It’s a Short Season

Diane has left and now we are left to our own devices. Soon our friends Wilma and Gene on Gewil, and Vince and Alex from Slow Motion will arrive. In the mean time what is there to do? We go to the Honeymoon

Beach Drive In

Dog Learning to boogie board

 

Monday night movie and enjoy a movie, popcorn and burgers.  Joe’s on the other end of the beach is now the Dinghy and they have an inflatable on the beach with a female mannequin in it. I understand she has already had trouble with people borrowing her bathing suit and taking her for rides. Honeymoon beach is a lot of fun.

Dinghy's and their sign

Leslie at Heidi's

 

 People have fun in the water during the day sometimes teaching dogs to surf. There is of course Heidi’s beach bar at one end and Dinghy at the other for food and drinks and at night with the lights on it is a magical place.

Honeymoon at night





What a cool slide

The most toys wins

 

There is also Brewers Beach to swim, snorkel, get food and drinks at the food trucks and sometimes catch a beach wedding or even a swimsuit model shoot. Some big boats sometimes drop in for a play day, and they have the toys!



another slide! It must be the new thing

 

swimsuit models at Brewers

 

 




There of course is the Wednesday shopping spree with friends to the thrift store, Cost U Less, Home Depot, and Price Smart.

Zora fitting Leslie's sandals

 

 Leslie got some custom sandals at Zora’s.  There is also dinner with friends at various spots on St. Thomas, or go to St. Johns. Here there is great snorkeling and swimming at Maho, Frances, and Caneel Bays to mention just a few, as well as hiking all over the island.

Dinner on Ocean Wings

Dinner at Island View with friends

Suzanne's birthday dinner

 

An Octopus hiding in a hole

 

The bug parade

Nice cars

 

Of course there are parties and events all around. We went to the University of the Virgin Island’s Taste of Spring celebration. There was all kinds of foods with a food contest and a parade of classic cars.

fire jugler at taste of Spring

The Spring Queens

 

 

 

 

 

One of the food tents with local dishes

There were lots of kids activities

 

 

 

 

 

 

Concert at Crown Bay

 

Beautiful Coral at Culebra

Another Octopus

 

 

 

 

We also sailed to Culebra to meet friends and snorkel as the water and snorkeling is wonderful!

 

Leslie at Culebra

 

Templet for Scuba tank holder

The completed tank holder

 

What do you do? Well when all else fails there is always the list of projects and maintenance waiting to be done.

The tank holders installed

Tanks in the holders

Varnish the engine hatches

 

 

 

Putting a gasket on oven

New anchor bow roller with anchor guards

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carl spicing 8 strand to chain

The finished splice

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lelsie with new tables at Leverick

Completed scuba shop at Leverick

 

We made a last trip to BVI North Sound, one of our favorite places, and started to get the boat ready to haul out. We had a great close hauled tack up the Francis Drake Passage and got passed by some Maxi boats racing around Virgin Gorda.

New shops at Leverick under
construction

Maxi boat heading for the start

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Beans with 81 year old father
on the wash board

crowd sailing away with Beans

 

We also caught a last show of Michael Beans.

 

Of Course just as we were leaving Brewers Bay, Carl did something to his right leg and could barely walk! So mornings were spent stretching and rubbing his knee and leg. At Leverick he had 2 massages and 2 acupuncture treatments and is now almost back to normal.

Midnight Rambler crew

Midnight Rambler Leaving Maho Bay

We will soon be putting Frolic up for the year as we will be sailing on Midnight Rambler with Peg and August to Tampa Florida. It promises to be a leisurely and fun trip and should take 6 – 8 weeks. Then since we will be in the states we will start a land travel marathon to visit as many friends as we can.  From there we will hopefully fly to Australia to visit family we haven’t seen since 2006, many new additions await our acquaintance. 

Frolic out of the water after 3 months

 

 

We Start a New Season

We arrived back to Frolic Jan 2 and started to get her ready for launching (see previous blog). We had a few repairs and additions to make. Carl replaced a handle on an escape hatch and then replaced our speed and depth instrument which was getting too dark to read. We had retractable transducers for the speed and depth and Carl had asked for those when he ordered the new instrument, but he only got a retractable speed log not a depth transducer. So Carl had to take out the old thru hull and replace it with the new depth transducer. Then we figured just to pull out the old cables with the new ones attached to pull them in place. Oh NO! That was too easy! The old cable would not move and disappeared under the saloon deck. A couple hours of frustration and we cut the cable and spent 4 hours fishing the new cable to the instrument and then finally mounting the new instrument. Day One.

