Good riddance 2017 !

My apologises for this post, if you find it long and boring I apologise but writing it has helped me reduce the frustrations of the past year living largely on land and to look forward to happier times in the coming year.

It has been a long time since I have posted …..a very long time. Events on 25th March 2017 will forever be  firmly planted in my brain! 

John and I were enjoying our time in Isla Mujeres, meeting up with old friends, Richard and Kay on Atalanta and Vlad and Carmen on Inti. However, all good things come to an end and we were preparing to sail for Key West and a decent weather window seemed to be developing for us on the Monday after that particular weekend. We never got to set sail, events overtook us when I got a text message from Michael, my tenant ….’ Explosion, house destroyed ‘ !!! Clear, precise and as it turned out, accurate! I tried to phone, no answer and when I finally got through to Vicky, his girl friend, she told me that the house had been severely damaged by an explosion in a building over the road. It was a furniture store and dance studio building that had been completely obliterated by an explosion. It looked like a gas explosion but no one could say….the first thought was obviously was it terrorist related. Michael had been dozing in the front room and his son Alex was asleep upstairs when all the windows imploded, the doors blew out the roof lifted and ceilings came down. Fortunately Alex had wrapped himself up in the duvet and so when the ceiling fell on him he was well protected, Michael rushed upstairs grabbed Alex and ran through the open front door and away from the carnage outside.

     

So there I was in Mexico, with a five hour time difference, needing to contact my insurance company that allegedly had a 24 hour contact service……they speak with forked tongue… and try as I might you cannot imagine my frustration at reaching a succession of voice messages  telling me the office is now closed and to ring in the morning! There was nothing for it but to get up at three in the morning and try then. However my frustration persisted, the young man gave me a reference number and yet another number to ring to try to board up the house and make it safe. I rang the number and explained to the girl on the other end that I had no windows, the front and back door had been blown off their hinges and the roof had been damaged. ‘ Ahh’ she said, ‘ you need a locksmith!’ …she was astounded when I lost my cool at this response ‘ A locksmith?! What's the bloody point of that I've got no doors!’ She apologised and after going to talk to her manager she told me she didn't know what to suggest…..very helpful …not. 

After two days I was no further on …. and my frustration was just growing hour by hour. It was obvious to John and I that we would be sailing nowhere and I would need to return back to the UK as soon as possible.  

X

I watched our friends sail away together, waving them goodbye and not sure just when we would eventually leave Mexico. I booked my flight home and John set about finding somewhere safe we could leave the boat. The hurricane season was fast approaching and we had no idea how long we would be away. We are fortunate, our friends Vlad and Carmen on Inti, speak fluent Spanish and they were able to help us secure a spot in the lagoon, Marina Del Sol. We moved Orion into the lagoon before I left. The lagoon is very well protected and shallow! I had to drive , throttle down, through the soft mud…..one thing for sure, Orion will not sink, in those depths! 

I left Mexico on the 29th March but not without a bit of drama at the airport. When you arrive in  Mexico you have to jump through many hoops customs, importation of the boat, agricultural regs etc, a bind but not too onerous with the help of the locals. One of the numerous pieces of paper you sign is in effect your entry exit card. I arrived at Cancun airport checked in and having handed over my bag was told I needed to go to immigration desk and hand over my departure card…..err what departure card. All those arriving by airplane have a card to be handed in when they leave or they get stung with 30 dollar bill per person, however I explained to the unhelpful girl at the immigration desk I arrived by boat so I had no card. No was the reply …you have a paper document which I have to see before you can leave! Gawd! I had no idea what the piece of paper was but what I did know was that it would be on the boat, not with me at the airport. I phoned John in a bit of a panic …..time was ticking on and my bags were checked through but would not let me through to join them til I produced this document. In my best broken Spanish I explained that I was happy to pay the fine just to join my bags on the plane …but no I had stumbled on the one of the few officials in Mexico who would not accept a pecuniary gift to by pass bureaucratic red tape! No she said if I paid the fine then I would have paid the fee twice( having unbeknown to me paid the fee when we arrived) and that would never do! If I could e mail the said piece of paper to her then she would allow me to leave Mexico. After three abortive attempts to give me the correct e mail address John managed to mail her with five minutes left before the gate closed! A close shave! 

I arrived back to find my house looking like it was in a war zone. My leaded windows and blinds decorated the tree in the front garden, several of the houses opposite had been completely destroyed….just a depressing site. Where to start??? 

