Andrea's Studio

Andrea painting

My friend Andrea has been commuting to her job in Santa Cruz from La Laguna, a trip of about 1 hour. She very recently rented a studio apartment here in Santa Cruz so she did not have to drive home after work. Since she works in Cafe Atlantico after work is frequently 2AM or 3AM. She told me that she was painting it and I said - I can give you a hand. I think this goes back to all the times my father came over to help me paint my places.

I have spent a couple of days helping paint. The real payoff has been that Andrea knows where all the of home stores are located. We went to the Tenerife version of Home Depot to pick up some tools and so forth. I haven't had so much fun since being a kid in the tool section of Sears.

Fair winds and following seas.

Clutch Repair

Sailboats seem to have an endless ability to have things break. This the one of the line clutches. While working on the dodger I had to unthread all of the lines that are lead through the dodger and into the cockpit. When I went to rethread them one of them (of course the one for the jib halyard) refused to work Upon further investigation I discovered that a spring had jumped out of its position. I was able to unscrew the clutch. Since it hasn't been unscrewed since the boat was built I was surprised that it actually came off rather easily. Then a complete disassemble, poked a couple of holes in my finger trying to move the spring wire, and pop - it all came back together and worked.

The clutch that jammed was of course on the side that does not have a spare clutch. In a way this was good, it made me fix it. Otherwise my normal procrastination might have kicked in and it will still be jammed.

Fair winds and following seas.

Back to Solo

Quana is departing today to deal with a family emergency. So until the rest of the crew arrives in mid-October I am back to being a solo sailor. I have very specific instructions not to smoke inside the boat and not to mess up all of the cabinets. Quana spent quite a bit of time putting like things together in the same place. She has been great crew and I will miss her. It is still up in the air if she will make it back in time for the crossing. If not, I am sure she will be back on board for a later leg.

Quanta, best wishes, fair winds and following seas.

Rain in Santa Cruz

It doesn't happen often, but yesterday we got rain for about 15 minutes in Santa Cruz. Of course 1/2 hour later everything had dried up. I think it was from the impact of Tropical Storm Nadine off the coast.

Beach, Aire, Tenerife Sud

Carmen Moto's Aire Ballet

Last evening Quana, Andrea, and I went to see Carmen Moto's Spanish ballet Aire. We all enjoyed the show a lot. My only compaint is that the theater has almost no rake and very high seat backs, I had to sit up straight the entire time (as those who know me will report I never sit up straight!)

But first we were off to the beach in Los Cristianos, Tenerife. The drive down from Santa Cruz was quite long, Los Cristianos is near the Tenerife Sud airport - I did not realize just how long the island is.

The water was much cooler than I expected but very pleasant for swimming. The sand is very fine. I took a mask and snorkel out into the surf. The water was clear but many small sand particles in suspension made the visibility only about 6 feet.

The beach itself was hot and as the tide came in we were chased from our original location to another spot further back on the beach.  My biggest concern was that I would get sunburned and have a miserable time later in the evening. I lathered up with SPF 50 and it worked out OK.

Quick Change

We stopped for drinks to cool down and then the girls did the quick change at the back of Andrea's car into their dinner outfits. We went off to a nice seafood restaurant and had lobster for dinner. Since Andrea was driving I have no clue where we went.

Then on to the Mare Nostrum resort to see Aire. Of course after the show we needed a nightcap so following the sound of loud music we find an English pub.It was actually a complex of several rooms each that had an entertainer.  The room we were in had a change of acts from an Irish guy singing 60's and 70's songs to another guy singing 50's songs. I didn't think it possible to be in a room where everyone else (except of course Andrea and Quana and I) knew the words to the music. The average age must have been 75!

The Girls

 On to goofing around in the streets, then the long drive home. Andrea and I share a common problem, in the middle of the night on a deserted highway holding the speed down to close to legal is a bit of an issue. Even so, it was still a good hour to get back to the marina.

Fair winds and following seas.

Finding Love

Taking pictures of taking pictures.

