Thursday March 10th, 2016
Today’s entry will be some technical stuff…I apologize in advance.
The blow continues. You do get tired of the constant bouncing, whistling, clanging and howling. Last night one of the boats upwind of us broke free of her anchor and was dragging. The crew was off the boat nearby having cocktails. I, on the other hand have a hard time leaving the boat when it is blowing like this. Even though the boat has been on this hook for several days and the holding is good you never know and it is hard to fix from ‘nearby’. The guy did get back to his boat just as it was about to drag into another Whitby (Just Deserts).
Recently it was Captain Rick’s birthday. He turned 70 and doesn’t act a day over 15…he does look old but don’t we all. Happy Birthday you old sock…Good luck in the Anegada race this weekend. Looks like fun
DARK AND STORMY REGATTA:
Date & time 11 March 2016 – 14 March 2016 Description Friday- Registration Party at De Looose Mongoose. Saturday – Skipper’s Breakfast at De Loose Mongoose. Race to Anegada. Start at Marina Cay and Finish at Anegada Reef Hotel. BBQ, Live Music & Dancing in the Sand. Sunday – Inter-Island Horseshoe Championships. Kite Building/Flying Contest. Sand Sculpture, Dinghy Race, Sightseeing, Flamingos, Beach Tours, Caribbean Dinner & Live Music. Monday – Pursuit Race back to Awards Party & Dinner at Nanny Cay – Peg Leg’s
Yesterday I worked on getting Fracas ready to move again. Changed all the cotter pins in the rig for the mizzen. Those cheap bastard cotter pins from China are not really stainless steel…they are temporarily stainless steel. Several of them came out in pieces and one was powder. They were all replaced with new ‘temporarily stainless pins and a schedule to replace them every six months. I also changed the oil and filters in the engine, transmission oil and installed a new transmission cooler. I also changed the sacrificial anodes in the engine and oil coolers. I tightened the belt and had a couple m’self.
The used oil disposal is interesting here. If you take it to the pickup truck near Red Boone café you will pay $2 bucks a jug to get rid of it. If Rodney from the “Harbour Services” (pump out boat) You will pay $3 bucks a jug. Regardless it is nice to be rid of the used oil and any potential spill on board. Yesterday we heard a rumour about how the used oil is disposed of ashore. I always thought they just burned it when they burned all the other trash…it seems not. The rumour is the locals pour it around their foundations to keep the snakes away from the houses. They tell the tourists that there aren’t any poisonous snakes on the island and yet they have a ring of used oil protecting themselves from non poisonous snakes…I wonder. Perhaps the oil limits their traction?
Today I will tackle the fuel system. All new filters for the primary and secondary’s. I will also begin to polish the fuel in the two tanks that are nearly full. I have a FilterBoss fuel polishing system that works great. It is basically a micro pump that circulates the fuel from the selected tank through a filter size of your choice. I usually filter the fuel for a few hours with a 10 micron filter. The fuel here is not suspicious but some of the guys say not to trust it completely…so I don’t. All the fuel I buy comes in 5 gallon jugs. I put the fuel in the keel tank and polish it into one of the other tanks. Then I polish the tank with a new filter again. It seems to be anal but with one auxiliary engine you need to do everything in your power to keep it going. A diesel engine needs so little to be reliable it seems stupid to not give it what she needs.
With the price of fuel so high ($4 per U.S. gallon here) it seems only appropriate to spend more money to increase the cost of the fuel. The fuel polisher is also an expensive device but I’m very happy that I installed one. Down here you have to battle questionable fuel and algae. It is relatively easy to use, just check the pressure gauge to monitor the condition of the filter…when it gets into the red, drain the filter body and drop in a new filter and go again. I have polished down to 2 micron but that’s likely a little much for Fracas’ old tractor engine.
When I installed the fuel polisher I also installed an inline electric fuel pump. This gives me redundancy should the mechanical pump fail and also makes it dumb ass simple to fill and prime the engine fuel system.
I would like to put another 50 or so gallons into the system before we leave but the sea state here in the harbour is making that a little dicey. It’s not unsafe it’s just very wet in a dinghy. I am also out of rum so a trip to town is going to happen.
ML was making bread while all the engine work was underway. Yesterdays bread was amazing.
Glad to see that the Canadian Peso is gaining a little against the U.S. dollar…keep up the good work.