     

I met with the loss adjuster, who reckoned it would take 6-12 months for the house to get back to its former glory. The Council were really helpful getting the doors and windows boarded and providing security 24/7 to ensure no looting was possible, a godsend considering how unhelpful the insurance company had been at the outset. We were only allowed in at certain times accompanied by Council employees and once the houses had been made safe. There were endless meetings with the Council and it seemed to me that possibly the quickest way forward was to work with the ‘expertise’ of the Port Sunlight Village Trust they would know what specifications were necessary, they knew contractors that were capable of completing the work needed and would be an invaluable resource in ensuring the work was completed quickly as possible. If we all used the same contractor for the roof for instance then it would keep costs down and the prospect of numerous contractors trying to find places to park with multiple deliveries would be reduced. However as time passed it became apparent that the Trust were not that enthusiastic about working with private homeowners. A meeting was set up by the Council to bring together the Trust who own five of the properties in our block, the five private homeowners and all the loss adjusters to move things along in as quicker pace as possible. It was agreed that the Trust would work with Conservation Officer to put together a Masterplan for the block that would set out specifications, plans and materials to be used. One thing became clear ….that neither the Trust or the Conservation Officer had any record of specifications used previously…the houses were built in 1897 and it appeared that  we were largely starting from scratch. A great start to proceedings!

I know and appreciate that the Trust had a big job on but as the months ticked away, my frustration, depression and anger grew at the whole process. Eventually after about two months a project manager was appointed for the exterior works and again everyone agreed that if we had the same project manager it would help to speed the process up, so that's what we did. My insurers used a different company for the interior works, again no problem it was the same one as several of my private owner neighbours, I was happy. The interior guys met started to rip out walls, ceilings, the bathroom etc to see the extent of the damage and put together a plan of action to restore the interior. The walls had been lathe and plaster, all of that was taken away, well most of it had fallen away from the brick anyway. I felt optimistic, that was til the Port Sunlight Conservation Officer came to have a look…. The look of horror on her face ….a what have you done expression?! Well I had ‘done’ no more than the other home owners the place was stripped ready for reinstatement. None of the lathe and plaster should have been touched she wailed … this property is grade2 listed ( don't I know it!) and forget any thoughts of insulating plasterboard to help with energy conservation were a no no , it must be reinstated ‘like for like’ and lathe and plaster must be put back. This came as news to both the project manager for the interior works and us home owners who along with the Council,Conservation Officers et al understandably called a meeting to get sorted exactly what was needed! 

So meeting sorted, we were told that interior plans needed to submitted for planning consent an eight week process at the least, the Masterplan for the exterior works were complete for submission at the end of August, a mere six months from the date of the explosion. We all took some comfort from the fact that it looked like we would all have roofs by Christmas! 

The internal project manager set about re visiting the works that were needed following the lead of the Conservation Officer of the Port Sunlight Trust, following the’ like for like ‘ tenet that needed to be adhered to the letter if we were to get the internal works through planning. Lathe and plaster was to be used on the ceilings and the plaster specification was confirmed. This meant an increase in costs, lathe and plaster costing approx £100 per sq metre and the use of breathable paint, the skirting boards to be used specified and much more. Another hoop we had to jump through was that the we had to have the existing plaster tested for anthrax and asbestos! Now it is comforting to know that the house is anthrax and asbestos free but the house has been standing since 1897 and no one has died from anthrax yet!  Indeed the young man who came to do the testing told me that no plaster tested in the UK has tested positive for anthrax ….£350 for piece of mind I guess, but the three week wait for the results another unwelcome hold up. 

The Masterplan finally complete and submitted, the external project manager puts the roofing works out to tender …….progress at last! Three firms are put forward and with a timeline clearly identified for submission, that was then held up by the Trust requesting a fourth firm be allowed to  submit for tender putting back the timeline another week. Frustration was starting to grow! 

Finally ….hurrah !! A contractor was appointed and a pre start meeting held. The timeline was tight but the contractor was prepared to work through the weekend and fingers crossed we would have a roof by Christmas. The existing scaffolding was replaced with scaffolding designed to enable the roofers to crack on safely …we were hot to trot! On the first day of the works the weather was appalling, strong winds and very heavy rain, but the roofers worked through it removing the tiles on a number of houses. On day two, all the homeowners received an e mail from the project manager, there was a problem with the roofing felt specified which it appeared could result in a problem with condensation. It meant that it would rise the roof a little making it difficult to tie in with my neighbour and it would certainly not look that great! So having waited six months for the Masterplan to be drawn up it had completely ‘b***s up’ the specification for the roof. WTF! The roofers had to stop work whilst the contractor waited for clarification on the specification……then the fun started. 

