16 March 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
Cyclone Pam went past us during the night, giving us some heavy rain, but the winds weren't too bad - the highest gust was 45 knots and mostly it was 25-30 knots.
Now that Pam has gone through, the weather looks settled next weekend, so we’re planning to leave Whangarei at the end of the week. I went through our To Do List and prioritised everything, so that we’ll be mobile by Friday – this mostly involved moving jobs onto a long term To Do List. It’s all a bit scary, we haven’t been sailing for over three months.
Glenys finished off painting the three cupboard doors for the toilets and then stripped off the edging tape from the inside of the cupboards - a long tedious job. She then put on a coat of undercoat and will finish off tomorrow.
The refrigeration engineer came back today and found that the pressure in the drinks fridge system had dropped slightly. It only took him ten minutes to find another tiny leak, this time on the joint where the capillary tube enters another pipe. He fixed the leak and left the system charged with 100psi of Nitrogen again - fingers crossed.
I worked on the 15hp outboard for the rest of the day. I installed a new water pump; replaced the lower leg on the outboard; changed the HT leads; replaced all of the internal fuel lines; changed the fuel connector and I just had time to put a new latch onto the cowling before it was six o'clock.
Normally, six o'clock is Miller Time and I’d be ripping open a can of cold beer, but I’m still not drinking alcohol - seven days and counting. I've made an appointment to see a different (and hopefully cheaper) doctor in a couple of days’ time to get some more blood tests done to see if my liver has recovered, then hopefully, I can have a beer of two. I've received all the results of my blood tests now and there’s no sign of rheumatoid arthritis, which is good, but I still don’t know why my fingers are so stiff in the mornings, so I’ll be getting a second opinion.
17 March 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
We were beavering away again today. Glenys got out her sewing machine and did a few small jobs, as well as more painting.
The refrigeration engineer came and the pressure had remained at 100 psi overnight, so he evacuated and recharged the system. It looks like we've finally fixed both fridges. I fervently hope so - we’ve been plagued with leaks ever since we bought Alba four years ago.
I stripped down the carburettor for the 15hp outboard. This is the third day I've worked on it, but it’s still running very rough at idle. I'm not sure what the problem is - perhaps it’s old, stale fuel?
The last time that we ran the generator was back in December - just before we hauled out. Since then I've removed and replaced the generator, so it was with some trepidation that I tried to start it. I went through the usual process of bleeding the diesel a few times and eventually got it to run, but after five minutes it cut out and wouldn't start again.
I spent 30 frustrating minutes, bleeding the fuel system and trying to figure out what the hell was going on, when Glenys suggested the fuel relay might be at fault. I’d discounted this because I've just installed a new cover plate to hold the relays in place, but I had a look. Bingo! The new cover plate wasn't quite holding the relay in place, so I've put a couple of bits of packing in there and the generator ran for an hour without any problems.
In the afternoon, I installed a new drive unit for the autopilot. The old unit is working fine, but is fourteen years old, so I've bought a replacement because I'm worried that it might fail in the middle of nowhere. It was a fairly easy job, just a bit fiddly rewiring the cables into a strip connector, so that it will be easy to swap if there’s a problem. Once it was all working, I spent an hour clamping the old drive in a position close to the working drive, so it will be quick to changeover – if the drive fails, it’s bound to be in rough weather and heavy seas.
18 March 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
I went to see another doctor today. This guy was a normal General Practitioner who only charged me £27 instead of the £60 paid to White Cross. I found out that White Cross is a kind of emergency medical place and is open later hours than the normal doctors, so the locals only go there if they have an urgent problem outside their doctor’s surgery hours. So, in retrospect, it would have worked out cheaper to register with a GP as soon as we arrived.
While I was doing my medical bit, Glenys had arranged for a guy called Noel to come out and steam clean our carpets and upholstery. I arrived back just as he was finishing and noticed long dark streaks across the upholstery. The material is a kind of velvet corduroy and is light beige, so any discolouration shows up – it looked a right mess.
Noel agreed that it didn't look right and was puzzled by what had happened, but it looks like the nap of the fabric has been scorched. I made him steam clean every cushion again, this time brushing with the nap of the material, but it still looks awful and I feel like crying. We decided to let it all dry properly overnight and he’s coming back again in the morning.
Having given my blood for the blood tests, I felt compelled to drink, so we went out for a couple of beers and had a nice meal in a Thai restaurant.
19 March 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
First thing in the morning, Glynn from Palmer Canvas came to have a look at our upholstery. His verdict was that the pile of the fabric is irrecoverably damaged, probably by the steam cleaner being too hot or a reaction to the cleaning chemicals. In any case, the only solution is to replace every one of the 22 cushions. He measured up and came back with a quote for £2,500 to do the job. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait two weeks until they have a slot to do the work.
Noel came around a little later in the morning and agreed that the damage was irreparable and that it was his fault, so he’ll make a claim on his Professional Liability Insurance. To look on the bright side at least we’ll be getting new upholstery for free, but we’ll now have to stay here in Whangarei for another four weeks to get it all sorted out, which is frustrating.
In the afternoon, we had a guy around from Doyle Sails to give us another quote. It sounds like they’re very busy and we’d be better to go with Palmer Canvas, if we ever want to leave New Zealand.
Feeling a little bit depressed, we spent most of the day pottering about doing a few chores and running a few errands, but not achieving much.
20 March 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
I rang Noel to make sure that he was processing the insurance claim for our upholstery and he told me that he’s on the job, scanning and emailing the claim to the insurers. We have the weekend coming up and he promises that he’ll ring the insurers on Monday to chase them up. Glenys went around to Palmer Canvas and got them to send off a sample of our upholstery material to a wholesaler in Auckland to try to get a match.
With time on my hands, I started to install Windows 7 onto my new laptop. It originally had Windows 8 installed, but I've been having all sorts of problems with the network card constantly disconnecting, so I bit the bullet, wiped the hard disk drive and started again. It wasn't easy. I was in a bit of a Catch 22 situation because I needed to install drivers which are available on the internet, but I didn't have a wireless network driver installed, so I couldn't access the internet - Arrrgggghhhh! Goodness knows how anyone survives without a second computer to access the internet.
By mid-afternoon and lots of cursing, I finally had the basic installation done with internet access and started the tedious process of re-loading on my programs and data - I wish that I’d never started.
I popped into the doctors and received the final results of my blood tests. The good news is that my liver has recovered; I've not got Hepatitis and I've not got Arthritis, but I've apparently had Cytomegalovirus and Epstein Barr Virus infections at some time in the past, but the infections have been “resolved”. I'm too scared to look up these diseases.
21 March 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
Having resigned ourselves to another four weeks here in Whangarei, I did some admin and sorted through my To Do and To Buy lists, as well as continuing to load software onto my new laptop (what a tedious job). Glenys pottered about doing a few jobs.
In the afternoon, I motivated myself to do some small jobs, repairing one of the cockpit seats and making up new leads for our new AIS Transponder, which I've now partly installed.
22 March 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
Being a Sunday, we declared a rest day and went for a walk up to the Abbey Caves Reserve. The route was mostly on the road, climbing into the hills above Whangarei, but it was very pleasant scenery once we were out of the suburbs. The small natural reserve has lots of limestone outcrops in woodland and three large caves, which are freely accessible. I’d brought along a small head torch, but having looked at the cold, wet, gloomy entrances, neither of us fancied wading into the caves.
After a sandwich sat on a rock outcrop, we wandered over the Parihaka Mountain Biking Park and down the steep Ross Track back to the marina. It was a nice four hour walk and good to get off the boat.