day's work on the boat.


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Wednesday, May 10, 2017

How To Remove Rust Stains From Fiberglass | FSR Review

 
If we're not fixing leaks or fighting corrosion, we're cleaning rust stains... and we have a lot of them on our deck {oh! the horror}. Mostly from our stainless steel deck fittings and screws! Wait a minute.. doesn't stainless mean no stains i.e. no rust!? Um... no.. {sighs} Alex was quick to enlighten me that unfortunately stainless just means stain-less i.e more resistant to rust, staining and corrosion than regular steel! {oh.. :( so it still stains.. just less.. hmpf}


One day, on one of his many "shopping" trips to Budget Marine, Alex decides to buy this tub of FSR Fiberglass Stain Remover ($85.50 TTD). A non-abrasive light bluish stain absorbing gel, made in USA. According to the manufacturer, it's safe to use on white painted surfaces even gel-coat; great for exhaust and waterline stains, removes oil, rust from stainless steel stanchions and railings as well as road dirt from RV's and boats. Sounds fantastic!


So I put it to the test. The instructions were simple enough. I used a sponge (you can also use a brush or a cloth) to apply the gel on the affected area; left it to work its magic for about 20 minutes (or more) and wiped it off (you can also rinse off with water). No scrubbing required.
 
Before
Several applications for the tough spots
After - What do you think? Probably could do with another round?

I would say it works, those stains from the cleats have been there for quite some time (as we left Raptor on the hard for 16 months). It took several applications, but remove them it did {well most of it}. The less stubborn or more "recent" stains, came off in one or two applications.  

Besides cleaning off the rust stains, we had to re-bed the deck fittings. This meant digging out rotted wood in the deck core (this happens because the fittings weren't bedded properly the first time), filling it with epoxy, re-drilling the holes and re-bedding them with sikaflex, but that's another story..

If you're looking to clean rust stains without much elbow grease and don't mind spending some money, you can get this on eBay (~$15.47 USD), Amazon (~$13.64 USD) or your local chandlery/hardware store.


This was our experience with FSR. Hope this helps. If you know of any other way to remove rust stains from the deck/fiberglass, we'd love to hear it! :)

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Sunday, April 30, 2017

April 2017 | MONTH IN REVIEW


Here's quick summary of what we were up to this month. 

  • We re-painted the surface on which the windlass sits and re-installed the windlass in the anchor locker.
  • Last month we removed the fiberglass panel in the head (part of the shower) to access the bolts on the sail track. We were surprised to discover that there were no nuts on those bolts! It's obvious the sail track was installed after the shower. Even though it's only about a meter of the entire ~6.5 meter track that had missing nuts, it's not something we'd like to take our chances on. So we added a backing plate and replaced the bolts and added nuts before re-sealing the panel again.
  • We spent a lot of time studying the Yanmar Parts Catalog. Not only to identify all the gaskets and o-rings we needed to order, but also as a reference guide to re-assemble the engine.
  • We met new friends Walter and Ae (from Australia & Thailand) on S/Y Baan Mai, who turned out to be friends of Rolf and Daniela. :)
  • Another month of hard work! How do we keep our spirits up? We treated ourselves to a tub of Haagen Daz ice cream of course! {an early birthday celebration for Alex!}

Check out our posts this month:

How To Customise Your Blog on Blogger

Installing New Engine Mounts

 

March 2017 | MONTH IN REVIEW >>

May 2017 | MONTH IN REVIEW <<


Ice Cream!

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Tuesday, April 25, 2017

How To Customise Your Blog on Blogger

Several days ago, the free third party template that we were using on our blog stopped working properly. The cool photo slider feature for each post unfortunately crashed (no idea why) and no idea where to even start looking, let alone try to understand or edit the six thousand lines of HTML code.

After several failed attempts to restore the template, tired and frustrated, I decided to do away with the fancy pre-designed template and start afresh with one of the simple theme blogger templates available and customise it on my own.