I have to admit I was incandescent with frustration…….six months, six months we had waited for the so called people in the know to put together the specifications for the works, this was supposed to oil the wheels, not seize them up completely! Surely if there was doubt when the Masterplan was in the process of being drafted THEN was the appropriate time to do the research and ask the technical team to come out, measure the roof voids and ensure that everyone involved in drawing up the plan was absolutely confident that what was being proposed would be the right product for the job. It is quite definitely not the right time to engage in this process when the roofs have been stripped and the contractor is questioning the suitability of the product. Indeed we now find that our insurance companies could well be asked to pay for time when the contractors have been unable to crack on with replacing the roofs and further investigations into roof voids, technical call outs etc are made. It beggars belief!   TheTrust had been insistent on like for like and now suddenly it appeared they were asking us not to use the existing roof felt but this stuff called TLX Gold…. it seemed they just changed the rules to suit themselves. I wanted answers and fast, I really wanted a roof before Christmas. The Conservation Officer at the Council did not reply to my initial letter asking just what the hell was going on, a week passed, no work on the roofs, the roofers were sent onto another job while waiting for someone to either admit they had screwed up and rectify the situation or allow us to re roof like for like. I had had enough I wrote yet another letter to the Conservation Officer and this time I copied it into the Assistant Director at the Council and the local Councillor informing them of the situation as I saw it. I wanted them to know it was not the homeowners or the contractors holding up the reinstatement of the houses and my frustration at being ignored by the Conservation Officer. 

Finally one of my concerns was that no one was able to inform us with any degree of absolute certainty that the use of the specified product would not produce condensation, to say that it may work is unacceptable. Should it be used and result in damage to my property, who would accept responsibility? Those who put together the Masterplan? The Council? The Contractor? For want of a better analogy, could I find that all those involved in the process shifting responsibility? Possible shades of Grenfell Tower here?

To say I was deeply disappointed by this whole process which was fast turning into something of a debacle as I saw it, is an understatement! 

As I had hoped my reference to the Grenfell Tower disaster did the trick! A response within five minutes! 

The reply from the Conservation Officer was that they were trying to provide betterment of the roofing materials involved and they were trying to get in touch with the contractor to get him to sort it out. Passing the buck again! I wrote a quick reply …..The contractor works to that specification he is given , he does not write the specification....does he? Guess what no reply! 

Finally ten days after work had stopped the Conservation Officers, the Heritage architect and the Project Manager for the external works got together for a meeting, which must have been interesting! The outcome being the Heritage Architect would put together revised specifications asap for work to start work. Hurrah! Sad to say this debacle didn't stop there, as I suspected the revised specification involved more work on the roofs in order for this wonder roofing felt to do its job ironically it involved taking down ceilings, no problem for me my ceilings were already down, not quite sure how the Trust houses will get over that problem if they want existing plaster to remain. Not my problem and to be honest if I never have to work with the Trust again it will be too soon though I know at some point I will have to,  this whole experience leaves a bad taste. The revised spec also had a revised price, an extra three and a half thousand pounds….would the insurance company stump up the money, I crossed my fingers and waited along with all the other homeowners. One thing was certain if they wouldn't ….I wouldn't either. My insurance company agreed ….phew! By now anyone involved in the project bar the Trust  was aghast with the amount of time it had taken to get to where we were at…..work finally started on the roof again the week before Christmas. I hope that now all the necessary bureaucracy has has been sorted I can now crack on free from the shackles of the Trust, whose properties appear not to have been touched with regard to reinstatement. The property owners have instructed for the envelope outside works tired of waiting for the Trust we all agreed to get on with the works without them! 

I have to say that the major disparity between us private homeowners and the Trust seems that the Trust is only interested in one thing, the houses, the bricks and mortar. They have appeared in my experience with them, to pay scant regard to the impact that this explosion has had on the people in the houses. Everyone homeowner and tenant alike has been adversely effected and has a story to tell, the Trust however appear to want to squeeze as much from the effects of that awful night in March as possible. Sad and not the way Lord Lever, the philanthropist that built the village, would have worked I suspect. 

So as you can see John and I will be glad to see the back of 2017, in my darker moments I have cried tears of frustration, thinking will I ever get back to the boat? John and I have watched as two Category 5 hurricanes hit the Caribbean to the East of the boat and an 8.1 earthquake devastated parts of Pacific Mexico. Throughout the hurricane season I would track the National Hurricane Centre everyday with my fingers crossed hoping Orion was out of harms way. We were lucky and to be honest and without wanting to sound too dramatic, if we had lost the boat as well I don't know what I would of done or how I would have come to terms with the loss coming on top of the effects of the explosion. 

