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Larry's LogWe got to New York's JFK International on September 6. We had made plans to stay at my In-laws house while we were in NY since they kindly offered and they lived 25 minutes from JFK Airport. We were scheduled to fly to California on September 11 to see my family that now lives there. As the world now knows, September 11 was not a day to be flying, particularly near New York and especially not towards the West Coast. The tragedy of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon struck very close to home; aside from the fact that we were on a flight to San Francisco at 9am on that morning from New York, I had worked in 2 World Trade Center since 1992 and had been through the bombing in 1993. As events unfolded that morning, we managed to get off the plane and safely back to my in-laws home on Long Island that day. Luckily I got to talk to friends that worked at my old company who told me that, thank God, every one had gotten out OK. If I hadn't been on the cruise, I would have still worked there and been in the Trade Center when the planes destroyed it. As I write this, we are on a flight to San Francisco on September 18, one week after the disaster. Flying over Manhattan that morning was a terrible feeling as smoke still rose from where the Twin Towers once stood. I won't go into much of the visit to NY or California. We finally got to California a week later and visited with my brother and his family. His 2 girls, aged 3 and 5, were a delight. Our visit with them was great and was a kind of salve on the open wound of 9/11. We left after 6 days and went back to NY. Life was tense as we learned about more people who didn't make it and particularly the firemen, police and other emergency workers who died trying to save others. We tried to complete the tasks we had wanted to do when at home, like renewing the insurance, checking on our rented house and others. Since we got back to Trinidad, friends here have said how lucky we are, and I suppose that's true. But somehow, I feel that I should be back in NY somehow helping to rebuild. I'm not sure how, but maybe just working at my now ex-employer getting them back in shape the way I did in 1993. Maybe not... That chapter in my life is now over with the destruction of the World Trade Center in NY. When (if) we go back to the "old" life, it will definitely be somewhere out of Manhattan. We've been living on the hard now for about a week, and I can tell you it is hard. We got back, having made arrangements with Mike from Just Dessert to pick us up at the airport. As it happened, we saw Bridget from Gabrielle in Miami. She was also going back to Trinidad to meet John. She wasn't feeling well so we helped her with her bags as we were on the same flight. We got to Trinidad with no problems and met Mike. What we didn't know was that John had arranged for Mike to pick up Bridget as well. Since we had brought back "tons" of boat parts and even some food that is hard to get in the islands, there were more bags than I thought the car could take. Mike though, had brought some strong bungee cords and rope to tie everything in. Things were literally "falling out" of the trunk, but they were tied in well and we didn't loose anything during the 45-minute ride back to Chaguaramas. We dropped Bridget off first and then Mike drove us to our boat, still in the same spot we left it. We opened up the boat, hoisted the 7 bags (most weighing over 70 pounds) up to the boat and just crashed. Thanks for the help Mike - much appreciated. We brought Mike an authentic crumb cake and some bagels. If you're not from the NY area, you may not know what "real" crumb cake is, but Mike did and he said it brought him flashbacks to his days in New Jersey. Luckily it didn't rain that night so we could keep the hatches open, but we did make arrangements to rent another air conditioner the next day. The next day was spent getting the boat organized and starting to unpack. The guy with the air conditioner came by in the afternoon and installed it. Unfortunately, it wasn't blowing any cold air. He had to go to another boat but said he would come by later to check it. By 6pm he hadn't come and we really didn't expect him after that, so we just went to dinner and turned it off when we got back. However, we were surprised when, at 9:30, as Diane got up to go to the bathroom, he came by with another unit to install. He had taken the one from his children's room that luckily for us was the same size as the one he had installed previously. He knew this one worked; he said when he first installed the one that didn't work that he didn't have any more units, all 20 were rented already. It took about 15 minutes to take out the old unit and install the new one and it was working beautifully. I don't know how he did it, but he carried this large, heavy, 12,000 BTU air conditioner up an eight-foot ladder by himself under his arm and took down the old one the same way. Thanks - now that's customer service!! The next day, we asked the yard to move us since we were still in the busy work area where they originally placed us. It was very noisy and dusty there. They came by and said they would move us tomorrow morning, first thing. That day was occupied with more unpacking and getting the boat in some semblance of order. Diane did some small shopping and we ate on the boat for the first time in over a month. The air conditioning felt really good! The boat was moved early the next day and from then on, the next three and one-half weeks are a blur of activity. We worked every day for at least 10 hours per day doing various tasks, the biggest of which was redoing the through hulls. This consisted of replacing the ball valves with proper seacocks and enlarging the 1 1/4 inch through hulls to 1 1/2 inches. This process involved removing the old through-hull fittings and making epoxy backing for the new seacocks. Doing the epoxy work was the toughest since the pad had to be perpendicular to the hull where the through-hull extended into the hull so it could later be threaded into the seacock that would be mounted onto the pad. Of course, its so hot here that epoxy work is difficult since it tends to set or "kick" very quickly, even using slow hardener. With some help from Wally on Dazzler, I managed to get it done though, following a procedure given to me by Joe. Joe is the guy who did the very good work on the engine before we left on the cruise and we have since become good friends. I saw him during our visit in NY and he kindly wrote out the instructions, step by step. Thanks Joe, it worked well. Diane also worked very hard on cleaning and waxing the topsides and preparing the bottom for a new coat of paint. I had decided to raise the waterline of the boat by about 4 inches since Destiny was sitting so much lower in the water with all the cruising gear aboard. That involved preparing the surface of the gelcoat and applying a barrier coat (actually 4 coats of epoxy barrier paint) before the antifouling paint. Other than taping the new waterline and some sanding, she did that herself. She also cleaned and waxed the stainless steel stanchions and started sanding the handrails and companionway teak in preparation for coating them with Cetol. We were both very busy. We did however, meet a nice French couple that were hauled and placed directly behind us in the yard. Although he didn't speak English, she was fairly fluent and we spent some pleasant evenings together. |