|
Home Port Our Logs The Crew Calendar Favorite Links The Boat Photo Album Route and Charts Miscellaneous Stuff |
Larry's LogI went by Mima again and started to help Tom with some PC problems but we ended up just talking. Steph came back around 3 and she noticed that the air conditioning wasn't working so I helped them take off the floorboards and luckily Tom found the problem quickly - something had clogged the through hull. He cleared it with a bicycle pump jammed into the intake hose and pumped it until we heard bubbles. Then he had to clear the airlock but that was fairly easy and it was working again in 30 minutes. I then went back to Destiny and did some more studying before leaving for the Kings' Mas Semifinals. The event that night could only be described as spectacular. I went 'backstage' before the show to see the preparations and it was very interesting to see the costumes being assembled. The first half of the show was the final for the Junior Queen of Carnival, and although we had seen many of the costumes before at the Red Cross Children's Carnival, there were others we hadn't seen and it was really nice to see the young girls 'playing mas. There were some very young ones that were unsure what to do and the one of (scantily dressed) young women holding the number signs had to direct them. They were all very cute and really into the action, to the point that they were bouncing around so much that many of the pictures were blurred. After the Junior Queen competition, there was a performance by a 5-time Calypso monarch and some other acts that were very good. Then came the Kings' semi-finals. The first one was the 'Schizoid-Agony to Ecstasy' masquerader whose costume we had seen being built. They had added a large 'man' hanging on the front and some more masks to the back and so it was even more fantastic that what we had seen during the preliminaries. That was definitely one of my favorites. Taking pictures, I was asked to move to a large platform on the side of the stage where the media photographers were also taking pictures. It was an excellent location although it was tough to take a full front shot since the platform was on the side. There were 16 King semi-finalists and they were all great although some, naturally, were better than others. One of the most creative was one depicting a man walking through a cane field and stamping on insects. There were scale sized ants and spiders all over the cane and the level of detail was incredible, considering the costume was 20 feet high, 30 feet long and 20 feet wide! Evidently, they keep adding to the costumes up to the finals. It was an incredible sight and it even started on time and ended EARLY. Wednesday was very busy but not productive. Diane went shopping early in the morning but just before she left, the air conditioner stopped. It was the circuit breaker on the dock and when I reset it, it tripped again 5 minutes later. The air filter was very dirty and clogged so I took that out, which required removing the foam covering the hatch where it was sitting, and cleaned it with a hose and then cleaned the rest of the front cover as well. I put everything back together, put the foam back on, taped everything down, plugged it back it and it tripped the breaker again in 10 minutes. At that point, I went to the marina office and asked to have an electrician come over. They came over 15 minutes later and after I explained the situation, they went over to look at it and said that the extension cord I was using was too light for the application. They felt the cord and it was hot and I did as well and agreed. So I started the search for a heavier duty extension cord. First I tried the dockmaster office to see if I could borrow one - nobody was there. Then I walked to the chandlery at CrewsInn; they didn't carry any extension cords. So I took down the dinghy and went over to Tang Yuk, a store near Coral Cove Marina on the other side of the channel. They only had the same gauge cord that I had already. I tried another store near there - same result. Finally, I went to Peake's Marina and their store had a heavy duty (12 gauge) 100-foot extension cord for 300TT ($50 USD). I didn't have a choice so I bought it, came back, took off the old one, setup the new one (not as easy as it sounds), plugged it in and again the breaker tripped after about 15 minutes. At that point, I got out my adaptor for the dockside plug to a normal three-prong plug and used the spare 30-amp receptacle with the adaptor. That seemed to work just fine but the line was really not protected correctly so I went back to the marina office and they called the electrician back. He proceeded to change the GFCI outlet (he thought that was the problem) and watched it for 30 minutes and it seemed OK. Unfortunately, the unit wasn't on while we were watching it since he forgot to reset the test button on the outlet. We had been watching an amp meter and it was showing .08 to .14 amps although I just thought it was the scale he was using. It turned out that we were watching the current draw across the tiny relay inside the outlet. Once we figured that out and reset the outlet, the unit did actually draw 11 to 13 amps (it was rated for 10) while the compressor was running. We left it in the 20 amp circuit with the GFCI outlet and he put everything back together and asked me to call if there were more problems. Well, sure enough, 10 minutes later, it tripped again. I moved the cord to the 30 amp circuit using my adaptor and notified them again. So much for studying today. Of course, the air conditioner was now just blowing air - the compressor wasn't working. It didn't matter now what circuit it was on. We spent a somewhat uncomfortable night without it. The next morning, early, Carl and a helper came by to replace the plug and breaker in the dock pedestal but of course, it didn't help the air conditioner at that point. It was very nice og him to do it so early though, especially since it really wasn't his job. We made a call on the net that morning to see if anyone had a vendor who could fix the unit and through an series of coincidences, the guys that worked on Mima's refrigeration showed up at our boat just after the net was over. They