With regard to the explosion no one has been bought to justice for it. Two men are currently on bail for insurance fraud and endangering life. How no one was killed I do not know, though there are still those recovering both physically and mentally. The police have collected over 300 impact statements but still no news of wether those involved will ever be bought to justice. Hopefully the new year will bring positive news on that score. 

This Christmas John and I are housesitting in Cumbria, looking after a house and an ageing Jack Russell, a time to chill and take stock. We are so fortunate to have wonderful friends in Port Sunlight who have allowed us to stay in their home and for that we will be forever grateful and in their debt. True friends and lovely people. However Christmas is for families and I am sure they are enjoying a wonderful Christmas in their home without us intruding on that special time. 

Enough of this wittering on ….. 2018 is going to be our year. House sorted and back on the boat, can't wait ! 

Isla Mujeres

So we had our fingers crossed that the trip from Roatan to Mexico would not be as eventful as the one to Roatan. Looking at the weather we had good wind, the first day quite strong but the next perfect and that's exactly how it worked out. 

The trip to Mexico took us just under 48 hours and we sailed most of the way the gearbox behaved perfectly and we tied up at Marina Paraiso ready for a beer! It's not the cheapest Marina in the world but John needed to go back to England to attend the funeral of a very dear friend of ours. It was touch and go whether we would manage it but sailing in on the 21st we managed to check in, carry out the temporary importation of the boat, book a flight and get him to Cancun airport in time to attend the funeral in Wales on the 23rd. We were both glad that at least one of us had the chance to say goodbye and celebrate her life. Sometimes it's hard being so far away from the UK. We could not have managed it without the help of the 'mordida', which is the system here whereby you grease the palms of the officials to make things happen! In doing this we ensured that the health inspector, the food inspector and immigration and the Port Captain all came to the Marina, looked at the boat.....checked yes there was a boat, told us not to eat anything we had bought into the country unless it was on the boat, sign in a couple of places and we were legal! Chepo the dockmaster at the Marina was very efficient at getting it organised.

Typically as John was flying back to the UK he had to arrive when Storm Doris was arriving too! It had its advantages as with a 70 mph tail wind the flight was very early, the downside was it took the pilot three goes to land the plane in Manchester.....bicycle clips all round I think!! John had booked a car for the six days he was in the U.K. however when he arrived at the Car Rental office a smug guy on the other side of the counter made the mistake of telling John ' sorry Sir due to the adverse weather conditions we do not have a car for you' . Mistake!. John's reply ' I have a contract with you to supply a car what are you going to do about it?'  ' Well sorry the only car we have is a nine seater mini bus' Yes... you've guessed it that's what he took, arriving at the Crematorium in Wales just in time!
The weather here in Isla Mujeres was not great wind wise, a strong Northerly set in for a couple of days causing the waves to chop and slap the side of the hull all day and night. Not conducive to a good nights sleep but I had it easy, the guys out in the anchorage were dragging anchors all night and that is no fun!

As it turned out I was not short of company, a lot of old friends were here too. Mike and Jean from Tomorrow's Dawn, who we had not seen since Trinidad, Richard and Kay from Atalanta who we last saw in Surinam as well as Vlad and Carmen from Inti and the crew of Genesis III, were all here. I really like this Island and Mexico in general, it's laid back and good value, an example three tacos and two beers for 85 pesos ( £3.70)! The Island is awash with golf carts that you can hire for around 700 pesos for the day, it's a good way to see the Island though it's pretty flat terrain here so walking is not so bad. Provisioning is easy with Chedraui, an excellent supermarket with just about everything you could want,ten minutes walk away. Not unsurprisingly there quite a lot of Cubans here and a few Cuban restaurants, they always seem to have good music on and it's a good way to spend an afternoon. There is also a bar close called the Soggy Peso, this has dynamite margaritas, one is quite enough, two and you really are playing with fire! The view from the beach at sunset here is lovely.

