Projects – Adagio’s Voyage

Putting the Boat Back Together

We’re back in Tahiti! We had a wonderful couple of months visiting with friends and family back in the States over the holidays, but it was time to get back to Adagio to start our fourth year of our sailing adventure. We had waited too late in the season last year to find a spot in a marina to leave our boat while we traveled, so we reluctantly left the boat at anchor (something we had never done!).We anchored the boat in Port Phaeton in Tahiti, which is the most protected bay here on the island and paid a local guy to look after our boat. That gave us some comfort, but as December technically was the start of cyclone season in the South Pacific, there was always a remote chance that a huge storm could arrive leaving us helpless to do anything half way around the globe. Luckily, everything went fine.

We arrived back in Tahiti at about midnight, and the anchorage was close to 30 miles away from the airport. So, it was not possible to get back to the boat that night. Our friend Dan was nice enough to pick us up at the airport and let us stay aboard his boat in the downtown marina so that we could get back to Adagio in daylight the next day.

I was a bit concerned about what we would find when we arrived back to the boat. On the day we left, it was pouring rain. We had taken down all the canvas and sails and had to put them and the cockpit cushions inside the boat soaking wet. As it is pretty hot and humid and the boat was going to be closed up for two months, my main concern was mold. It wasn’t that bad, but I did have to wipe down just about every surface and wall inside the boat with vinegar to kill any mildew that was present.

Our first order of business was putting everything back in place when we arrived. Everything on deck had been stored below, so it was impossible to even walk in the boat. The paddle boards and surf boards take up quite a bit of room, so they were the first to be evicted from the cabin to be stored back on deck. Next came cockpit cushions, scuba tanks and canvas for our dodger.

We had to wait to put the sails back up as there is a bit of a funnel effect of the wind in the bay. So, we got up at 5 am the next morning just before sunrise, which was the only time we found it still enough to hoist and furl the jib and staysail. The bottom of the boat didn’t look too bad, but our prop was fouled with tons of barnacles. Mike spent over and hour chipping them off of there. We weren’t going anywhere with a prop full of barnacles. As bad as the prop was, it was nothing compared to the anchor chain. As we pulled up anchor, the first thirty or so feet were just covered in the stinky crustaceans. It took two and a half hours of back breaking scrubbing to get them off as we raised our anchor chain.

Slowly, the boat systems came back online. We got the refrigerator running again after recharging it with a ton of refrigerant, flushed the pickling solution out of the water maker to get it running again, and changed the oil and filters on the engine to be ready to go. So far, its been a solid five days of hard work to get back to normal around here, but we’re feeling pretty good about it.

Next, we have to get ourselves put back together. After two months in the States of overindulging in food and drinks, we’re finding the clothes don’t fit so well. When you’re hanging out with friends and family you haven’t seen in a year, everyday is a bit of a celebration. In addition, we celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, an anniversary, three birthdays and a new baby (my nephew)! Its going to require a bit of discipline on our parts to get back into good shape. We also lost any tan that we had acquired. As it is summer time here, the sun is particularly strong. So, we’ll be wearing long sleeves, hats and lots and lots of sunblock for the near future.

We have some more work to do on the boat, provisioning and other errands, but soon we are going to start looking at weather windows to leave Tahiti. Our plan is to make it to the Gambiers, but we may make some stops in the Tuamotus along the way depending on what the wind and weather do. We’re excited to see what is in store for us this year!

~katie

Tahiti Travails

We started looking for a weather window to head back to Tahiti. Tahiti is about 90 miles from Huahine, which means it would take us about 18 hours. Since we can’t make that trip all in daylight, we would leave in the afternoon and arrive the next day mid-morning. The trip from Huahine to Tahiti is against the eastern trade winds, so the key was to try and find a couple of days where the wind was more from the south, lighter and hopefully not much swell. The forecast gave us two days to go, otherwise it looked like we were probably going to stay put for at least another week where the wind would be blowing 25 kts on the nose.

We were sad to leave our friends, but we had put it off long enough. We had to get back to Tahiti! We left on a beautifully sunny afternoon. The wind and swell was making for some pleasant sailing for the first few hours, and we had our fingers crossed that we were going to have a beautiful night sail. That positive attitude quickly soured when the winds died out completely, then shot up to 25 kts, then died back down again, and back up to 17 kts. We had quite a few squalls overnight that with the shifty wind kept us on our toes.

