Many a slip...

We celebrated our "painless slip" a little prematurely, it seems.
By the next morning, the bilge pump had run 22 times. (Landlubbers:
this is a strong indication that something is not right.)

We took the boat apart again, but the stuffing box really was
not dripping (the beginning of our first disaster in Turkey).
Finally, we noticed a crack in the pump in the forward head.
Could that be the cause? Jack bought a spare pump body and
changed it out. At least we were by a chandlery, connected to
a dock in a boatyard.

Dribbles stopped coming out of the toilet, but the toilet wouldn't
take a prime. The bilge pump ran less frequently, but 12 times
the next night was still way too much. We asked the boatyard
if they had a plumber, and that afternoon Spandolini came, diagnosed
the problem and said it was easy to fix. Since Spandolini had
fixed the problem many times, and Jack never, we said he could
do it. And in a few days when he had time, he did. The same
day he fixed the through-hull, he figured out the toilet problem,
which came from the omission of a small part in the refit. So
within five days from splash (or slip), we were no longer taking
on water and could use our toilets again.

In the meantime we were fitting the sails back on. It took J
a day to figure out the correct sequence for rigging the new
sailbag, but after that day it was done. The next day, trying
to pull the halyards (stored at the masthead to keep the lines
out of the sunlight while we were on the hard) down to the deck,
the messenger broke and the halyards stayed where they were.
A problem, since the only halyard we had was the one to the
staysail, which doesn't run up to the top. The boatyard called
the riggers for us, and in, let's call it a daring rescue, the
two young skinny nimble guys got the halyards down. We needed
them anyway to put the wind instrument back up that we had bought
last year and taken down to avoid hurricane damage over the summer.

The next day we put the main on, a big job but fairly easily
accomplished. Except that when we went to attach the main halyard
we noted the incorrect splice that exposed the core of the line.
The halyard could break at any time. We had replaced that halyard
last year so it would go with our other new lines. Time for
a new new halyard!

We knew we would need the riggers again, so we proceeded to put
the staysail up. Clearly something was wrong there, too. A
screw had broken off inside the retainer for the foil. Another
job for the riggers.

Ashley came the next day and looked at our problems. A new halyard
could be made, no problem and he had suggestions for the line
that were much better than we had been offered in Trinidad.
The staysail foil might take some struggle, as Harken no longer
made parts for that model. We agreed that if he could figure
something out for under $200 we would do that, otherwise we agreed
that we needed a new roller-furler.
Fortunately, he came back with a fix that he feels strongly is
safe and that will be completed today.(or tomorrow)

In the meantime, we had plenty of time to try to figure out what
to do about the radar chartplotter at the helm that had a huge
black blob in the middle, where the display screen was burned
out. It worked perfectly, you just couldn't see anything except
at the edges. The unit below, the master, worked—and viewed—perfectly.
Could we just swap the two units in order to easily get home?
We will have to do two or three night sails, much better to
have the chart at the helm. The local tech thought not, although
he did think if we ran more radar cable to the helm from the
nav station, that would work. The obsolescent radar cable was
still available, but J would have to run it and the space is
very tight.

We decided to try emailing the Raymarine tech who had revitalized
the Raymarine system two years ago. Dennis had warned us about
the obsolescence of the system but had not thought it would be
a problem getting home. Fortunately, the email also went to
our friend Floyd Hollister, a Ph.D EE who also had run a marine
electronics business before retiring. This was entirely an accident,
but a miraculous one. Floyd called the Raymarine hotline got
the answer that J could indeed just swap the units to have visibility
at the helm and PRESTO! safe navigation again. A few days later
Dennis emailed us with the same information, telling us the phone
number we had given him in Antigua was blocked to out of country
calls.

As all this was playing out we decided that we should just have
a Yanmar mechanic inspect the engine, as well as find us some
compatible spares for the belt put on in Martinique. Now, I
bet you're thinking that this won't go well. But in fact, it
did. Mel is returning today or tomorrow with his helper, a man
with skinny hands who will clean up the mess left under the engine
by last year's events, and two spare belts. Yesterday, Sunday,
we decided we'd better run the generator before we left, in case
there were problems with that. There were, but having seen the
problems with air leaks in boats left too long on the hard, J
was able to successfully bleed the system after he tightened
all the hose clamps.

So we are probably two days from leaving Antigua. In the meantime,
another big race began in the rain today, the RORC, which leaves
from English Harbor, goes to Redondo, then Nevis, then down to
Guadaloupe. So it's just like last May, except this time, we
hope to go too. They will race 690 miles in about 2 ½ days.
We hope to go 150 in three.

The bottom line is that we have spent three weeks getting Horizons
in the water and seaworthy, instead of the two weeks we thought
we were going to spend. We are no longer the slaves of ambition,
as the old song phrases it, just mellow old salts exercising
a bit of prudence. Which cost us a week. Since we'll be in
the Virgins by 29 Feb and it is generally inadvisable to leave
the Virgins for points north until well into April, no big deal.
Nevis is the next port of call, about 55 nautical miles away.

We did have visitors while we were here: our downstairs neighbors
taking a cruise. We encouraged them to not take the cruise ship
expedition but come out to Nelson's Dockyard via a taxi-tour
and have lunch with us. Nelson's Dockyard is one of the loveliest
places in the Caribbean, and the new restaurant opened on the
slipway side is where we have been hanging out. The Italian
food at Paparazzi is terrific, and they were able to see our
boat.

Although we have been neighbors for five or six years, the Duseks
have never seen our boat. Horizons has not been in US waters
since July 2004. It was fun to meet Jim and Claire in the Caribbean,
and even more fun when they also ran into friends of theirs from
Fairfax, off another cruise ship. It continues to be a small
world.