La Laguna

Squat and ...

Yesterday Quana and I took the tram to La Laguna..

La Laguna is Tenerife's second most important city and until 1723 was the capital of the island, situated just inland from Santa Cruz in the beautiful countryside of the Aguere Valley. It is also the cultural and religious capital, due to the fact that it is home to the San Fernando University and the Bishop's Palace. The whole city is full of outstanding architectural monuments, palaces and traditional houses of the 17th and 18th centuries.

The historic area is quite compact and we walked around for several hours. Unfortunately most of the churches required an admission ticket. We did not find the visitors center where you could purchase the tickets until late in the day. In keeping with the historic nature of the city our lunch stop has not upgraded the toilet to more modern standards.

Fair winds and following seas.

The Chart Table Exposed

I have spent most of the last two days running some new wires and cleaning things up behind the chart plotter, AIS, etc. This is my little nest of wire.  I would clean it up further but many of these lines are precut cable. I don't have the ability to put new ends on the cables so I lave them all coiled up.

I was going to replace one of the front panels but discovered that I really didn't have anything that would look OK. So I will wait to do that when I can get to a decent lumber yard and get a matching piece.

Fair winds and following seas.

Chart Table Seat

Once more mounted and in place. It took a bit. I had to drill out the previous bolts. The drill bit was too big for my drill.  Eventually my friends from Salvamento Martimo came to my rescue again. They lent me a drill and the use of their shop to get the necessary holes drilled.

We will see how long the seat mounting lasts before it once again has "fat ass failure."

Fair winds and following seas.

Santa Cruz de Tenerife Street Sweapers

I love the way that the street sweepers use the trees to sweep the streets. Very cool.

Fair winds and following seas.

Mexican Train

Andrea

Our friend Andrea from Santa Cruz joined us last night for a round of "Mexican Train." Once again I am struck by the fact that people brought up in Europe (Romania in the instant case) manage to learn three or four languages and I can barely order coffee in anything but English.

Fair winds and following seas.

Titsa

The local bus company

And assa. OK, its lame. Just think of the finale of A Chorus Line..

Drugs, Smokes, Alcohol, Sin

I am loving Spain - at least the Canaries where the VAT is half what it is on the mainland. Today I went shopping:

 

Prescription Drugs: 20% of the cost in the US, no prescription required for refills of my heart and cloistral meds.

Smokes: $30 per carton

Johnny Walker Black: $30 per 5th

Decent wine: $6.00

Captain Morgan Black Jamaican Rum: $10

Sin: Prostitution is legal in Spain. I do not have, nor do I intend to have, any experience in this area.

 

Fair winds and following seas

The Sailrite Sewing Machine

After several years the dodger and side panels have started to show a lot of wear. The problem is not the fabric - Sunbrella - which is surprisingly still in good shape. All of the thread has rotted out. So I have taken on the task of restitching all of the seams.  The side panels were pretty easy. But the main dodger is quite the challenge.

The picture is my Sailrite sewing machine set up on the salon table. I have not used it in about a year. Needless to say after about 30 minutes of doing everything wrong I got out the instructions. I discovered that I had threaded the machine incorrectly. After getting it threaded right I started to sew. It took about 2 minutes before the bobbin ran out of thread. But eventually I got it all together and managed to get the side panels finished and a start on the dodger.

Fair winds and following seas.

I can get that mold out of the bottom

Quana decided that my last cleaning of the refrigerator had been too long ago so she took it upon herself to clean it out. (From the smell it really needed it!) Even I with my long arms have difficulty cleaning the bottom of the box. Quana just dove in and got it done!

Fair winds and following seas.

Reboot Shines

Quana and I got everything out of the cockpit yesterday and she spend the day cleaning. I worked on repairing the dodger canvas. Between the sun and the cleaning sunglasses are now required in the cockpit area. Reboot could go to a boat show if it wasn't for all the repair and storage stuff all over the deck and inside!

Fair winds and following seas.