When we arrived in Tahiti the next morning, we were both pretty tired. One overnight of sailing always seems to be a bit harder than a multi-day sail where you have the chance to get into the rhythm of shifts and sleeping only a few hours at a time. And, with the challenging conditions, neither of us got all that much sleep that night. But, we were pleasantly surprised to find our friends Marcus and Diana on s/v Allora waiting for us as we pulled into the marina in Papeete! So, we left good friends in Huahine but greeted other good friends in Tahiti. That is one of the best things about cruising. We find friends wherever we go!

We had heard on the radio over the few weeks prior that there had been several thefts in the downtown Papeete marina recently. And, the office manager made us aware of them again when we checked into the marina. We’ve never had any problems with crime while we’ve traveled, but crime can happen anywhere. Apparently the thieves would board boats overnight while people were sleeping and grab whatever they could throw in their pockets or backpacks, like cash, sunglasses and cell phones. So, these weren’t very sophisticated thieves that were taking expensive electronics off boats. Just your petty thief.

We usually do not lock ourselves in our boat at night. Our cabin is right next to the companionway stairs as you enter the boat. It would be really hard for someone to come in our boat without us noticing. But, we weren’t going to take any chances with the current thefts. The last thing I’d want to do is wake up to a stranger in my boat! So, the first night we were in the marina, we had the companionway locked and nothing seemed amiss. But, when we woke up the next morning, we found dirty black shoe prints on our deck and on the cockpit cushions. Someone had been on our boat! I couldn’t believe we didn’t hear them, as they stepped onto the boat right outside our cabin. But, we were locked in and nothing was stolen. We found out three boats were boarded that night and at least one was robbed. The marina has stepped up the security, and there hasn’t been any problems since. But, we are still sleeping with the companionway locked as well as our spreader lights and cockpit lights on to deter anyone thinking of trying to get on our boat again. Whew!

The main reason we came into Tahiti was to do some work on the boat. We haven’t done any real maintenance or projects since we left Ecuador in February, so that is a pretty good run. When you travel thousands of miles on a boat in 8 months, there are going to be some things that need attention. First, we had to find someone who welds stainless steel. We have a somewhat complicated exhaust system for the diesel engine, because the engine sits mid-ships below the water line. So, the exhaust has to be cooled and travel quite a distance to exit the boat. Like all things in a salt water environment, things start to fail after awhile. And, we had a few places that were starting to leak and needed to be re-welded. Taking apart the exhaust system, having the pieces welded and reinstalling the system (while crossing your fingers that it stopped all the leaks) was a gargantuan task requiring you to twist yourself into a pretzel in a tight space to get all the pieces out. It was a BIG project, but thankfully it worked.

Next, our sails needed some work. The sails aren’t that old, but they’ve gotten a lot of use the last three years. Some of the stitching on the UV covers was coming out, and there were some worn spots that needed to be patched. We found a great sail loft in Tahiti that did the work for a reasonable cost. We have a nice sewing machine on board, but without the space to lay out the sails, it just wasn’t possible for us to do the work ourselves.

Our maintenance list also included servicing our outboard engine for the dinghy, changing the oil in the dive compressor and generator, scrubbing down the decks, and polishing the stainless railings and cleats. We’ve been hard at work everyday making sure Adagio is ready to go for next season.

Being in Papeete, the largest city in French Polynesia, also gives us the luxury of going to the Carrefour! The Carrefour is a large, western style grocery store with any kind of imported food you could imagine, including a lot of French pates, sausages, cheeses, etc. After shopping mostly at the small magazins in the islands, being able to shop at the Carrefour is like heaven. But, do not go shopping there hungry! We made that mistake and came back with way too many French cheeses. (You can also buy freshly made baguettes and crepes there – ok…this is making me hungry…)

In addition to shopping at the Carrefour, there is a large indoor/outdoor market downtown mainly on Sunday mornings. The market starts at 4am. We arrived about 7am and still had a pretty good pick of fresh local produce, including pineapples, papayas, pamplemousse (grapefruit), beautiful lettuces, and these delicious red plantains we recently found. There are also a lot of prepared foods you can purchase, which are a combination of Chinese, French and Tahitian. We bought pain du chocolat, chinese pork buns (char siu bao) and chicken shumai. Inside the market we found roasted pork and a large fish market. It was pretty awesome.