Roatan Repairs

So having arrived safely at Fantasy Island we had to find out what exactly had happened to our gearbox? If it had done 40 hours I would be surprised, we have sailed to most of our destinations since its installation and last year we spent a lot of time in the one place. Lots of theories were put forward, perhaps the prop hit something causing the splines on the the gearbox shaft to shear? We dove down the prop was in tact not a problem there......so John took out the gearbox and we discovered what the problem was.... sad to say, our error. When we changed the gearbox we did not change the damper plate, two reasons really we had difficulty sourcing one in Colombia and the old one 'looked' OK. Clearly it wasn't and it had sheared the splines on the gearbox shaft.. damn ! 
So we were back to sourcing parts initially we thought it might be a new gearbox and damper plate and John ordered one but as luck would have it the guy we bought it from contacted us to say that the box he had to send out to us had been part of a recall by ZF so he did not have one! He did however put us onto a really good guy in Seattle who rebuilds gearboxes, John spoke to him on the net and on the phone and it was agreed he would build a new shaft for us complete with bearings and John would fit it. John gave him a blow by blow of how he intended to split the gearbox and fit the new shaft and Mike in Seattle said sounds good to me and shipped us a box of goodies with everything we would need to get the job sorted. Shipping to Roatan is not easy and not cheap, the safest way is to ship to Rasxpress in Florida and with the right wording on the label it finds itself at Rasxpress in Roatan a few days later! There you get stung for 30% duty! 

We did have one piece of luck though, whilst searching for our gearbox, John stumbled upon someone selling the exact heat exchanger we needed, brand new and for a mere £400! This might sound a lot but it was a steal, we had been expecting to pay over £2000 for it. Perkins do not support the 4154 engine anymore so I guess this part was just lying collecting dust and the guy on eBay just wanted shot of it. We hummed and ahhed but we both figured it was too good an opportunity to miss even with shipping(£50) it was a steal.....so we bit the bullet and bought it. This meant of course that once all the parts arrived John was faced with the prospect of many days down in the engine room fitting all these parts, not one he was looking forward to! I could tell he wasn't as in the days waiting for the parts to arrive I would be woken up in the middle of the night to John dreaming and screwing bolts in my arm and muttering about pipes, jubilee clips and o rings! The sooner this job was done the better.....

Finally with all the parts here John set about the task in hand. It took him about five days of blood sweat and tears but we now have a working engine, a gear box that works and a propellor that turns. Hurray! 
We have hired a car whilst here in Roatan, it is a very pretty Island with many reefs and stunning views. Here at Fantasy Island there are three monkeys that share the Island with us and they cause havoc on many occasions. The answer is leave nothing in the cockpit and lock up at night. Since we have been here they have thrown one yachties barbecue grill in the water, emptied the water tank of another, as well as helping themselves to bananas and any food and drink that they can get their hands on. We have only lost a tub of nuts which we foolishly left in the cockpit, that was before we knew better! They are naughty but they are not nasty and they certainly seem to like John. 

Roatan Rescue!

We finally left Providencia on New Years Day. The weather window looked good and we had decided that as there had been a pirate attack on a yacht on the Seas by the Nicaraguan and Honduran border we would not stop overnight there as previously planned. This area around the Gorda Banks is becoming a bit of a hotspot and whilst no one has been injured yet the trauma of being boarded and losing all our electrics, radios and nav equipment was not something we wanted to risk. In giving this area a wide berth we would be adding a few more hours onto the trip but better safe than sorry. 
The first twenty four hours went by without a hitch we got some good sailing in but soon the wind died and we were forced to start Dorothy up (our Perkins engine). Unfortunately under five knots of wind is not enough for a sail! After five hours of motoring we were getting used to the drone of the engine and after carrying out an engine check John settled down in the cockpit for a doze. Everything was going well......or so it seemed. From nowhere a high pitched squeal like a banshee resounded from the engine room and John was woken from his slumbers by me shouting 'WTF is that?' I turned off the engine quickly and we both looked at one another ....' What now?' 
We turned the engine on again put her in gear only for the same dreadful sound to emanate from the engine. It was the gearbox.....the same gearbox that could only have forty hours on it if that....what had gone wrong? At first we were concerned that perhaps this would mean we would have no power, no power would mean no nav lights, no navigation equipment and limited communications, but we were lucky, we still had neutral so we still had the capacity to charge our batteries. Once we had decided what the problem was the question was....what next? Well we are a sailing vessel so we would sail....the only problem we had there was the small issue of no wind. We would just have to wait til there was some! 
In the mean time we phoned our insurance company on the Iridium Go just to forewarn them that there was the possibility that at some point we might need a tow and to ask their advice about where would be the best spot to make for. They would call us back in the morning. We then contacted John's daughters to ask them to contact Falmouth Coastguard just to inform them of the situation, we were in no danger but they needed to know we were out there and our exact position. Sarah did a grand job sorting that out and Falmouth Coastguard rung us back to confirm our position and to give us a number we could call them on unfortunately just as the coastguard was relaying the number to us the satellite signal went down! There was nothing more we could do other than sail, albeit very slowly, through the night. We were 90 miles away from Guanaja but unsure wether we would be able to get help there. All the information we had read seemed to indicate that Roatan was a better destination and somewhere we could access help more successfully. 
I had previously been talking to Debbie and Steve from Fantasy Island about the possibility of a berth over the new year but the weather window put pay to that but I had their e mail address so decided to contact them and ask their advice about where might be our best option to head for. They were great! Debbie got back to me almost immediately saying that as far as she knew our options would be limited in Guanaja but if we could make it to Roatan there was the possibility they could arrange a tow to the Marina. This sounded by far the most positive suggestion so far. The Insurance Company had got back to us to tell us they had no idea about where would be the best place to go to if the boat should need work doing in Honduras so it looked like it was left to us to figure it out. We decided to head to Roatan some 130 miles away from where we lost power. It was frustrating for five or six hours we wallowed about averaging between one and two knots with the sun blazing overhead ....no fun! Then overnight the wind picked up and we were back to five knots this should have been good news but we really did not want to arrive in Roatan in the dark.....the entrance to French Cay means negotiating your way through two reefs ....not a good idea.