Carl running the transducer cable to the display

The next day was engine work for Carl and bottom sanding for Leslie. Carl installed the raw water thru hulls, ran the fuel polishing systems, started and checked the engines, and installed the raw water impellers for both engines. Toward the end of the day he helped Leslie sand. Day Two.

Diane's cottage on the beach

Carl painting the hull

It was then time to paint the hull. We thinned and mixed 2 pounds of Cyanne pepper in with the paint. We got most of the hull done before we ran out of paint. Our friend Diane was arriving on the ferry so we cleaned up and met her and had dinner on the beach. Day Three.

We all went to the stores to provision. It was a long day of shopping and hauling, but ended with a dinner at the Coco Maya. It’s a great restaurant right on the beach with a fire pit and couches on the beach. The end of Day Four.

Coco Maya at night

Fifth Day,  Frolic goes in the water.  We made a last check of thru hulls and pumps and found the port manual pump’s V ring that holds it together broke. So we pumped the little water out with the automatic pump. Then as we tried to pump the starboard bilge with the automatic pump the pump ran, but no water came out. Inspection found the V ring on that pump broken! On course the run to the chandlery was fruitless so at noon we went in the water minus two bilge pumps We still had two working. All was well and after priming the engine’s raw water pump we were set to go.

Off we go to the water

A quick motor brought us to North Sound where we took a mooring and hanked on the jib and hoisted the main to test it as well as start putting up the deck lights.

Diane at Leverick Bay

Diane and the Jumbies

The next day we pulled into Leverick Resort dock for a few days and washed down the deck with fresh water, put up the rest of the lights and organized the boat. It was a great stay and we got to see friends as well as the Happy Ahrrr Show and enjoy the Friday night pig roast and the Jumbies Show. We also visited Saba Rock and helped in the 5 PM Tarpon Feed.

More Jumbies

The pig roast

 

 

 

 

 

Diane stayed with us for another week and we had great beam reach sails down the Francis Drake Passage to Maho Bay, sad to not see the resort any more, and on to St. Thomas and Brewers Bay with a lazy beam reach in tandem with another Lagoon 380.

Leverick Bay

Feeding the Tarpons at Saba Rock

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunset at Maho Bay

Dinner at Woody's in At. John

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snorkeling at Maho

At Maho

 

Diane and Leslie at Honeymoon Beach

Carl and Leslie at the Dinghy Bar at
Honeymoon Beach

 

 

 

 

We visited Honeymoon beach for a great day of fun and ending the week with dinner at the Island View Guest House with a spectacular view of the harbor. 

View from the Island View

We are at Island View with Denis and
La Donna off another 380 Lagoon

 

We stopped at the Emerald Beach Resort for Lunch before Diane flew home to snow storms in Philly….ugh

Diane at Emerald Beach

Diane at the airport off to Philly

The next night we toasted Diane and saw a movie at Honeymoon Beach.

Movie night at Honeymoon Beach
Like the old drive ins

Come back soon Diane!

MAINTENANCE AND GETTING THE BOAT READY TO HAUL AND RELAUNCH

The saying is that the two best days of a sailor’s life is the day he buys a boat and the day he sells the boat.  Conversely the two worst days of a sailor’s life is the hauling and launching of the boat.  This blog is dedicated to some things we have learned to help make these processes less stressful.

Carl in the engine room

 

carl's engine room shoes

One important thing is that we do weekly maintenance of the engines and systems.  We plan on a day of the week, if we are making passage on that day we do it at first anchorage.  Our day is Sunday.  Our weekly maintenance includes checking the belts on the engines and alternators, check the oil, check transmission fluid, check the Racor filters, check bilges for water, spray WD-40 bolts and valves and manipulate the raw water thru hulls on the sail drives.  Carl wears throw away surgical booties in the engine room, no dirty footprints on deck! 

carl lubricartes all the locks

 