Now that we’ve gotten the majority of our projects done, we’ve got to figure out where we’re going to leave our boat when we head back to the States next month. We’ve never had a problem finding marina space, but this year is a bit of a challenge. More and more boats are staying in French Polynesia through the cyclone season, and there just isn’t marina space for all of them. Our preference would be to stay in Tahiti, since we have to fly out of here, but so far we’re not having much luck. We could leave the boat at anchor and pay someone to watch it, but we’ve never done that before. Or, we could possibly travel to Raiatea or Apataki, but neither of those islands are very close. It would take flying or possibly taking a commercial boat back to Tahiti if we did that. So, we’re still on the hunt for a space, but we’re sure it will work out one way or another. We’ll keep you all updated with our plans.

~katie

Working Hard

Now that Adagio is out of the water, we have started our projects. The big project of raising the waterline and repainting the bottom won’t be completed until just before we go back into the water in January. When you apply the antifouling paint to the bottom, you have to go back into the water pretty quickly, so the final paint won’t go on until after the holidays.

It’s been 2 years since we’ve painted the bottom. It really doesn’t look that bad, but if we didn’t do it now, we probably would only get another 6 months or so out of it anyway. But, as I’ve mentioned many, many times, our waterline is a mess. In the stern, we are probably 6 inches of topside below the actual waterline. So, the new bottom paint has to go much higher.

We considered repainting the top sides too, but it is just cost prohibitive. We just repainted the top sides 2 years ago, and we should have gotten 10 years out of that paint. But, there are places above the waterline where it is starting to bubble. It’s just cosmetic, but annoying. We used good Awlgrip paint and had a professional do it, so we don’t know what went wrong. We’ll have to deal with it eventually.

Inside the boat, we’ve pulled everything out of every cabinet, hanging locker and drawer. Even the fridge and freezer got emptied and cleaned. We are cleaning every surface, throwing things away and reorganizing. I’m a bit surprised at our clutter after 2 years, but it is time to start purging! I think we’ve now resolved to do a “spring cleaning” every year on the boat.

This is why we’re not living on the boat in the yard…

Today, all of floor boards of the cabin sole also came out to be revarnished. I think they have the original 1979 varnish on them. They were looking a bit shabby with some damage in some places. We are really looking forward to a fresh looking floor to walk on.

Mike is also in the process of replumbing our holding tank and replacing the macerator pump to make our holding tank system work better (fun job…) The good news is that all our thru holes seem to be in good shape. Mike is just doing some clean up and fixed the one that was leaking.

Next, we have all of the outside teak to clean and seal and all of the stainless to polish. We also have some sewing projects to repair some canvas and create new canvas covers. Whew!

We’re still hoping to complete everything in a month (other than the bottom paint) to do some land travel before the holidays. I would love suggestions for travel in Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. I’m trying to do some research into feasible (and inexpensive) trips from here. Any id as would be really helpful!

~Katie

Preparing for Ecuador

We’re back in Panama City, but our time in Panama is coming to a close. Our next port will be Puerto Lucia, Ecuador! The passage will be approximately 725 nautical miles (as the crow files), but all will depend on the wind and our actual course. Our guess right now is that the passage will take us 7-10 days, which will definitely be our longest non-stop passage so far.

The passage from Panama to Ecuador is not exactly an easy one. The prevailing winds pretty much the entire year are from the south-southwest. That is the exact direction we need to go. You can’t sail directly into the wind, and we do not carry enough fuel to motor the entire way to Ecuador! So, we need a plan.

We’ve been studying the pilot charts and reading up on Jimmy Cornell’s advice for taking this route. The pilot charts tell us the historical winds and currents for this time of year. On average, we should bet on SSW winds about 15 kts. At least the predicted calms are virtually zero, and there are no real weather patterns, just random squalls. Of course, as another boat recently said to us, “with climate change, can you really rely on that historical data?” Hmpf!