We were able to keep in contact with Debbie and Steve throughout the 36 hours or so it took us to complete the 130 or so miles and 'would you Adam and Eve it!' ....we ended up having to slow ourselves down so that we arrived in daylight! 
Steve had arranged for a small flotilla of 2/3 dinghies to come out and with Steve having jumped on  board to help us navigate we were able to slowly make it through the reefs. With one dinghy tied up either side they took us to our slip where there was a small gathering of yachties to help us tie up and welcome us finally to Roatan ..... quite a trip! 

The fun did not stop there though. Falmouth Coastguard very kindly contacted the Honduran Authorities to ask them to look out for us. So there we were enjoying a beer and recounting our adventures to the neighbours when the Honduran Coastguard made an appearance tieing up alongside us, six armed officers with two sniffer dogs and dog handlers all wanting to join in the fun! We were fortunate, Otto, a very helpful Guatemalan yachtie, was able to translate our story to them and they were happy. After the dogs had been through every locker and found nothing the dog handlers even asked if they could plant some contraband on the boat so the dogs could have a practice! We were happy to oblige. But wait....who should then turn up at the slip to join the party but the Port Captain from Coxen Hole wanting to know why we had not checked in there on the way in?! Otto did his stuff for a second time, he knew our story better than us now, and once our passports, our boat and us had had our photos taken for a third time he was on his way. It had been quite a day! Now to find out just what the problem is......
One last observation our efforts to tell Falmouth Coastguard that we had arrived safe and well were frustrating. We phoned three or four times, each time we got a different person on the other end of the phone claiming they knew nothing about our original call, they had no call log and left us wondering just what would have happened if we were in trouble. It seemed to us that there is a flaw in this centralised call centre system. I appreciate that this problem probably would not have occurred if the original satellite link had not dropped out but I'm sure this is not unusual and to have no log of calls seems a bit bizarre. John eventually e mailed them outlining our experience and suggesting that perhaps their systems need reviewing needless to say there was no response! 

