Month: December 2014

December 16, 2014

Dear New Caledonia,

All our bags are packed and we’re ready to go. I’m not happy about it. I hate to leave you, but we’ll be back, next season I hope. You’ve been so kind to us – your wonderful people and your beautiful land. We haven’t even seen your islands – stunning by all accounts.

We were going to depart today at 3PM but you blew a little bit to keep us here one more night. Thank you! Now I know you’ll be kind and let us slip gently away in light wind and smooth seas tomorrow morning. That’s just how you roll, isn’t it?

We’re headed to Australia – Bundaberg we hope, but maybe Brisbane and maybe Coffs Harbor. We’ll see how the wind blows. It should take us six or seven days, putting us in on Christmas eve if we’re lucky or Christmas day if we’re not (in this case, we’re probably spending Christmas in quarantine, oh well).

In the mean time, happy holidays to everyone who treads these pages. Peace and Blessings. Rich and Cyndi

December 16, 2014 in Noumea, New Caledonia

Before…

After…

Yum! Escargot!

At, where else? Mr. Boeuf (Mr. Beef to you yanks!)

Oh yea, they also have great burgers…

December 15, 2014

This carton, purchased yesterday in Noumea, New Caledonia, breaks our three year Ben and Jerry’s drought. Can you even imagine!?! Three years without Ben and Jerry’s?

December 12, 2014 from Noumea, New Caledonia

We may have had a little more broken stuff this cruising season than during others, but nothing way out of line…

Probably not as bad as these guys above have it! Here’s a list in no particular order.

• • • • Radar – we’re now on our 4th raydome. I still love my Simrad 4G radar! (And that they’ve replaced it in Bora Bora, New Zealand and most recently, Fiji.)
      • Inverter – from Legacy’s previous owner. It probably provided 20 years of service. Not bad. Good thing I carried a spare – I did that because it was one of the few pieces of electronic equipment we didn’t replace before this cruise.

• • 
  • Cabin Fan – another Hella fan bites the dust. I hate these things and I’ll never buy another one. They’re expensive and they don’t hold up. And why do they have to be so hard to clean!!!

• • 
  • Double Block – one on the boom vang is about broken. We’ll fix or replace it here in New Caledonia.

• • 
  • Solar Panel Fuse – this is a scary one. We used an automotive type fuse with a holder made for marine use. The contact resistance was so high, it melted the fuse. We replaced it with an identical spare we had onboard and a week later, the same thing happened. I won’t use these again.

• • • Bilge Blower – since these aren’t rated for continuous duty, and we run the blower at all times while the engine is running, I guess frequent replacement is to be expected.
    • Outboard Gas Cap – on our new Suzuki outboard. What a crap design! Its failure caused water in the gas and a real mess in the carburetor (which I’ll have to replace soon).
    • Outboard Carburetor – see above.
    • Dripless Shaft Seal – isn’t dripless any longer. I think we just got a bad one. The problem was exacerbated by the two starboard side engine mount nuts which worked their way loose, misaligning the engine.

• • • Engine Mounts – not really a failure, but the nuts came loose. See item above.

• • 
  • Broken Water Pump Belt – I think it was just old. It disintegrated, even with little stress on it. I think all my spare belts are old and will not last. I bought new spares in Fiji.

• • Seagull Water Filter Hose – didn’t survive a filter change. No surprise, they’re 20 years old.
  • Macerator Pump – again. We don’t use it often, but it seems like every time we need it, it fails. I’m tired of replacing them. I just messed with this one and now it’s working – at least until the next time we need it.
  • Stereo – A wire shorted. Burnt insulation, smoke and no music. I don’t really know why. Maybe bad insulation?
  • Batteries – our AGM batteries gave up. We replaced these expensive, two and a half year old Lifeline batteries in Fiji. Bummer. Expensive bummer. (More)

• • Battery Monitor – as our batteries were going, we realized we didn’t have an amp hour meter that really showed our power situation. We installed a new one. (More)

• Scanner – can’t seem to keep one working onboard.
• Printer – can’t seem to keep one working onboard. This time we tried an inexpensive laser printer and it was as short-lived in the marine environment as the inkjet printers we’ve unsuccessfully tried.
• Phone Charger – I think the RF form our HF radio killed it. It was a Qi wireless charger for our Nexus 5 phone.
• Windlass – a solenoid rusted and failed. I knew they were questionable and I should have replaced both of them before we left on this trip, but I didn’t. I paid the price, though minor, when it quit in Fiji. I didn’t have to lift the anchor by hand. I just hot-wired the solenoid. The auto parts store in Savusavu had suitable replacements.
• Shower Sump Pump – I tried everything to fix it. Even found a rebuild kit in Fiji. After the rebuild, it still wouldn’t pump water. I found that the vented loop on the discharge line was completely clogged. Oh well, now we have a rebuilt shower sump pump (and a cleaned out vented loop).
• Shower Hose – yep, the new one we installed in NZ. It got an aneurysm and exploded! Replaced it with some extra fuel hose. (More)
• ICOM Command Mic – I hate ICOM gear. What happened to their quality control?! This one was less than a year old. The last one didn’t make it much longer. I took it apart and did some soldering on the corroded pc board and it’s working, for now.
• Head Y Valve – frozen in place, as usual. Replaced. I vowed to move it back and forth at least every month. That was about 5 months ago and I haven’t thought about it until now. It’s probably frozen again!
• Shaft Brush – I’ve fixed the squeak at least four times. Next haul-out, I’ll try a different brand and design.

And the season ain’t over yet! I hope this list doesn’t get extended. Wish us luck.

I think this is just a part of the cruising life. If it weren’t a boat, we’d be fixing the porch and patching the roof (let’s not even talk about car troubles). I am glad that I am able to fix all this stuff myself. Otherwise, I’d probably spend a lot of time sitting in port, wait for repair people who are often incompetent, unscrupulous, tardy, or all of the above. -Rich

December 11, 2014

OK, for more reasons than just a huge selection of reasonably priced alcohol, but what a treat it is to see one of our favorites, Laphroig, at $70 a bottle instead of $250 as it was in Fiji. Needless to say, it’s been a long time since we’ve had any Laphroig. (There are almost 100 South Pacific Francs to the US dollar.)