Here’s an example of a pilot chart from one of Jimmy Cornell’s books…

Right now our plan is going to be to depart Panama City and head over to Taboga Island, which is less than 10 miles away. We want to fill our water tanks before we depart (which is easier to do at anchor than underway). The anchorage here in Panama City is pretty dirty. Yesterday there was a ton of fuel that someone dumped just floating in the anchorage (pretty horrible). That kind of thing with ruin the membrane on our water maker. So, we’re going to head out to the island to fill up on water first.

From Taboga, we are going to head west toward Vista Mar to fill up on fuel. It is really the last place we can fuel up on our way out of Panama. We only carry 70 gallons of diesel (which won’t get us even half way to Ecuador), so we are going to have to use the motor judiciously on our passage. From Vista Mar we will head south to Punta Mala. When we rounded Punta Mala on our way into Panama, we had an adverse current. So, we are hoping this time we’ll get a favorable one.

After rounding Punta Mala, we plan to head west toward Isla Coiba. We want to head as far west as we can to get a better attack angle when we turn southeast toward Ecuador. After we make the turn, it will be all about following the wind. If the wind angle isn’t favorable, we’ll just have to tack back and forth and try and make as much southward progress as possible. It will definitely add some length to our trip.

In addition to planning our route, we have some other tasks to accomplish here. We will have to check out of Panama with the officials and get our zarpe. We also have to send our agent in Ecuador lots of documentation. Ecuador requires you to have an agent to enter the country by boat. And, it is not cheap! We’ve also been told by our agent that since we visited Panama, we have to have a certificate of yellow fever vaccination (which we don’t have). So, while in Panama City, we have got to find a way to get that vaccine.

This morning we already accomplished another important task which was to inspect and adjust our standing rigging. We made some adjustments back in January in La Cruz (Mexico), but we have come a lot of miles since then. We noticed that the forestay looked a little loose, so we dropped the jib and worked on getting it in better condition. We also took a look at our halyard to make sure there wasn’t any chaffing. It’s always good to have more confidence that the rig is going to hold up on a long passage.

Also on my “to do” list is to make sure we’ve got plenty of food aboard. Since we don’t know the exact length of the passage, we’re making a couple of provision runs to make sure we’re stocked up. We also don’t want to just eat cereal and sandwiches for 10 days, so we are making lots of meal preparations. We don’t know if we are going to have calm or rough sea conditions, and we want easy to prepare meals.

If it’s possible, we like to at least have a hot dinner. The best way to do that in most sea conditions is to make one-pot meals that have been cooked ahead of time and stored in the fridge or frozen so that they can be easily heated up underway. I have a pressure cooker with a locking lid and a gimbled stove, so we can make sure that a pot of something does not get dumped all over the interior of the boat while trying to make dinner!

So, I’m working on making batches of chili, pasta, chicken curry and taco meat that are all cooked ahead of time and can be easily frozen and reheated for several meals each. Everything will be in individual zip-lock bags. It is a lot of work (and cooking) to make a week’s worth of dinners!

There are a few other menial tasks we need to do aboard before we depart, but mostly we are just working on getting our heads around being at sea for so long. We’re excited about it. It will be a great challenge for us, and it moves us to another continent! South America, here we come!

I’ll do my best to update the blog, Facebook and Farkwar via the sat phone as soon as we depart and along the way, so those of you who want to can follow our progress all the way to Ecuador.

~katie

Back in Mexico!

After a month visiting with friends and family in the States, we finally headed back to Adagio in Mexico. While we were stateside, we had to pick up supplies for the boat that aren’t easy to acquire in Mexico. We left Mexico with just a couple of backpacks and a duffel bag. We were returning with nine bags, including some large suitcases! Among the items we picked up were a rebuild kit for our wind generator, a new SSB radio (ours was broken) and a speargun for Mike!

Our first challenge was getting all of this gear to the airport and on the plane. We packed and repacked trying to make sure each bag was under the 50 lbs limit, but with so many bags we still ended up paying a price to get them all on the plane. Next, we had to make it through customs in Puerto Vallarta.

Mexico lets you bring personal items and other equipment into the country with some limitation, but if you are over a certain dollar figure, you have to pay a duty of 16%. While everything we brought back was for our personal use, and we have a temporary import permit for our boat and equipment, there was always a chance that some over-zealous customs official might decide that our items required the payment of duty.

