SSL613 ~ sad news...
ready? and we're off good morning! ciao Tiki we'll be back soon. but today we're taking you along for one of our walking adventures, we're just going into town here and we're going to go for a little walk down the beach, it's monday, so hopefully it's not too busy today, we usually try and avoid the beaches on saturday and sunday (early monday) early monday yeah we like to get up about seven o'clock and get out before the crowds are on the street so that is where we are on our way right now I know we've been gone for three weeks, you're thinking what the hell's going on but yeah we just need to take a little bit of time to ourselves, just the three of us and kind of settled down for a while, it's been a busy busy past few months since december little richie was born and we've had family and friends and tons of people just coming to visit, so it's a non-stop barrage (yeah) and you know just always something going on lots of different crew on board we had a few patrons here, so lots of visitors keeping us busy, yeah we decided it's time to get back, so we put a camera in our hand again today and thought we'd go for a little journey but we do have a bit of sad news unfortunately so we just heard yesterday one of our good friends here on the island Julian (our agent) he's our agent for the island and his wife passed away in the hospital over the weekend, so it's very sad news we're very sorry to hear this Julian, our deepest condolences to all your family, everybody, we hope you'll be okay we know it's going to be a struggle you know, but we're here for you anytime you need okay, so you just let us know, come knock and we'll be there (yeah without you we don't leave the island don't worry) no this is true, now Julian's done a lot for us over the years and he's had his hands full the last little while because I think Odette has been not feeling well for a while and in and out of the hospital, so he's been distracted we understand that, but we hope things will improve for you julian sorry to hear about Odette (yeah we are close to you) and unfortunately our lovely island of San Andres lost a very popular singer a couple of weeks ago who's also a friend of our good friend very Danny (very popular) Danny kind of disappeared for a few weeks and we understand that as well, Danny was not feeling well, but it's an unfortunate situation as a bunch of dumb kids playing with guns and shooting at each other and this friend of Danny's, the musician got caught in the crossfire he was shot and trying to recover in the hospital, but didn't make it unfortunately and that is Heady a good friend of Daniel Perra and Danny spent the last couple weeks (to make a beautiful homage) yeah Danny spent like he disappeared for a couple weeks and just made a beautiful tribute to Hetty and I think I'm gonna play that for you guys here I think it should be okay hopefully the music is okay, but it was a very nice piece that Danny did, so it's only a couple of minutes long, but I'll play that for you guys and you can get a feel for who this gentleman was on the island because he had a big procession on his... up to his funeral leading up to and of course on his funeral, so a tribute to Hetty so beautiful tribute Danny I'm sure Hetty will be smiling wherever he is and we hope that San Andres recovers from the loss of this talented musician (and now the Sophisticated Lady news some improvement in our journey) yeah let's get back to some positive news about Sophisticated Lady I'm sure that's what you guys have all been waiting for, yeah as you guys will remember the last video that we put out was all about the engine discussions and starting the topics about diesel, electric, anything like that, phenomenal responses thank you, so much for all your input on that guys we just loved hearing from, so many of you, so many different opinions and the comments were great we read all of them and very much appreciated, and we do have an update coming up very soon I'm just waiting... we're going to do that in a different episode today we're just going to keep it light have a little bit of fun you know we're just out on the island because we needed something a little bit of a break from everything as well, if you remember just before then my parents had arrived, so we've been hanging out with my parents and doing some very fun stuff, we took them out for a couple of expeditions around the island, my parents wanted to experience something a little bit more on the traditional side of the island, so a little bit of the culture, the history and things like that, so we rented a couple of cool cars and went for a little excursion on the island to visit some of the places that you guys probably haven't seen before, but they've got a little house on the other side of the island they call museum house where they preserved all the cultural... you know, how people used to live on the island what they used to wear the furniture the appliances things like that, so we stopped in there for them to have a little tour around (to build a home and to um plant in the island, coconut and cacao cocoa the chocolate) (okay this is our typical hat, traditional hat, the dresses that they use at the time pictures as well the island looked before, we have our baptist church...) and it was the funniest thing we go in and my parents are getting dance lessons in the traditional dance style now that was something to see and then next on the list we took them to a place called Morgan's cave which of course is representative capitan Morgan, captain Morgan, so captain Morgan as you know he roamed these waters for years and decades even, so he has a history at all the islands