Sure - the blog doesn't look as fancy as it did before, but at least it's ours, and we can build the code slowly. Perhaps one day we'll be able to customise it with some of those fancy features we lost. Who knows.

It's amazing what you can find on the Internet. Plenty of information on how to do this and how to do that, but of course not all are worthy. You have to search and read through a whole load of -- to find what you're looking for.. (for me at least)

Anyway, thought it might be useful to share the links I found. If you're interested in personalising your blog, check out some of the things you can do below.

But before you start (based on experience), I would highly recommend to:

1 - 'Backup' your template often and before you make any major changes. In case you don't already know where that is, go to

Theme > Backup/Restore > Download Theme

If things go wrong, you can always restore your old theme with the backup file.


2 - Always add notes/comments to explain what the code does so that you can find it at a later date or if the changes didn't work, you can edit/remove it. 

HTML Comment Tag: <!-- notes/comments --> 

 CSS Comment Tag: /* notes/comments */

Any texts within those comment tags will not be interpreted.


So here are the links:

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Saturday, April 1, 2017

Installing New Engine Mounts

After we finished spray painting the engine parts. It was time to install our new engine mounts. 

Check out our rusty old engine mount on the left below (which we've replaced multiple times throughout our journey), and the new Poly Flex ones we installed on the right. These mounts are moulded from heat cured polymer alloys which are long lasting and oil/fuel resistant! Let's hope they'll perform as advertised.

Old Mount 
(one of the better looking ones)
New Mount
(made of polymer = no rust)
The new mounts are unfortunately a lot taller than the original mounts. So we had to make some modifications to our engine "rack". See photo's below.

Cut out wood for new mount
Nothing is ever simple or easy to access - Alex had to cut the wood from under the boat
Next, sand and level the surfaces
Apply layers of fiberglass with epoxy
Sand & measure to ensure that the surfaces are level
Note: We had to add more fiberglass & epoxy on some areas
Sand, measure till satisfied & drill holes for the mounts
Install mounts, measure and adjust till the mounts are level

Time consuming process but finally installed, leveled and ready for the engine! It always feels good to scratch an item off our very very long list! ;)


Other related posts:

Hauling Out Our Engine

Spray Painting Our Yanmar Engine

How To Clean A Heat Exchanger

Rebuilding Our Yanmar Engine

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Friday, March 31, 2017

March 2017 | MONTH IN REVIEW


Here's quick summary of what we were up to this month.

  • As some of you may know, we hauled out our engine last November. We have been working on it sporadically -- disassembling the engine & cleaning each part thoroughly in the last couple of months.  
  • We de-greased, stripped off old paint, sanded and treated the metal in preparation to be painted which we finally completed this month!
  • With our engine still hauled out, we applied for another visa extension. We are thankful it was approved but the Immigration officer very kindly told us that we better finish our boat projects by the end of this 2nd visa extension as they will not give us a third. Another $100 TTD/person for 3 more months. New visa expiry date: 13th June 2017.
  • I'd like to say that we accomplished a lot since we got back onboard last September even though the list is still long. 6 months worth of work (read 'Boat Works in Trinidad' post). Nothing on a boat is ever easy and straightforward. When you think a job takes 1-2 days, multiple that by 3 or more..
  • We started watching Season 1 of Black Sails, "a pirate adventure that centers on the tales of Captain Flint, who has a reputation throughout the West Indies as being the most brilliant, most feared of all the Golden Age pirates." Argh...
  • We can't wait to sail the Caribbean, but the sailing season ends in June. Will we get our engine back up and running in time?! 

Check out our posts this month:

Hauling Out Our Engine

Boat Works in Trinidad

Spray Painting Our Yanmar Engine

How To Clean A Heat Exchanger

Visa Extension in Trinidad (Updated)

 

February 2017 | MONTH IN REVIEW >>

April 2017 | MONTH IN REVIEW <<

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