So, we got in the line with all of the tourists coming to PV on holiday with our giant cart of bags. When you go through the line, you get questioned by an official. If they don’t find anything suspicious and you say you have nothing to declare, you push a button. A green light means go on through, a red light means your bags get x-rayed and scrutinized.

Most of our bags looked like ordinary suitcases and luggage. But, the speargun was in a long, odd-shaped box. The customs official started questioning us about what was in the box. She knew some English, but she didn’t understand “speargun.” We know some Spanish, but didn’t know how to say speargun in Spanish. So, in my horrible Spanish, I tried to explain it was for fishing, but not a fishing rod. It was for fishing while swimming under water. Finally, she said, “buceo?”, which means diving. Yes! we both exclaimed. That satisfied her and she told us to push the button. We got green! So, off we went through the airport to find a taxi big enough to haul all our gear to the marina.

We’re in Mexico!

Back at the marina, we have started a long list of boat maintenance projects before heading south:

(1) installing the new SSB radio

(2) rebuilding the wind generator that was off balance and creating too much vibration

(3) service the outboard engines for the dinghy

(4) change the fuel filters on the diesel engine

(5) tune the rigging

(6) seal the deck hatches (a couple were leaking)

(7) wash and wax the boat and polish the stainless steel

(8) remark our anchor chain

The great thing about Banderas Bay is that there are so many cruisers here and great resources to help you with boat projects. And, we were so excited to run into our friends on Kenta Anae that we left back at the end of the summer in the Sea of Cortez. Mike is really hoping to go surfing with Merle and the boys soon!

We retuned the rig to get ready for the next year of sailing, but there is always so much more to learn. So, Mike & I headed over to Nuevo Vallarta for a seminar on sails and rigging. We met our buddy Dale from Adios for the seminar and then went to dinner with him, Lana and Richard. After dinner we headed down to the beach for a walk and were lucky enough to get to experience the release of some baby sea turtles!

There is a local volunteer conservation organization that is trying to help the sea turtle population. All of the sea turtles are endangered, the result of various problems including illegal fishing practices and pollution. (If you didn’t know, the turtles mainly eat jellyfish. And, plastic bags floating in the ocean look like jellyfish. So think about that the next time you use a plastic bag or see litter that might make its way down to the ocean!)

These baby olive ridley turtles hatched less than 24 hours ago. The baby turtles face huge hurtles as they are a prime meal for sea birds and fish. So, the volunteers take them down to the water after dusk when there are less birds and it is harder for fish to see them. They want to give these little guys a chance!

Baby olive ridley sea turtles…

Waiting for the turtles to be released…

Go turtles go…

We’re hoping we only have about another week here in the marina in La Cruz, so we can finally head out and begin exploring again!

~Katie

We’re Still Here!

Well, the plan was to leave California for Mexico by the end of January. But, it is February 1st, and we’re still at the marina in Newport Beach. Today I’m grateful that we’re in the marina, because the so-far lackluster El Nino has decided to show up in the form of some rain yesterday and crazy winds with gusts up to 50 mph. It is not a day to be out on the water! All that being said, we’re both anxious to get this show on the road and head south.

They say that you should never sail to a schedule, but we do have a rather loose time frame that we really do have to leave within. We have to depart for Mexico with enough time to get down the Baja peninsula and up far enough into the Sea of Cortez to be out of the hurricane zone before summer. We also don’t want to be rushed on that journey as there is so much to see along the way. If we leave this month (February) we should still be on track for where we need to be.

The unexpected haul-out and delay in San Diego for six weeks (see Mike’s posts below) really set us back getting all of the boat projects done. Even though Mike has been renovating Adagio for the last 8 years or so (a little at a time) we had a list of things we needed or wanted to do to the boat before taking off on this adventure. Although we accomplished a bit last year, we were both working our day jobs and could not spend as much time as we would have liked getting all of the projects completed.

So, we are still here with our long list of projects that are still not done. Right now we are in the process of prioritizing the list as (1) must be done before we go, (2) get the supplies and we’ll do it in Mexico and (3) forget about it. That is a hard list. Some of the things that are must complete are things like finishing to install the new autopilot and hydrovane (another form of self steering). Anytime you try to do something new on a boat or install new equipment it is a learning process. Every boat is different and there is not a set of instructions that can fit all boats. Inevitably, there will have to be custom parts that have to be made just to make a pre-made piece of equipment work or fit on the boat.