The next item is the dingy locks, we have 4 with matching keys as one need’s to lock gas tank and engine to the dingy and we have two locking cables, a 30 ft. and a 6ft. for locking to docks or trees, these are given a spray of WD-40.  This lesson was learned as in Antigua we needed to have the outboard repaired and the lock was frozen and bolt cutters had to be found.  We also now carry bolt cutters!  The main saloon lock we also WD-40.  The outside decks are cleaned with Greased Lightning, Bar Keepers Friend, and Mr. Clean Erasers.  Bar Keepers Friend comes in a cardboard can, not good on a boat if it gets wet it disintegrates so we put it in a cleaned plastic Parmesan Cheese container which we can sprinkle it from.  The rest of the week the deck gets a good rinse with water.  Once every six months the stainless is polished with Prism Polish and the fiberglass table and vertical surfaces are cleaned and Star Bright polished.  Maintenance on the interior includes washing down all the walls and overhead with vinegar, this helps against mold.  The heads get vinegar put in which cuts crystals and leaves the toilet bowl clean and white.  Once in a while we add veg. oil to head to lubricate the valves. The floors are vacuumed and swiffered to rid of sand and dust.  All thru-hulls are manipulated and returned to either open or closed position depending on their purpose.   Another metal cleaner we have on board is Never Dull which comes in a metal can which will rust so we remove and put into a plastic jar. 

maintenance supplies

Haul Out:

The boat is power washed when hauled

 

The day before the boat is hauled we change the oil and oil filters, we change the racor filters, the jib is taken off the roller furling.  We wash the boat with fresh water, fill and drain the holding tanks with fresh water.  The boat is power washed and chocked by the yard then strapped down with large ratchet straps attached to 6ft drilled in screws to the ground.  We put corks (think of all the wine you drink) in all the thru-hulls on the exterior of the boat as well as shutting all the thru-hulls from the inside.

Leslie with wine and corks in thru hulls while sanding

   The Bimini is removed and stored inside, the mainsail we leave tied in her sail cover.  During storage, the impellers in the raw water pumps are removed and the raw thru hulls are removed and soaked in vinegar to remove the scale inside them. We also change the sail drive oil and the outboard lower unit oil.  The engines are back flushed with a vinegar solution with a little Rule 50 pump into a 5 gal spackle bucket and the solution goes round and round for about an hour. The fuel polishing system is run for a hour or so.  We remove all the lines we can and soak them in fabric softener and fresh water then store inside.  We do the same to all the lines we can pull and reach that stay on the mast by putting as much as we can in the 5 gal. bucket with solution to soak.  We wrap tools in lightly oil soaked rags to reduce rust and keep parts moving. We pickle the water making system. 

all hatches have sun shades

 

We bought car sunshades and cut them to fit each hatch.  This helps to reduce sun damage to cushions and mattresses and actually keeps the cabins cooler when closed up.    By doing all this, and there are probably things I missed we are so used to doing this now, we save ourselves a lot of work and possible problems when we launch.  Our boat is usually left on the hard for 3to 4 months.  The last thing we do is hang Sun Pac, a mildewcide; we hang one in each pontoon, and one in the main saloon.  We also put Roach Puff in the corner of cabinets and under the sink.  All this discourages critters from taking up residence in our absence.

Frolic heads for the water

Launch: Basically we put all the pieces we have removed back in the engines, do a normal weekly maintenance and the engines are good to go.  We run the sheets     thru the cam cleats and replace any that look iffy.  Put on Bimini and sails etc.  The major part of launching is painting the bottom. This year we added two pounds of cayenne pepper to the bottom paint.  We will see how that works, as of two months we have no growth on the bottom.

New screens on foward hatch

Misc:  Most charter boats come with no screens.  We refitted all the hatches with Bomar screens that fit around the hatch.  They come with screens and sunshades.  Our Lagoon has two hatches in the main saloon that are vertical and off size so I made screens for them with toggle holders, makes them easy to undo to pass thru the windless remote.  The refrigeration on our boat is front opening, inefficient for 12 volt so I attached thick clear plastic to each shelf to close over the space between shelves, now when I open the door the cool stays in and I only open the cover on the shelf I need.  It keeps the power usage low and the food from spoiling.  We run all our systems on two solar panels. 

Just wanted to share some of the chore side of living on a boat, we still have the sun and fantastic water to jump into when things get hot.  Wish you were here!

Enjoying Sailing