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Larry's LogThe moment of truth concerning the skeg had arrived the next day. After breakfast, I went down the ladder with my drill and bits, chose a medium size bit, found a spot just above the bronze shoe and drilled into the skeg. I caught some of the shavings in my hand as they came out and they were dry. I drilled further until there was no resistance and still no water. So far, so good. I drilled another hole a little further forward and hit only solid fiberglass, obviously dry. Still, there was some water coming out from behind the bolt so I dug out the caulk around the bolt head and from the slot in the bolt, got my biggest screwdriver and tried to turn it. It wouldn't budge. I tried digging out some more caulk and tried again. Still no movement and the bolt head slot was starting to deform. If it became so ruined hat the screwdriver wouldn't bite, it would be much more difficult to remove, so I got out my heat gun and applied some judicious heat to the bolt. I stopped when I saw the caulk above the bronze start to buckle out from the bronze expanding. I immediately tried the screwdriver again but still nothing. I started digging out more caulk from around the bolt though and tried once more. Finally, I got a little movement. I was using a long screwdriver with a square shank so I could get a wrench on the shank and turn it while I held the screwdriver blade in the slot. I got some more movement and I knew it would come out ok now. Just then, Tom came by. Diane had called Mima to see if Tom could come over and give me a hand. Since the bolt was half way out already, Tom just gave moral support at that point while I finished removing it. Diane had gone off to the dentist and ran some other errands so it was just Tom and I and we talked as we worked on cleaning the hole of the caulk residue as well as the bolt itself. The inside, between the two halves of the shoe, seemed to be solid fiberglass and the bolt ran straight through to the other side of the bronze shoe, threading into the other side. The other 3 bolts looked fine and the water I saw seemed to be just water that had seeped past the paint and into the bolthole. I'm sure that it had been caulked adequately at one time, but after almost 20 years the caulk had broken down and allowed water to seep inside. We looked at each other had both agreed that it was a minor issue and after cleaning it up, the bolt could be reinserted with fresh caulk and it would be fine. I thanked the gods of boat repair, since it could have been a major problem. Just around that time, the yard brought another boat into the spot next to ours and since they were going to power wash it, Tom and I went over to the little market at the other end of the yard and had something to drink before he went back to the work on his boat and I went to try to find a 3/8" bronze flat head machine screw, as a spare in case I couldn't get the old one back in properly. I did find one at Peake's, the yard next to ours and came back to the boat. After a quick lunch, I went to get some more supplies. I checked and I didn't have any 4200 sealant so I went over to Budget and got that and some other things. Back at the boat, I cleaned the skeg hole and the old bolt with alcohol, used plenty of 4200 to seal the bolt and left it to cure. I used 4200 since I was reluctant to use 5200 in case I ever did have to remove it again and I didn't think a polysulphide caulk was appropriate. I then got a piece of hose and managed to get it into the through hull from the galley sink so that water from the sink wouldn't get on the hull while I was doing the keel. After all that, it was almost 3:30 and too late to start any other major project so I just relaxed. Diane came back from the dentist and shopping and told me that the war with Iraq had started. I only hope its over quickly with a minimum of casualties on both sides. She also said that an editor from Cruising World was talking with some neighbors of ours and was I interested in talking to him. I said sure and so she went back and gave him our boat card. We were in the cockpit talking with Steph about 30 minutes later when he came over and we talked a little bit. He said he would come back tomorrow and I said I would be happy to talk to him about the article he wanted to write. Pretty cool - being interviewed by Cruising World. The next morning I went over to Chaguaramas Metal Works and complained about the pieces they had cut for the boarding ladder mounts. Steph had brought them over the night before but the pieces were cut to different sizes and not one was the exact size I had asked for. Lincoln looked at them and immediately gave me my money back and called in the worker who had made them. He later said he would recut them for me and I said ok and left as he was on his way out to a funeral. I couldn't be that mad about some little pieces of metal when he was going to a funeral for a young niece that had just passed away from a kidney problem. He said he would have them ready for me early next week and I went off to do other things. I stopped at Mima for a short while and on my way back, saw Tim, the editor from Cruising World that I was supposed to meet at 10am walking toward the yard. We walked together to Destiny and we talked for about 2 ˝ hours about the boat and cruising things in general when he said he would let us go on about our day. We walked him back to Coral Cove, where he was staying, and then continued on to CrewsInn to have lunch with Jim and Jacque on Lady J. We then went to Customs and Immigration for some paperwork and I went back to Lady J so Jim and I could talk about some charts and other things while Diane went to the pool with Jacque. We left Lady J about 3:30, stopped at Mima again on the way back and finally got back to the boat at about 6:30. We didn't get too much work done but did accomplish other things. Saturday morning was a busy one as I first filed down the bolt head and end that I had replaced in the skeg shoe. Then I sanded the area a little and prepared a little more of the epoxy primer. While I let that set up a bit, I started lightly sanding the keel where I had applied the primer. It needed to be roughened to give the bottom paint or fairing compound a good surface to adhere to. I had almost finished sanding one side when Diane came back from some errands and wanted to move the scaffolding on the port bow to the port stern. After doing that, I applied the primer to the skeg and continued sanding. I was using my electric drill with a fiberglass wheel and very light pressure. After finishing the sanding, I hosed off the keel to get rid of the dust. I would wash the areas more thoroughly before fairing and painting. When the first coat of primer dried on the skeg, I mixed the second coat. While waiting for that to setup, I applied the first coat of a different primer to the prop, shaft and Spurs cutters. That primer was the one for the Velox paint, supposedly an antifouling coating for