Finishing the 220 V project

Reboot's 220V Hot Plate

I finally got the last bits of wiring done for the 220 Volt circuit. I tried to install a single receptacle and over torqued the screws. So I went to purchase a new one - 1,90€. I noticed that I could purchase a dual outlet - 9,50€. Go figure

Quana and I decided that purchasing a hot plate would give us more flexibility than purchasing a skillet or slow cooker or whatever. This way it is like having a stove burner.

The payoff: Last night Quana made chicken and rice with curry, garlic, ginger, chili and paprika. I have not eaten this well since I waved goodbye to Claudia and Ed in Florida.

Fair winds and following seas.

Our favorite hardware store in Santa Cruz

Desiree

 This is one of our favorite places in Santa Cruz - the hardware store. The people are quite friendly and look up all of our English requests on the Internet to get the Spanish translations. Or, we just draw pictures. It is a lot of fun!

Fair winds and following seas.

Zebensui

Time explained

We have been waking up late in the morning every morning. This morning I noticed that sunrise was at about 7:45 Canary Island time which is UTC+!. It finally dawned on me that UTC+! is the time in Spain. We are at 16 W. That is in the UTC-1 time zone from the standpoint of longitude. Thus, the sun actually rose at about 5:45 "sun" time.

 

I didn't think I was sleeping that well.

 

Fair winds and following seas.

Tropical Storm Kirk

The first line is a classic: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2012/al11/al112012.discus.020.shtml

Face in the mountain

The other night I was sitting in the cockpit having a glass of scotch and I happened to look across to the sun setting on the peaks of Tenerife. I saw this great shot of a reclining man in the mountain.

Cool.

Fair winds and following seas.

Touring Tenerife

Today we took a cab ride with Ben around Tenerife Island. Rather than put all the pictures in the blog here is the link to the Picasa Web site with all 104 photos:

2012-09-04 Touring Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

 If you click on the link it will take you to the web album and slide show. The man in the picture is Ben, our cab driver. Quanta is on his right. More to follow later but it has been a long day.

Ben and Me

Fair winds and following seas.

Dynamic Views

I have temporary shifted the blog to "dynamic views." Please let me know what you think by posting a comment.

I never saw a thing

Ad hoc Sea Anchor

But apparently Reboot did. I dove on her today and look what I found wrapped around the prop. We call this a Gypsysails sea anchor as Maury and Ginger seem to have a knack for acquiring them while traveling in the Hawk Channel. (The Hawk Channel runs from Miami to Key West on the Atlantic/Gulf of Mexico side of the Keys.)

I figure that I now have a pretty good idea why the engine decided to alarm.

It has been quite cool here the past couple of days  a light blanket is called for at night. This morning it dawned clear with a wind shift that is bringing the Levenche wind. So it has warmed back up quite a bit. That is why I chose to dive today. The air temperature is in the 80's but the water was quite cool - pleasant in fact. If I was diving more than 5 feet I would have needed a wet suit but as it was I was able to clear the prop with a snorkel and fins.

Noise Filter Installation

My second project for today was to install noise filters on the power lines leading to the SSB radio. While underway with the Raymarine autopilot running I get a great deal of noise in the radio. I understand that this is a standard problem with Raymarine autopilots. What is particularly annoying is that a spike in the noise curve is at 14.300 MHz which is the frequency for the Maritime Mobile Service Net. This is the net I use during transits to get weather forecasts and to report my position. So it is a big pain in the neck that I am fighting with autopilot noise while trying to communicate.

What a marina can do to your shore power

My other project for today was to start the install of the 220V power in Reboot. I got the exterior fitting mounted and the wires run into the boat. Now I have to install an outlet inside so we can use the power. In the process I removed the US 110 V 30 Amp exterior fitting that had been destroyed in New Bern Grand Marina. I was going to put the 220 V exterior inlet in its place but decided to leave the capability in case I add air conditioning back to Reboot at a later date. Quite a mess, don't you think?

More pictures of the 220V install tomorrow.

Fair winds and following seas.