At last ....Providencia

Finally we had our weather window and set sail leaving Puerto Lindo behind us bound for Providencia. On anchor in Linton Bay with very little wi fi we had plenty of opportunity to try out our new toy, the Iridium Go, the latest satellite system from Iridium. We had set it up in Shelter Bay and whilst a little tricky to set up it was great once we got the hang of it. We are now able to use our I Pad to phone, text, get the weather, plan our passage according to the weather ahead and keep in contact with the big wide world whilst at sea. We had a short weather window but we figured it should be enough and while we had some fairly heavy swell to start with we were able to sail virtually the whole of the 300 or so nautical miles. As we were fair bombing along at 7+ knots for a lot of the time inevitably we arrived in Providencia in the dark.....just what we didn't want. It was blowing 25 knots and we had waypoints to get into the harbour which is surrounded by fairly shallow water and a reef. It was however very well buoyed and what's more the lights on the red and green buoys worked! A pleasant change! So we went for it dropping the hook in the outer harbour some way from the quay, but safe enough so we could get our heads down for a well earned sleep.
Checking in the next day we wandered up the hill to find Mr. Bush, the agent everyone seems to use to check in.... I think he's the only one! There are only 5000 people on Providencia but we found them to be very friendly, super helpful and very proud of their Island. People there speak English, Spanish and Creole so you are never quite sure what language to attempt. Many times I attempted my broken Spanish only to find they spoke perfect English whilst on other occasions I'd speak English and they would reply in Creole! You can tell there has been pirate territory many many years ago. We moved the boat closer to the dock in the inner harbour taking care to go right to the end of the buoyed channel before we turned, some had been tempted to turn before the last buoy and had found themselves stuck in shallow water needing a tow out. Closer to the dock we were able to avail ourselves of the free internet on the dock and it was less of a distance to dinghy in.
We decided to hire a golf cart to explore the island with our friends off Genesis, with Christmas coming up the whole island was in throws of decorating the place with Christmas decorations, some strange like Santa playing the saxophone outside the Catholic Church others a bit more traditional. However at night the whole town was light up like a Christmas tree, the bridge, houses, the town square anywhere they could put a light they did. Christmas was the big deal in Providencia. All along the roads there were make shift butchers chopping up pigs for the big day, the queue for propane was enormous making sure they had something to cook it with and then to top it all they would slap a coat of paint on the outside of their house to make sure it looked just right. Christmas Eve they were ready to party and we received a call on the VHF to tell us that he had been informed that the fireworks were going to be set off in the harbour and that we were in the direct line of fire! He asked us to move.... he suggested we tie onto a barge over the other side of the harbour in shallow water....err I don't think so. We respectfully noted his concern and said we would be aware.....so at midnight there was John with his bucket on deck ready to put out any stray fireworks but aside from a couple of pieces of black cardboard our decks were clear and all was well. The locals partied til dawn after all that excitement we slept.

It does not take long to drive around Providencia and we found ourselves at South West Bay, a lovely sandy Bay littered with restaurants. The Divine Nino had been recommended to us and it did not disappoint for $35 you could share the fish platter which considered of a large Snapper, a Lobster, Calimari, Shrimp .....too much food! A good place that I can recommend for a lunch that will not disappoint.

The anchorage had good holding which was just as well as the wind whistled through the gap between the Main Island and Santa Catalina Island 30 - 40 knots at times but the seas were flat it it was not uncomfortable. We had looked at a weather window around Boxing Day, but having checked out with Mr. Bush, Boxing Day came and went the winds were just too strong and the seas too high out there. This was confirmed when our friends Doris and Hans on RioCaja limped back into Port having left on Christmas Eve with their Genoa shredded and engine trouble having had a thoroughly horrid time on their way to Belize forcing them to turn back. That settled it we were definitely staying put until the right weather window turned up!

Finally .....time to go!

We returned to the boat early October, relieved to avoid the colder weather back in the U.K. The boat yard had moved Orion out of the security pen ready for us to start work on her. The blisters that we ground out before leaving looked good, dry and no smell which I'm told is a good sign we now had to wait for a few dry days to fill the holes and apply our Coppercoat. Waiting for dry days in Panama in early October is no mean task. It rains, really rains most days and evidence of this was the colour of our ropes....all black, our dinghy covered in black mould and generally the outside of the boat was fifty shades of green and black. It took a whole day to clean up the dinghy and we after scrubbing our lines we hung them out on a line under the boat to let them dry between showers! 
We had our Coppercoat safely stored away in an inside locker, or so we thought. As we opened the locker together it out we realised that one of the bottles of resin had split in the heat depositing it contents in the bottom of the locker. A horrible sticky,gloopy mess stuck to the bottom of the locker and to anything in its path. We realised quickly that this meant we did not have enough Coppercoat for the job but for once we realised that luck was on our side as a really nice Canadian skipper who had put Coppercoat on the bottom of his catamaran came over to us in the yard and on the off chance asked us if we needed any! Coppercoat has a shelf life and really can only be kept for a year or so and as he was going through to the Pacific side his 'spare' would not be useable by the time he got to New Zealand ....so result ......we had our Coppercoat! We now just had to wait for the rain to stop. This is particularly important when applying Coppercoat, as its water based and rain will just wash it way. We needed one day  without rain to apply our four coats and we had wait patiently for over a week before the got the right weather window . Up with the lark or in Panama it's the Howler monkeys, we got our four coats on, the heat helping to set the thin layers of Copper within an hour or so for each coat. However our fingers were still crossed for no rain for 48 hours after application ....a tall order! So we covered all the bits of the hull we had treated with black bin bags and hoped the would stay on ....they did. 
Finally after nearly three weeks in the yard we could splash back in the water and wait for our new anchor chain there. After a false alarm when one of the hoses went on the Travel lift we eventually made it into the water, a day later than planned but ...relief! 
Whilst in the water Tropical Storm Otto decided to hit the region, tucked up in Shelter Bay we were safe enough. It is exactly what the name would suggest, good shelter. The winds in Shelter Bay never really got beyond 40 knots but the rain was torrential for around two days and the flooding in Colon was a problem along with the palm trees blown knocking out the power. The power was down for two days and whilst there is a generator for the hotel we were without power for just over two days on the dock. Some people were getting a bit twitchy about that and the thought of being without air con was more than some boats could bare. One boat bought another generator (their third!) as they thought they would be without power for quite a few days only for the power to come back on hours after the order was finalised. Well as I said to them ...you can never have too many generators! He failed to see the humour in that statement having just spent $900 needlessly. 