including this one and there were a series of caves over the other side of the island, yes I know, that he used to keep all his booty in or hide the crew out in and stuff like that and it was right close to the coastline near the cove where we anchor our boat sometimes and of course the warships anchor there now so of course that is where Morgan's cave is and we took my parents there for a visit so they got to tour a little round and look inside the caves and they enjoyed that, so that was cool next on our list was a bit of a nature tour which you guys might remember, our old friends job sas, he's a reggae musician on the island he was the one playing there on one of our last videos when we were over at uh what's it called? the corral? boca del mar, but that was where Job Sas was playing and he's a great musician I've heard him several times and always loved hanging out with him, but he has a beautiful farm on the island called paradise farm, so we stopped in there because he does tours and shows people it does a little bit of a nature walk, so we took them through there (respect man) (Job Sas is the last uh rastaman, the last of the traditional of San Andres island) (yes sir this is my place it's my farm yeah the land given by inheritance you know, inheritance uh this is the way how our four parents do it all the time you know they give it land is by inheritance from from generation to generation, you know) how many generations (so so sadly many of them sell the land that's why the place is overpopulated and how people sell the land (he's not even a month old yet) (we use it we use this for for um let's say you get you get a cut you know pretty much it you get that cut this is like a merchilate you know the merchilate the red dressing you know?) (yeah oh yeah okay) (we put it on the cut and it heal it, red scallage we call it red scallage you know you know this spider right there, this spider this it's a common spider from here the spider, he grow very big, very large you know like this when they grow big it's yellow, it's a like yellow beautiful color cocoa plum is our fruit from from from here also and he's on danger of extinction the cocoa plum) (oh there's one up there look Rick) (yeah it's a red fruit you know, a red fruit you see it? yeah we use it in stew you know we stew it in in the syrup in the syrup from the sugarcane) (coconut that fall you know they fall off the trees on the ground here when they grow when they begin to grow I share it around and spread them around you know, put them to grow to grow different around different places, yeah you would grow right there you know) (is that a coconut?) (yeah, they grow yeah they fall off the tree and they grow) (so that will just grow from there? (yeah right there you leave it and it grows) (leave it and it grows) (yeah) only Danny would try and fly in the jungle Danny's looking for a way out now, I told him don't go up, up no don't go good breadfruit yeah I discovered breadfruit in Jamaica about 30 years ago wow look them all over here well the tree fell, but it's still growing so you're just saying this tree fell from the hurricane Iota last year, and still growing wow (and they give a nice flavor give a excellent flavor you know it's very sour, but this one is sweet, bitter and sweet) (like a seed, they're like a seed) (this is like a seed on me?) (yeah yeah like I seed) I think they really enjoyed that also just learning some of the natural vegetation and what grows on the island and where, that was cool, yeah (welcome to Bengue place Rick Boyd) (oh yeah I remember Bengue) (here we go, yes sir) (doctor of photography) (welcome to the beach, ladies and gentlemen, Bengue place with the cool coconut water) do you want a coconut? (next coconut water) and then the icing on the cake for my parents trip sir Danny comes through again, I don't know how he managed to pull this off, but then he does similar job to what I used to before covid times where we were always doing commercial video for tourism-related properties, businesses, private islands, all that kind of stuff yeah we probably have to cut that for copyright protection, but one of Danny's clients owns a really nice villa at the south side of the island and Danny rented it for our parents my parents and our friends Rick and Lisa, so he put this special last night on the island together for them and (the magic view) yeah even I didn't know what was coming, but we ended up... it was the end of
their day 6 p.m we stopped off at this villa, Danny brought them inside and he says, this is yours for the night the night. welcome to Danny world (two) stage two, Danny's got a special gift for my parents at the end of our special tour around the island and here it is, a private villa, grande villa, who's that? swimming pool (welcome come in! enjoy my little christmas tree) oh crazy sir Daniel has outdone himself oh yeah it was a very special Danny day I know my parents appreciate it a lot and so thank you again sir Danny you made my parents day and I'm sure it was one of the highlights of their trip, but as all good things must come to an end even my parents had to return to Canada (we love you so much) (take care okay?) (we're off to see the wizard, the pleasure sir Danny, sir Daniel Perra) and don't turn off your phone again now or you're grounded (don't make a crazy life in miami okay) (nice to meet you! Thank you danny) ciao! and so ends another segment, on with the next chapter (yeah) holy [ __ ] this is hot I gotta move so we saw them off and by this time we've been at the dock for a couple of months now and we've been chomping at the bit to get back out to anchor so as soon as we said goodbye to my parents we