were actually looking for another boat near us that had a similar problem to ours but they said they would come back after they finished their work schedule, sometime in the afternoon. So while Diane went to the gym, I did my practice tests and Morse code. She came back around noon and by the time we finished lunch, the guys came back. They said they would come back after lunch and they did so in 30 minutes. They came on the boat and within 40 minutes had diagnosed the problem, fixed it temporarily and got the unit was working again. It seemed that the 'protector' (basically a fuse) had blown. They needed to get another but put everything back together so it would work the rest of the day and promised to come back tomorrow morning to replace it. I asked if they would bring 2 so I could have a spare in case it went again. They said they would try. We were very pleased with the service; a big difference from normal Trinidad customer service. Not that the typical vendors are unhelpful, but they would not generally think to stop by to say they would be back in 30 minutes, just to let us know they hadn't forgotten about us. The rest of the day, I went over to do some things on the Internet like downloading tax information and I picked up the boom end cap that Chag Metal Works had modified for me. Steph had checked and made sure it was ready. It was basically done but Lincoln had forgotten that I wanted it welded as well, so he had his helper do it immediately. I went over to see Tom and we talked for a while and then we went back up to get the completed cap. It was ready so I paid for it, went back to get my PC and then Steph drove me back to CrewsInn since she had just rented a car to pick up her friends who were visiting and coming in over the weekend. When I got back, the air conditioner was still working fine - thank God. We watched the fourth race of the America's Cup in which the mast broke on Team New Zealand; a real shame especially as the series is now 4-0 for the Swiss. Friday was a busy day. After the net, I registered to take the HAM test. Now I have to take them - they're paid for! I then walked over to Chag Metal Works and dropped off the boom end cap so Lincoln could drill the holes for the extra bolts. I then helped Steph bring her groceries on the boat and she drove me back to Destiny with the stuff she had bught for us. I spent the afternoon studying the code and the general license questions although I stopped briefly to help Diane help Donna and Michael on Wind Witch come into the Customs dock. They had just arrived from Venezuela and had a rather bad trip - it was 20-25 knots from the East all the way and large swells. They had to come east so it wasn't pleasant. Around 4, I went back to Chag Metal Works and picked up the boom cap. I went over to see Tom and he looked at the cap. He tried putting a 1/4 inch bolt through the holes and said there was some play in the bolt hole. We discussed it some but I said I thought it would be fine since there would now be 9 bolts holding the cap vertical instead of just 4. But I went back to the boat thinking about this and what I could do about the bolts to make a tighter fit. Other than trying to find a metric size that fit a little better, I wasn't sure what could be done. I got back, took a quick shower, we ate dinner and went off to this evening's Carnival event - the Junior Kings final and the Queen semi-finals. Well, the group got on the bus and we drove as far as TTSA (about ¼ mile away) and Jesse was there with some bad news. The national Mas organization, NCBA, was at odds with the NCC (National Carnival Comission) and had decided to boycott the event tonight. This had just happened at 5pm and Jesse recommended that we just go back to our respective marinas. He could get us there but couldn't guarantee that there would be a show or possibly that it would start very late with probably many masqueraders absent. We all decided to accept his advice, he would straighten out the tickets and transport costs later (we all trusted him) and so we just went back to the boat and watched the America's Cup on TV, but of course, it was delayed due to weather again. The Hauraki Gulf was not cooperating. (We later found out that there was a competition that night but it did start late but most of the competitors were there.) Satu\ was not too busy although I did walk over to Tardieu Marine again after the net to get some more cap screws for the boom end cap. I looked for something that would fit a little better but the metric sizes didn't fit well at all so I got the correct length I needed at Budget Marine since Tang Yuk didn't have them. I stopped at the Internet place for just a little bit and then went back to the boat. I studied the license questions and the code for most of the day until about 4. Steph stopped by to borrow laundry tokens and we talked a bit until I needed to get ready for the Panorama (steel band) finals that evening. We left for the Queens Park Savannah Grandstand around 7 but when we got there we found out that the event was supposed to start at 7. Although it hadn't started yet, it was very crowded and we were fortunate to find even remotely decent seats, and we weren't sitting together. Many cruisers weren't even that lucky. Jesse later said that the information he had gotten definitely said it started at 8. Oh well, its Trinidad. The show was excellent and we saw and heard many steel orchestras that we hadn't heard in the semi-finals since we left before the end. We heard 10 out the scheduled 13 bands and of those, my favorite was the All Stars (I thought they were the most 'musical), although not far behind were the Silver Stars, who we had seen at their panyard, and Phase II-Pan Groove, who we had also seen in their panyard. Unfortunately we didn't see the last of the bands perform since we were scheduled to leave at 1am. We learned the next day that the last band that played, Exodus, won the competition with the All Stars second. The trip back to Chaguaramas wasn't too bad, certainly not the 90 minutes it took the last time, but we did hit some traffic at the nightclub near the marinas. We watched a bit of race 5 of the America's Cup before recording it and going to bed. |