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Larry's LogDiane had gone shopping during the morning and I had asked her to get some new polysulphide caulk since the tubes I had were in the trash. I didn't need much and a small tube would be fine, but she came back with a 10-ounce tube that would need a caulk gun. Fortunately, Eric on Driftwood let me borrow his, so I had all the materials needed. After Diane came back and I had finished doing the epoxy work, we went into shore to take showers and go to the Friday night Happy Hour at the Rum Squall bar. We saw all our friends there and had a good time socializing. They also do a barbeque but we decided to skip it as Diane already had Eggplant Parmesan (with real mozzarella cheese) on the menu at home. That night was a little uncomfortable since the wind had gone very calm. Typically, there is a nice breeze to keep the boat cool but that night it was hot. We ran the fans but they really don't help too much. We slept, but not well. The next morning I finished the chainplate by sanding the new epoxy surface and cleaning it with alcohol. I mounted the chainplate on the bulkhead and put the new caulk in. Hopefully it will not leak anymore, at least not for a few years. I was going to start on the forward lower chainplate but it was too hot and too late in the day to start, so I cleaned the tools with WD40 and checked the ones that I had found sitting in water the day before. Most were OK after some more cleaning but some were a lost cause. Luckily not too many and I can replace them either in Trinidad or when we go home for a visit. We then went to shore for a brief swim and a shower before going to Mexican Night on Legacy. Joe and Ruth were giving this party and it was tonight. About 20 people were coming and everyone was bringing a "Mexican" dish. Diane had made enchiladas. At 5:30 we went over to Legacy, about 30 yards away. Kristali was there already and soon dinghies started to arrive. The food was excellent, the weather good as it cooled off from the heat of the day, and there was dancing, not to Latin musica, but to Rock and Roll from the 60's. Everyone had a blast. Sunday morning I started working on another chainplate. It wasn't leaking but I thought it might be next, so I figured that while the weather was good I would start it. It was a very hot day and not much wind. As usual, the boats in Mt. Hartman Bay were swinging in all directions but at one point the wind came around to the South (very unusual) and everyone swung that way. At about 11am, I was working on deck, Diane was on the laptop, and the engine was running to charge the batteries. Diane called up to me to say that she thought that the boat was in gear. I assured her that it was not but as I came back to the cockpit, I could see the bottom of the bay. Typically, the water had been too deep and murky so I asked Diane to turn on the depth sounder and I saw that the boat was in only about 7 feet of water. Since we draw about 7 feet, we were bouncing on the bottom, fortunately pretty softly (I hope since we were hitting with the rudder rather than the lead keel). The 2 options were to shorten the anchor rode a bit to get us into deeper water or move the boat. Since I didn't want to move the boat and I had out 85 feet of chain in 17 feet of water, (a ratio of about 4 to 1 if you include the 4 feet from the water to the bow roller) so I decided to take in about 15 feet of chain to pull the boat up and into deeper water. Eric on Driftwood saw what I was doing and came over with his portable depth sounder and tested the water behind the boat for me. He found 6 feet right behind the transom. At first I tried just taking in 8 to 10 feet but that wasn't enough so I brought in a total of about 20 and that seemed to be OK. Naturally, the chain had gotten a tremendous amount of growth in the 2 weeks we had been anchored in the bay, so I had to get the scrub brush and bucket and try to clean it as I brought it in. If I let the growth into the boat's chain locker, it would start to smell terribly. I now had just 65 feet of chain out in about 16 feet of water; it was low tide and I later found out that it was an unusually low tide. That was probably why we had hit bottom. I wasn't too concerned about the lack of scope since I knew the anchor was still well set and the bottom seemed to have good holding properties. If the wind picked up, I could always let out more scope, assuming it wasn't from the south. Of course, the southerly wind shifted back to the east about an hour after this drill. After the anchor exercise, I got back to the chainplate. I dug out all the old caulk and saw that the core was dry - very good. I then took out just a little bit more and applied the epoxy in the same manner as the last one, first plain epoxy to wet out the core and get absorbed, and then thickened epoxy to fill in the void. By that time, it was almost 3:30 so Diane and I went to shore for a swim and a shower. We saw Joe and Ruth at the pool and Joe talked to me about visiting the Orinoco after Trinidad instead of going west or back up the island chain immediately. It was an interesting idea. But, at the moment, we had company coming over tonight at 5:30 and so we wanted to be back fairly early. We had Jim and Pat from Lady M III and Lena and Ron from Jacobite over. Both couples were Canadian and we joked that we were being invaded. We talked and drank for a few hours and had a nice time. Monday morning it rained for a good part of the morning so I couldn't finish the chainplate I started on Sunday. Looking at the one I finished, it seemed dry so I put some baby powder underneath it on the bulkhead so that if there were a drip, the baby powder would show it clearly. It stopped raining and Diane and Ruth from Legacy took a walk to the US Consulate to get more pages put into our passports. The Embassy was "closed" when they got there but they got the pages anyway. Interestingly, the Embassy wasn't guarded by US Marines but rather by Grenada National Police. They got a ride back part of the way by an American ex-patriot living on the island. |