pretty much got the boat ready, we left the dock and just looking forward to a nice calm relaxing day back out to anchor, remember? (yeah I remember) (this is brand new or the old?) it's the new old one (bye bye eric odisho bye bye say goodbye, this is the end of the era, Maddie suffered off Maddie, no more air conditioning, get unscrewed bye-bye, capitan is real happy) (bye the end no more air condition no more goodbye) (goodbye) (solar system all solar system you can work all solar system) (capitan love that moment, put the button) (bye-bye air condition) (Maddie is going to suffer and feel the suffering, oh no I think so with the open window this place I love and I stay outside the bow I take my happy hour like before sit in my chair oh I'm so happy I jump in in the sea) (in the water) (here is no possible job) (yes) (somebody's dead) (what are doing the fly fish here? I don't know what this fly fish is here, I don't know why) (brand new) (brand new) (you have some issues) oh my god yeah to say it was issues (it never is coming really perfectly what are you planning) no supposed to be this nice gentle breeze you know coming off the dock and letting you know... casting
off the dock lines and going out and just dropping the anchor and enjoying a nice day (no) on our own (no) we get out there and of course it starts blowing you know 20-25 not huge, but for what we encountered it became a big big problem because all of a sudden our anchor wouldn't work we just tested at the dock because at the dock we have to have our anchor out in addition to the dockline, so we just brought it in, but we noticed there was something different it was really struggling and it just come in very very slow, we got it in we got it in and you know got off of the dock and didn't think anything of it at the time figured okay we're gonna have to service that but we just need to get the anchor down now but as soon as we went out and put ourselves in position pushing the button pushing the button (doesn't work) nothing pushing the button I go up and I'm like okay well there's no power and I go downstairs and the breaker blew, so that's a bad sign, so I tripped a breaker back on I go up and I push the button again I push it to go down, click, breaker blows again I'm like oh no (we are in a very big moment) yeah it's a very bad moment it's tense because there's other boats around us and we got a big breeze blowing us downwind and we couldn't get it to move, so I ripped... I raced downstairs I ripped open the battery compartment I'm looking around I can't find anything wrong I just you know, but the anchor will not go now if we have a manual deploy on the anchor and that compounded our problem because we put the winch handle in to let it go the clutch is seized because we haven't used it in, so long it's been years that it hasn't moved and we've tried to unleash like unlatch it and nothing it just would not move at all so I had to go back to the wheel and I'm putsing around the anchorage trying not to hit anybody while we just figure what are we going to do what do we we got our backup anchor but even then it's a very lightweight anchor and we have never really had call to use it so Jeff was on board and he was giving me a hand and we went up and we got the secondary anchor out of the locker and tied the chain to it and threw it overboard let it out and it's on about you know 80 to 100 feet of chain and then it's got a splice to go to line it's got this big heavy one-inch rope like anchor line on it that I've never actually used, it's been in the anchor locker since I own the boat which I've never really thought about it's rope it just sits there it's never been any sun maybe a little salt water once in a while, but we got the anchor out and we needed to get it past the chain, so that we could tie the rope onto a cleat (another discovery) well we tied it onto the cleat and the first breeze you know we didn't even get a chance to try and set the anchor as soon as we just dropped back on the wind the piece of rope just went it just disintegrated (it's gone) like a one inch rope (it's gone bye-bye) oh yeah everything all the chain everything just overboard gone, so there goes our emergency secondary anchor in the water what would be happening man? (rescue at sea, rescue an anchor) so yes yesterday we put back to anchor for the first time off the dock which was awesome, but we had a problem with our windlass immediately that wasn't much fun, prevented us from anchoring so we dumped out our secondary anchor just as a backup until we could fix the primary windlass issue because it was overloading the circuits, so we did that, but as soon as we backed down on the primary anchor even a little bit the rope snapped just clean, look at that, of course I haven't used this rope very often, it's been in here for a lot of years and I think I've used it twice it's just a backup anchor and my primary's never failed so but now the secondary anchor is down there, so we are at anchor and are we still over top yep there's the other chain right there you can see the other 100 foot of chain right under us okay, so I'm going to drop down this black line, this one, ready? got it? and down he goes good? (all right) did you get it or not yet? (I got it) oh okay, all right I bring up the slack a bit okay, all right I'll just tie it off until you come up and then we'll start hoisting (okay) what were you saying about not that heavy? and the first one is still on deck and can't deploy now it's getting tense, I get back to the wheel right away again just to stabilize us again Jeff breaks out some tools you know we got hammers screwdrivers everything just trying to get this stupid