There are also some things that we thought would be fairly straight-forward but we’re finding are a bit more difficult. For example, one of our goals on this trip is to be as self-sufficient as possible. We’re expanding the battery bank and have both solar panels and a wind generator to recharge the batteries that power all of our electronics. (The alternator on the diesel engine also recharges the batteries, but as sailors we of course hope to use the engine as little as possible.) We also have plans to install a water maker, which is our own desalinator. The reverse osmosis system will allow us to making drinking water out of sea water. Well, here comes the difficult part. Of course there is motor that powers the water maker, and that requires power. The power required is a bit more than we anticipated. So, we either have to upgrade our inverter (which converts DC power to 110) and run the diesel engine to get enough power to the batteries, or we have to purchase a gas powered generator. Ugh. We really did not want to be those people who are sitting at anchor burning a gas powered generator! So, we’d be more self-sufficient water wise, but it is going to cause us to burn more diesel or gas (the opposite of what we want to!) We’re going to have to make some decisions pretty quickly on how we are going to make this work.

I would really love to sound like I know what I’m talking about with all of the equipment, etc., but honestly I am relying tremendously on Mike’s knowledge of boats, research and experts we’ve met along the way. Sometimes I wish I had received a degree in electronics or engineering. I certainly never learned any of this in law school! I’m trying to be as helpful as possible, but I’m doing a lot of errand work while Mike does the serious stuff.

In the meantime, I am also working on getting my open water scuba certification. I’ll admit that I was a bit nervous to do this, but it has been more difficult for me than I expected. Physically, I can do all of the tasks no problem. However, breathing underwater has to be about the most unnatural thing I’ve ever done, and being deep underwater without a way to immediately surface has definitely created some anxiety for me. How can you be in an open ocean and feel claustrophobic? Weird! If anyone has had this happen and learned to overcome it, I would love to hear from you! I am determined not to let it beat me! So, after my aborted ocean dive last week, I’m going back into the pool tomorrow (for the third time) to try and get a bit more comfortable before giving the wide Pacific another go. Sigh.

~katie

Merry Christmas from Adagio!

So much has happened in the last month that we haven’t had time to write about it! Adagio was stuck in the boatyard in San Diego for much longer than we anticipated. Once she was pulled out, the guys got to work pealing the hull. As Mike mentioned, he took on the task of modifying the rudder to get the new prop installed. Whew!

While Mike was down in San Diego, I was home in Costa Mesa still working my day job and trying to pack up the house. We were scheduled to close escrow on December 8th. So, getting Adagio back before the house sold was imperative. Otherwise, I guess we were going to be homeless. (Actually, we had offers from friends to stay with them…)

Anyway, Mike got the rudder installed with just five minutes to spare on the Friday afternoon before Thanksgiving. The boatyard guys were calling it quits at 4:00 and weren’t going to wait for anyone! Mike’s hard work paid off and the boat was back in the water on Friday. I took the train down to San Diego after work to meet Mike and get ready to sail back to Newport Beach on Saturday.

We had a nice trip from San Diego to Newport Beach that weekend, other than one little snafu that I’ll let Mike write about at another time. We stopped overnight in Oceanside on Saturday night. We could have made the trip in one day instead of two, but that would mean sailing part of the time at night. Although we don’t have an issue sailing at night, right now is lobster season! That means that getting in and out of any harbor requires dodging all of the lobster pots. They are hard enough to see in the daylight let alone at night. We unfortunately learned this lesson the hard way a couple of years ago when we missed a pot entering the harbor and wrapped the prop. Ugh!

We got back to Newport Beach on Sunday with time to clean up all of the dirt that had accumulated on the boat while sitting in the boatyard for over a month. We were so glad Adagio was back, because Monday we got married and Tuesday we flew to Texas to see my family for Thanksgiving. I don’t think we could have squeezed anymore into that week!

