1 October 2011 Spanish Water, Curacao
We were very brave last night and went to bed with no mosquito screens and all the doors open. It was great to have a strong breeze going through the boat again. I actually felt cold in the middle of the night and no mosquitos – we’ve gone to MOSCON 3.
We went to the supermarket in the morning. The supermarket sends a free bus to the fisherman’s dock every morning to take yachties shopping. There are two chandlers close by the supermarket, so I went and checked them out before joining Glenys with her shopping trolley.
We dropped off our laundry at a small supermarket in Spanish Water. The shop was shut up, but there was a guy lying on a bench outside who said it was OK to leave it there. Strangely trusting, we left two huge bags of clothes there.
We had lunch and then chilled out for the afternoon. “Flawless D” came for sun downers.
2 October 2011 Spanish Water, Curacao
We went to a small flea market/boat jumble in the morning and then went for a walk to the top of a hill overlooking the anchorage. There’s a really nice beach about five minutes walk from the dinghy dock and apparently there’s a small tugboat wreck somewhere at about six metres depth. We’ll have to go snorkelling one day.
The walk was very easy, we called in at a small fort on the way and were still at the top of the hill in an hour. There’s a great view of the whole of Spanish Water from up there. We had our lunch with our legs dangling over the edge of a cliff.
We mooched about in the afternoon. I have decided that I ought to upgrade our website software, so I spent a few hours researching how to do it and backing up the existing website. I’ve started to practise the clarinet again – very frustrating because my lips are exhausted after only ten minutes.
3 October 2011 Spanish Water, Curacao
We spent the morning doing small jobs. Glenys cleared the front cabin and washed down the insides of cupboards and the lockers under the bed. Everywhere in the front cabin still had salt deposits from when we got wet while bashing upwind past La Blanquilla.
I found it very hard to motivate myself to do anything – I’ve definitely got out of the habit of doing jobs. I managed to do a few very small things and then spent the rest of the day upgrading a test version of my web site. What a nightmare – the upgrade takes about fifteen minutes, but then there are loads of things wrong with the layout of the website. I’ve decided that I need to reconstruct the template from a blank template, which will be a lot of work.
We went to “Flawless D” for a drink or two. They are very quick at topping up one’s glass and Glenys went raving mad with the red wine. After three hours, we poured ourselves into the dinghy and Glenys managed to make dinner before slumping drunkenly on the back deck for an hour before I sent her to bed.
4 October 2011 Spanish Water, Curacao
Glenys was not too well this morning. I went up the mast and did some small jobs. Glenys, meanwhile, washed the hatches and deck surfaces in between hauling me up and down the mast.
After lunch, we both chilled out for an hour and then I finished off modifying the template for the website and testing the upgrade. Glenys occupied herself cleaning the stainless steel fittings on deck – it got her out in the fresh air and was a suitably mindless task for her delicate state.
We had an early dinner and went to bed.
5 October 2011 Spanish Water, Curacao
This is a fantastic anchorage - the wind blows constantly, so the temperature at night is very cool; yet the water is very calm. I’m sleeping very well for a change and feel like I’m recharging my body after a couple of weeks running about.
We went shopping on the supermarket bus in the morning and picked up our laundry, which amazingly, had made it to the laundrette and returned clean.
The afternoon was another chilled out affair. I upgraded our live web site and after a few traumatic hours managed to get it all working. I hope that I don’t have to do that again for a couple of years.
I continued with my clarinet lessons. I’m now up to lesson 19 in “A Tune a Day”, which unfortunately, has now moved onto the upper register, which is no doubt excruciating for Glenys and our neighbours.
The beer fridge is making gurgling noises again, so I think that we have another refrigeration leak. I’ve decided that we should turn it off overnight because the batteries were quite low this morning and I suspect that the fridge is running constantly. This is not good news – we might have to start drinking warm beer.
6 October 2011 Spanish Water, Curacao
I put out a call on the cruisers net this morning for the name of someone who can repair fridges. Within fifteen minutes, Larry from “Navigator” was on board and working on our fridge. He agreed with me that we have lost refrigerant and recharged the system. We have a clever hull fitting which acts as the condenser, using sea water to cool the refrigerant. He thought that this wasn’t working properly, so after he left, I donned my scuba gear and went scrubbing the fitting with a wire brush. It seemed to be a little bit better.
The fridge was still making gurgling noises, so I read the manuals and found that the compressor can run at varying speeds between 2000 and 3500 rpm. It was set to run at 2000 rpm, so as an experiment I’ve changed it to 3500rpm. This will draw more current from the batteries, but should pull the temperature down quicker. I’ll see how it performs.
We spent the afternoon doing a few more small jobs; Glenys is on a mission to clean everything on the deck. We went for dinner on “Flawless D.”
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