windlass to work and it won't budge, we couldn't freeze the clutch, we couldn't get the... the bolts are seized where you know we need to get the cuff off the top of the the windlass that guides the chain down because with that bolted on you can't release the chain from the windlass so we can't pull it in manually or deploy it manually anything, but anyway luckily while I was at the back just driving the boat Jeff was able to take a couple of screwdrivers and jimmy the chain off one of the links of the windlass and got it free, so essentially he just got it loose, so that now the anchor is at least loose not tight and we got up there and managed to pull a bunch of chain out and we realized okay we only got one shot at this, so we pulled a hundred feet of chain out and just straddled it on deck now unfortunately of course our hands were full we didn't have time to record anything nor were we thinking about recording anything, but it's just one of those adventures we never want to repeat that's for sure, (no) yeah yeah for this I know yeah but the good news is we did get the boat back into position, we cast the anchor out by hand we let the hundred feet out and luckily the Mantis 105 did its usual thing it just hit the bottom and boom immediately engaged, so it held us (we were safe) we were safe, yeah we put the snubber on, so we still had our engine running we didn't have any issues with the engine luckily that was my other concern now no anchors and an engine that overheats randomly and just gives us major issues and we're drifting, and we got the boat you know the ship's graveyard behind us it was very tense very tense situation, but you know I hope we never go through that again, but it has brought about two issues that we need to replace the windlass because since we have taken it apart and realized there are problems with the motor which I just replaced four or five years ago, those can probably be fixed but in the course of all the time hauling the anchor like this big Mantis 105 and you know some very heavy chain over the course of many many years has destroyed the main bearing in the windlass and the main shaft because you could literally take the head of the windlass and just go so that's bad, it's creating a lot of excess wear and tear and it's also creating a lot less... or a lot more drag for the motor because the motor is fighting all of this and increased friction so luckily we've been doing some research and I want to send a special shout out to Lumar because they have agreed to help us with a replacement very timely I must admit (yeah thank you so much) yes thank you, so much to Lumar and Lippert and you know we are looking forward to receiving this new windlass we should have it in a few weeks hopefully, so we're just trying to make do until then we can't really do too much anchoring, re-anchoring until we get that that problem resolved, right little buddy, yeah we don't need any more stress in our lives but while we had all this chain on deck we did realize we have another issue and it dates back to the hurricanes, do you remember the hurricanes we went through back-to-back category fives in San Andres in 2020 and where our snubber was attached to the chain, we didn't realize that at the time it wasn't you know very noticeable then, but it caused a lot of friction on those first two links and they actually... I mean it wore off instantly all of the what he called the galvanizing on the chain, so they rapidly started to deteriorate we kind of saw it a few months ago that there was a little bit of you know degradation in these two links, so we've been avoiding using those links but now the other day we pulled those links out because we needed to put out some extra chain and when we saw the links they were like paper thin we're so lucky we didn't put those in the water because it would have just broken very very quickly (we saw then really like you called before then the galvanized stuff was gone, but really we don't you know) ever since then yeah it's just rapidly degrading just rusting away and there's almost nothing left so that is now our newest problem, our biggest issue yeah this is something we're gonna have to deal with in the very near future now we've still got you know 100 feet of usable chain but that means we can't let anything out if there's any big storms or anything coming because it's right in the middle of our 200 foot chain which pretty much makes the 200 foot length useless and that's what we're going to have to replace so dealing with that now because you know even a good chain like that is going to cost a couple thousand dollars and it's not something we had in our budget at the moment, we're dealing with all the engine stuff right now, so we'll have to update on all that in the near future as we try and figure out what to do, but it's just something new on our plate that we're having to sort through but yeah I think we're going to call it a wrap on that for today because we need to get back to the boat because we have something special going on today, but we'll save that for another episode (oh yeah) and I hope you guys are all well, I hope this has found you well and everybody's happy and enjoying your lives, it's been good for us, we've been spending time as you can see just for three of us, we do have some more catching up to do with you guys, but we'll do it fast and then we'll get up to real time because we are getting ready to travel again very soon, so more on that coming up, have a great day guys, have a good week take care out there, and we'll see you next time, ciao (would be like us if we ended up in outer space, another world or something at all)
2022-04-09 09:11