Once we were back from Texas it was crunch time to get everything moved from the house. Mike previously lived on Adagio for several years, so he literally moved into my house with a suitcase full of clothes. I, on the other hand, had accumulated an entire house full of STUFF over the last eight years I lived there. I don’t think you really understand how much STUFF you actually own until you have to downsize to living on a boat! Two walk in closets, a two car garage, a ridiculous number of cabinets, drawers, etc. You get the idea. My packing strategy involved putting everything into three piles: (1) Boat; (2) Storage; and (3) Donate. The boat pile was obviously the smallest of the three.

We donated, put stuff and storage, and finally moved aboard Adagio with the house sold! Unfortunately, because we were so delayed in San Diego, the interior boat projects did not get completed before the move. Let’s just say that it is like moving into a house under renovation, only smaller!

The biggest of the interior projects, which is still not done, is the galley. I feel a bit responsible for getting us into this mess of a galley remodel. Earlier this year, I suggested that maybe we should consider replacing the 30 year old formica countertops in the galley which were a mess. That sounds easy enough, right? Well, the new countertops turned into a new sink, new fridge box insulation and ultimately a new custom fridge box. Not to mention installing a new stove/oven.

The fridge box project has taken on a bit of a life of its own. You can’t just go down to home depot, buy a new refrigerator and install it. The fridge/freezer box is actually built into the cabinet in the galley. Mike has done almost all of the work himself, which has been a huge project. It is going to be fantastic when it is completed, but right now we are living without a kitchen! For those of you that know us well, you know we love to cook and make healthy meals. Eating out every meal is getting bit old.

Here are some pictures of Mike working in the galley chaos.

We are headed out of town for a week for Christmas and New Years, but we’re hopeful all of the projects will be completed in January, so that we can finally begin this adventure!!

Merry Christmas!

~Katie

A ship with a rudder

Well here’s an update from the boatyard. Yes the boat is still out of the water having her bottom peeled to ensure the strength and integrity of her hull for the rest of her life. A very costly repair but necessary for our peace of mind when out voyaging the world’s oceans.

So why the rudder reference in this post? Well whenever the boat is hauled out of the water it’s more cost effective to attack as many of the upgrades and maintenance tasks as possible because hauling the boat is expensive and unpleasant to say the least. So to extend the period between haul-outs, it’s best to get as many below the waterline maintenance tasks completed as possible when hauled out..

So while we are waiting for the hull to be repaired it makes sense to attempt to install the new feathering propeller I purchased a while back (almost two years ago) and haven’t installed yet. The challenge is that the new propeller doesn’t fit because the space for it to operate is restricted by the rudder. As a result, the rudder needs to be removed and modified to accommodate the new propeller. You may say, why don’t you just return the prop and purchase one that fits (Duh)? Well that makes perfect sense in the everyday world, but in the world of boats, the one that fits won’t provide the benefits/features the new one will.

This feathering propeller has three important features/benefits.

It has four blades instead of three which will give us more power at lower rpm’s and enable us to push the boat through certain unpleasant sea conditions faster to get to a safe harbor.
The feathering feature will allow us to sail faster because the blades will feather while sailing and eliminate the drag experience when using a fixed blade prop.
More control in reverse by enabling us to stop the boat more quickly and reducing the “prop-walk”.

Removing the rudder is quite a chore and it took me most of the day just to get it removed. After removing it I had to cut it open and remove some of the outer fiberglass covering. The good news is that Cheoy Lee built this rudder like a tank and the bad news is that because of the stout construction it’s going to need a custom metal fabricator to modify it properly for the new prop. As is always the case, boat projects have a life of their own and usually take four times longer than anticipated.

Hopefully I’ll be able to find a custom metal fabricator in the area that can make the rudder modifications for us quickly so we don’t have to spend more time in the yard than originally anticipated.

Hopefully my next post will be about sailing instead of these huge maintenance projects.

Till next time.

Captain Mike.

Here are some pictures that can give you an idea of what’s happening.

Here’s a picture of the rudder after being removed and cut open to reveal the inner structure (“yes it would be green” reference for all those Spinal Tap fans).

This shot shows the stout inner structure. It’s stainless steel and more than 3/16 of an inch thick.

Here’s a close-up picture of a (ship without a rudder). Fortunately it’s on dry land at the moment.

Picture with the rudder still intact and the bottom completely peeled.

