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Larry's LogThursday it was back on the diet and back to work. Diane went shopping with Steph and Lanie, from Marnel IV, and I started off by working on the ladder mounts. Tom said we could drill the holes in the stainless on his drill press (a portable one that uses a hand drill) so I measured for the holes, carefully re-measured everything and then went to buy some thick rubber gasket material and do some comparison shopping for varnishing supplies. We were considering having someone do some varnish work for us in Venezuela while we visited Merida but were told that we should get the varnish and supplies in Trinidad. When I got back, I made some last measurements and was about to go to see Tom about drilling the holes when Diane came back. So after I helped her and had lunch, I went over. Earlier in the morning, Diane had called a guy about copying some charts of the western Caribbean that we had borrowed from Caribbee, a boat next to us that was doing a tremendous amount of work, and he would pick up the charts one day and deliver them and the copies the next. He was coming over at around 3pm so I put all the charts we wanted copied in one place and walked over to Mima. Drilling the holes in 3/16" stainless steel wasn't easy. First we went over to the local outlet of a good hardware store and I bought some cobalt bits and a quart of cutting oil. Then we went back and Tom got out his drill press, drill and while I put the stuff on the dock, he watched over some people who had come over to fix his air conditioner. It was the same people who had fixed his refrigerator and my a/c unit, and they had it done in about 30 minutes. When they left he came out and we worked on the drilling. Unfortunately, the first set of holes, the large 1/4" ones, were slightly angled because the bit was bending while we drilled. I figured I could have Lincoln drill the rest of those but when we tried drilling the smaller 5/32" holes, the bit I bought broke and when Tom got his, it just wouldn't cut. After an hour of this, we just gave up and had some drinks. I probably (definitely) had too much and was slightly wobbly as I climbed up the ladder to the boat. I got up in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep so I did some work on the PC but noticed that the power into the boat was off. Our window-type air conditioner was still working so I figured the plug was ajar, again. I continued doing my logs and at first light went down the ladder and fixed it but noticed a tremendous amount of ash from the nearby fires. We would have to wash the boat later. As I made some coffee, the fume alarm went off. The burner hadn't ignited all the way and the escaping propane had set off the alarm. Well, at least now I know it works. After breakfast, I went over to Tardieu Marine to do some more errands. I went by Lennox Woodworking but he was still closed so I dropped off the metal pieces for the ladder mount at Chag Metal Works to be drilled; I did manage to drill 8 of the smaller holes, which saved me some money. The cost to drill 22 holes, mostly ¼ inch, was over $50 US. I thought it was a bit outrageous but had no choice since I had come this far with this increasingly expensive "little" project. I then went to Mima for a visit and gave Tom his birthday card and a small gift, a bottle of good Venezuelan rum. Then I went to pay the seamstress, Sherrie, for the 2 shirts she had made for me and stopped at the Internet again to look up some things and to check for my HAM callsign - still nothing. By the time I got back to the boat, it was lunchtime and Clem was there. Steph had brought Clem over to us for the night so they could go to their hotel room later. After eating, I sanded the keel in preparation for the final fairing. I was going to use an epoxy fairing compound that I had been carrying around since leaving on the cruise but once I opened the cans, I decided not to use it; was very thick and difficult to measure accurately and use. But by the time I finished sanding and removing all the sanding dust, using alcohol and paper towels, it was almost 3. Of course, just at the moment I was going to get the epoxy to start some fairing, the guy with the copied charts came back, so I brought those into the boat, checked them over (seemed like good quality copies on decent paper) and asked him to come back on Tuesday, as Monday was a holiday. I had gotten some more charts of the Western Caribbean from Mima and wanted to copy those as well, but first I had to go over them and try to eliminate any duplicates. After all that, I decided not to do the fairing that day since were going over to CrewsInn around 4 to meet Tom and Steph at a room they had rented for the night. Steph had rented a suite for Tom's 60th birthday so he could relax off the boat for a day. It was a very nice gift. So I looked over the charts that Tom had loaned me, about 30 in all. They were not copyright so doing photocopies was legal. We then walked over to the CrewsInn Hotel and sang Happy Birthday to Tom and had a few drinks. Back at the boat and after dinner, while Diane walked Clem, I got a call from my brother in California on our borrowed cell phone. It was nice to talk to him again. He had called last night, but I was somewhat drunk and didn't remember much of the conversation so he called again tonight. Saturday was another busy day. Before the net, I walked Clem and after breakfast, started fairing the keel and skeg. I used West System epoxy with the slow hardener since it was so hot out. Unfortunately, the first batch I made was too big and the mass of epoxy started to 'kick' very shortly after I made it, even with the slow hardener. The next batch was much smaller and lasted until I applied all of it. Of course, that meant that I had to keep mixing small batches all day. On one batch I think I made a mistake in not adding enough hardener. I could tell there might be a problem when the remainder in the plastic cup I used to mix it didn't set up as soon as the other ones. Eventually I thought it finally did set. Hopefully it won't be too much of a problem. During the application of one batch, Ray from Kismet, came by to drop off a prop that belonged to Spice Island Lady. They were in Margarita and we said we would bring it to them when we left. Ray had also taken the HAM tests and asked if I had gotten my call sign yet. When I said no he mentioned that he and the others he knew had gotten theirs already. I said I hadn't and Ray let me know that they were posted on the ARRL web site. I had just checked there yesterday and I would need to call Jim to see what happened. The rest of the epoxy was fine and I filled the blister holes as well as faired about 1/3 of the keel. Since I had put the fairing on fairly fast between applications, the previous batch didn't require sanding but once it's dry