props and shafts that really works. Tom had let me use some of his, as it was unavailable in Trinidad. He had bought it in Venezuela and it was very expensive, about $80 US for a pint of the paint and primer. He said it worked on his prop - hopefully it will on mine too. I was going to go over to Mima after I finished but I was just too tired and so I just cleaned up and installed the newest version of the Airmail software. It was also the HAM version and although I didn't have my callsign yet, I hoped to see it in the FCC database early next week. The next day was a slow one. In the morning, I went over to the Internet place and looked at email and downloaded all our recent financial statements. I brought them back for Diane to reconcile and then didn't do much until after lunch when I designed the storage unit for our collection of VHS tapes. That actually took a while since I needed to measure and account for the compound curves of the hull at that location in the boat. I also made a list of supplies I wanted to buy before we left since we had heard that boat supplies in Venezuela were in short supply due to the earlier strike and now the officially frozen currency exchange rate. Things picked up again on Monday and I was busy in the morning doing errands and getting things organized for the remaining projects. I went back to Chag Metal Works and Lincoln said he would redo the metal pieces for me by the afternoon. I got a quote from Lennox Woodworking on the tape cabinet we wanted. It would make use of the space near the TV that was wasted. I also stopped at the Internet café to pay a bill online and check some more things. I then went back to the boat and helped Diane bring the laundry down the ladder (I didn't want her doing it in the cockpit since it would get the hull wet and possibly create problems with the remaining work left to be done). During lunch, we talked about the possibility of going to the western Caribbean instead of heading north directly. We would probably still get back to the States around the same time but would see more and different places on the way. We would need to discuss it more but we decided to get some charts for that area just in case. After lunch, we got another quote on the wood cabinet from a shop in Power Boats but it was much higher so I said I would bring it back to Lennox later. I then filled the test holes in the skeg and started fairing the keel with thickened epoxy. Of course, I first cleaned the areas with alcohol and made sure that the area had been roughened to give the coating a 'tooth' to adhere to. That didn't take too long but it was almost 3pm and since we were going to pick up a rental car at 4, I went to take a shower and walked over to Tardieu to give the go ahead on the project to Lennox, check on Lincoln and do a little more on the Internet. Diane met me there and together we walked to CrewsInn to get the car. Diane went to get Jim and Jacque and we all went to PriceSmart first, so Diane could to some more provisioning, and then TGI Friday's for dinner. Diane and I decided to go off the diet since we would have to anyway at the Asa Wright Nature Centre, where we were going tomorrow, and so we asked Jim and Jacque if they wanted to go out to dinner with us. It was only the second time I had gone off the diet in 2 months and the first time for Diane. A hamburger and bun never tasted so good! Tuesday morning we left early for Asa Wright and got there around 10am since we hit some traffic going through Port of Spain. The road going up to Asa Wright, the Arima - Blanchesuisse road, had been repaved in places and that made it a little better although the single lane hairpin turns were still there. When got there, Diane checked in and got the 'Cocoa' Suite, which was the large room we got on our first visit. After getting our stuff in the room, we got the camera and binoculars and went onto the veranda. Even that late in the morning, the birds were there in force. There were also more different kinds of birds than we had typically seen before. This was the dry season and since the feeders were easy 'pickings', more individuals of more species tended to come to the feeders. So, we saw at least a dozen Purple Honeycreepers, a small bird with bright blue and black markings, whereas on our last trips, we felt lucky to see 3 or 4. We didn't see as many tanager species but we also didn't stay as long, although we naturally saw the more common ones. We took a short hike before lunch and found the trails very dry and easy to walk on. The lack of rain made it seem almost a different place although still very beautiful. We walked around and got back in time for lunch. We took another hike after lunch down a trail we hadn't taken in a while and saw another new species, a Collared Trogon. I had borrowed Steph's camera for the trip here because the good zoom lens her camera has really helps taking pictures of birds at a distance. I got some nice shots of the Trogon and some other birds as well. After so much hiking, we were really tired after dinner but we did watch the video they played about stories of the rainforest and the folklore of Trinidad and how some of the folklore is seen in Carnival costumes. It was a very interesting video and very appropriate since it was just a short time after Carnival. We got up early Wednesday to go out and see the birds being fed. We had a wake up 'call' at 5:45am and I got up and was on the veranda by 6am. I was the first one there and although the birds were starting to feed, they weren't really active until about 6:30. Diane came down about 6:30 as well. Before breakfast at 7:30, we saw lots of birds but no new species. We went on a hike with our favorite guide, Mukesh, after breakfast and he pointed out a nest of a Double-toothed Kite and we saw the adult near the nest. Unfortunately, he told us that the nest of the Ornate Hawk-Eagle had been destroyed, although nobody knew how. The birds were still around but it was impossible to tell where you might see them. He pointed out some other interesting things and we enjoyed the hike very much. We stayed on the veranda for a while after the hike and left shortly after lunch. If we come back to Trinidad, we will go back there. It is a very special place. We stopped at a large hardware store on the way back, but didn't get much, and also at the West Mall so I could get a haircut (my first in 4 months) and to withdraw some US dollars from a specific cash machine. We heard that we could get a much better exchange rate for cash in Venezuela. Once back in Chaguaramas, we noticed several brush fires along the side of the road. The dry season was now very dry and fires started very easily. We saw some almost every day and some days during the past week the smoke was pretty bad. I also picked up the metal pieces from Lincoln that he had redone and they were fine this time, he did them himself. We ate out at Joe's Pizza that night, since we weren't going back on the diet until the next morning and enjoyed it thoroughly. |