Picture waiting to be hauled out before the peeling of the hull.

The Dog Days of Boatyard Delays

Don’t they say that good things come to those who wait? Well hopefully we’ll get to cash in on that sometime as we continue to wait to be hauled out to have some work done on Adagio’s bottom.

Adagio has been side tied next to the pens that the Driscoll Mission Bay boat yard uses to haul and launch boats for almost two weeks. Two weeks of delays that we really can’t afford given the large list of preparation tasks still to be accomplished before we cast off sometime in January of 2016.

In the meantime, I have been able to accomplish a few things while we’ve been waiting.

Replaced the fuel pump that I use to prime the fuel system after changing the spin-on fuel filter on our Yanmar 4JH5E four cylinder diesel engine. The old one failed for some reason and I had only used it three or four times.
Wired the new cockpit speakers so we have music in the cockpit again woot woot.
Cut the hole in the foredeck where our new windlass will be mounted. Determined that we need to make a base for it to raise it up off the deck enough to keep the chain from jumping off the gypsy.
Had the backing plate for the new windlass modified.
Removed all of the old auto pilot hardware, electronics and wiring.
Re-connected the power to our chart plotter that I inadvertently disconnected while removing the old auto pilot wiring.
Researched interfacing AIS data to our chartplotter to warn us of approaching ships. Wouldn’t want to be run down by one of those mammoth container ships.
Daily keeping the yard grime off of our newly painted decks.

So I have been able to keep myself busy waiting for the eventual haul out of the boat. Also keeping up with my paying work by utilizing the free WiFi at the local Starbucks.

Why the haul out you say?

Well during the recent previous haul out to paint the topsides (area of the hull above the waterline) we found out that we have a minor blister problem. Blisters occur when sea water is able to permeate the outer layer of fiberglass and as a result draw in more water until a blister forms on the hull. These needed attention and we opted for the more permanent (aka more expensive) long term fix and that is why we are in Mission Bay waiting to be hauled out. This more permanent fix involves peeling the outer layer of fiberglass (about 1/8 inch) off of the entire hull and then re-glassing the hull with new fiberglass using a vinylester resin instead of the original polyester resin. Probably more than you wanted to know but there it is.

I’d tell the story of what has been causing the enormous delay but I’m sure your attention span has already been stretched enough with this dry post about yard woes. The good news is that it looks as though our waiting will come to an end tomorrow and the boat will finally be hauled out so the work can begin.

I’ll post a list of the tasks we hope to finish before we take off another time and update it as we complete each one. In case you’re really interested in that kind of thing. Probably more for my benefit in the future looking back on all we went through to get ready for this adventure.

Till next time.

Captain Mike.

Hello world!

Ok… so, I’m just trying to get a handle on this website/blogging thing. My intention is to have this website updated for friends and family to follow our journey as we travel around the world in Adagio, our 1979 Cheoy Lee Offshore 41 sailboat.

We are planning to depart Newport Beach at the end of January 2016. So, we have a few more months to get the boat ready to go. This year has flown by, and now it is crunch time to get everything ready to go. Our goal is to make the boat as safe as possible, but also as comfortable as possible. After all, this is going to be our home!

Right now Adagio is down in San Diego getting ready to be hauled out. We hauled out in Newport Beach to have the bottom painted and discovered that we have some blisters on the bottom of the boat. We could do a temporary fix that would last us a few years, but we decided we wanted a more permanent solution. We found a guy in San Diego who invented a technique to get rid of blisters permanently on older boats. (I’ll save you the description of what exactly blisters are on boats and why they occur.) Essentially the bottom of the boat will be stripped down to the fiberglass with a new layer of glass with a different type of epoxy will be applied that is supposed to keep this from happening again.

So, we’re down here in San Diego waiting to be pulled out of the water. It is going to be about a 3 week process before we can be back in the water and sail back north to Newport Beach. This is a delay we weren’t initially expecting, but we are going to make do. In the meantime, the galley is still torn up as we are putting in a new stove, sink, fridge box and countertops. (I mentioned being more comfortable, right?)

I am so looking forward to the projects being done so that we can take off on the voyage. I know Mike is too…especially because this has basically been a full time job for him for at least the last six months!

~katie