completely, it will need sanding to make sure it has good adhesion to the prior coat. I'll find out soon enough if the mis-mixed batch is an issue. Steph cane by around 4 to get Clem and I was just about finishing for the day. Diane hadn't felt well but seemed better in the afternoon. Steph had invited us to go to Joe's but Diane had already made chicken for Fajitas, without the fajitas. Anyway, I was very tired and so we stayed home and after dinner I catalogued the charts we had copied from Caribee and the ones we got from Mima. There were about 60 charts total for the Western Caribbean and the areas we might visit were well covered. If we did go, we would know where we were. Well, I found out the next morning that the bad batch of epoxy was a problem. Before that, I thought we might be able to leave by the end of the week, now I doubt that we'll leave until the middle of the following week. Oh well, s__t happens. Perhaps it was just as well, since as I was scraping the bad epoxy off, I noticed some more bad paint spots flaking off on the port side of the keel and decided that some more sanding with the angle grinder was needed. Starting the day though, I put up a line forward so Diane could do more laundry and have someplace to hang everything to dry. But, since the boat was so dirty from all the ash and dust from the recent fires, I first got the hose and washed everything down. It was amazing the blackness of the water that came off the deck. So, while Diane did laundry, I started sanding again. I started off scraping, moved on to sanding, and did nothing else from about 9:30 through 4:30. I managed to get most of the bad epoxy off by scraping but the last residue was impossible to scrape off so I had to sand that down. Interestingly, the epoxy primer I had already used was very hard to sand off, even with the angle grinder so at least I knew that I had done that right. So, in addition to removing the bad batch of epoxy, I also wound up removing most of the good epoxy fairing I had applied to the keel's port side. I felt that was necessary to make sure all the bad stuff was gone (it may have been under a good batch) and also to remove the questionable paint. By the time I was done, even though I was wearing a mask, a hat and eye protection, I was covered in sanding dust. I had to rinse myself off with the hose before going into the boat at the end of the day. Almost all the old paint was gone on the starboard side and about 85 percent of it from the port side. Diane finished most of the laundry and then went to call her parents. For that, she had to walk to CrewsInn since they had the only AT&T phone in the area that worked. While on the phone, they mentioned that I had gotten a lot of mail from the FCC. Evidently, my callsign had been established but they spelled my name wrong. Diane got the callsign and brought it back. By then it was about 4:30 and I had just stopped for the day. I did the port side and was starting to do the starboard side and decided that was enough. After hosing off and then taking a shower, I called Jim on Lady J, the lead VE that had organized the tests, and let him know what happened. I had spoken to him about the missing callsign and he had been checking on the Internet for me for about a week (he had Internet access on the boat). He had just sent an email to the ARRL to see if they could figure out what happened when I told him about the misspelling. He said he would email the same guy back and let him know what happened and see what the best way was to resolve the problem. In the meantime, I asked Jim if it was OK to use the call sign and he said sure, that wouldn't change. I had wanted to try out the Winlink system right after dinner but we had invited Randy and Cheryl from Caribee over to talk about the western Caribbean. We just finished eating at 7 and the bell rang. We had a good time talking to them and they had a lot of good information about the Honduras and the Bay Islands as well as Belize, Guatemala and Mexico but less so for Panama, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. They had spent about a year in the Northwest Caribbean but no time in the southwest Caribbean - they had gone back to the States from Mexico, going up to Mississippi. We enjoyed their company though and got lots of good information. They left around 10 and I started doing email. I put in my new callsign and connected to one of the Winlink stations. Of course, there was no mail but it connected very quickly. I then did normal Sailmail email, and after finishing that, connected again to a different Winlink station, this time doing a request for a weather fax, again with very quick connections. The weather fax started coming down and since it was digital, was a perfect map showing all the isobars, etc. You could make out every island and every wind arrow. Perfect! The next morning I got up early and planned the day's work. I decided to try to get the etch primer on the bare lead before the end of the day but that would mean cleaning up the lead from the old paint and epoxy some more, washing it down, sanding it lightly to remove any oxidation, washing it with alcohol and then painting it with the etch primer. It seemed doable. I started right after breakfast and was done cleaning up the port side and almost finished with the starboard side when Jim came over to show me some things about Airmail and the Winlink system. He said that the person from the ARRL had emailed him back and they would take care of correcting my name on the FCC database. It was lunchtime anyway so I cleaned up a bit and we went up to the boat and he and I did some things on Airmail and then we just talked for a while. He still wanted to go Venezuela and probably tour several places in South America even though Jacque was going back to Florida. We told him that he could, naturally, come with us on any trips we made to Merida and other places in Venezuela. When he left around 1, I went back to cleaning up the starboard side of the keel, and then got out the etch primer and other supplies - mixing cup, gloves, etc. I mixed a small batch of the primer rather than the entire can (as I did the first time) since I now knew that it went a long way. I had up to 6 hours to use the batch I mixed so after I mixing, I re-sanded the lead on the starboard side with the fiberglass wheel and then washed it carefully with alcohol and a clean rag. I then painted on the primer. I did the same to the other side and that took me to 5:30. By the time I cleaned everything up it was almost 6pm. The wind had really started blowing, which made it tough to keep everything in place, but there were no mishaps. I also gave the skeg shoe a light sanding since I had used some of the bad batch of epoxy fairing on that also. I hoped tomorrow to apply the epoxy primer and finish filling the blister holes - one step closer to splashing. |