Our anchor chain arrived a week or so after and after marking it and after general checks we felt we were hot to trot but John being John did one final check and... almost afraid to tell me he finally owned up to the fact that he thought we had a problem with our heat exchanger....what the hell? John revealed that whilst down in the engine room he had felt air blowing out of the heat exchanger and on closer examination after taking the heat exchanger to bits we found that there were small holes in heat exchanger where the exhaust water injection takes place.... What next!!? By this time we had already checked out of Panama but hey ho if we couldn't leave we couldn't leave so after much deliberation and with the help of JB Weld we filled the holes so that the heat exchanger worked perfectly and we set sail for Porto Lindo trying to get as far East as possible before heading North to Providencia.It was good to be back on the water again! 
Whilst waiting for our chain we hired a car and spent a day in Panama City. Panama City is quite different to Colon, money has been spent on renovation and there are some pretty squares centred around the churches, reminiscent of Cartegena, though if I had to choose between the two I would choose Cartegena. Hopefully some day Panama will invest some money into Colon.

The joys of boat ownership

So it has been a long time since the last blog and a lot has happened .....not all of it good. Having got back to the boat after a great week in Gibraltar visiting Sarah, John's daughter and her family and then a week down in Kent dog sitting for my sister, we were pleased to see that the interior was mould free and whilst she needed a good clean nothing too serious. However, the heat had taken a toll on one particular area of the interior. John and I had spent a long time when we were in Gibraltar all those years ago replacing the headlining and relieving Orion of what is known by other Amel owners as 'Amel droop'! It was a pig of a job but we took comfort in the thought that it was a job once completed would no need to be revisited.......how wrong could we be. The intense heat of both Colombia and Panama has taken its toll and now virtually all of our efforts those years ago in Gib have been in vain.....the bloody linings all coming off! The problem is not the adhesive but the sponge lining has just degraded to dust with the combination of heat and humidity. I have to admit I shed a tear with the thought of having to do that particular job again! 
Well we decided we would come out the water replace the anodes and check the bottom. Once out we replaced the anodes no problem but we were dismayed to find small osmosis bubbles start to appear once we had been out a day or so. I know that boats don't sink as a result of osmosis but we had a decision to make do we grind all the bubbles out ( around 30 or so mainly on one side and around the water line ) and then leave the to dry or do we carry on? After a lot of deliberation we decided to grind the buggers out and leave the boat on the hard for a couple of months. Returning back to the UK for a couple of months would enable John to get his eyes fixed, something we had been toying with for a while. John has glasses that fix in the middle over the bridge of the nose with tiny magnets joining up the two halves......leaning over the compass with those glasses ......not a good idea when trying to navigate! They drove the compass wild. The plan was to have lens replacement in both eyes but we needed to be in the UK for at least three months to get the surgery done. The procedure itself takes no more than a day but the after care would involve regular check ups. This seemed to be the ideal opportunity to get the work done. 

We left Orion on the hard but not before discovering yet another problem. When we leave her John always empties all the anchor chain out of the anchor locker and when we attempted to do it this time we discovered that having been in the Marina for so long and as a result yet again of the humidity rain and heat ....the last forty metres of chain was just one massive rusty clump impossible to free and get out of the anchor locker! Access to our anchor locker is via a small locker in the bow so armed with a lump hammer and hacksaw John wriggled his way into the locker and tried to hack solid ball of rust free. There was much sweat, cursing, swearing and blood sweat and tears but with a taxi due to take us to the airport in a couple of hours he had to admit defeat. The job would have to wait until we returned when we would also have to buy new anchor chain. Bliss and Joy! Something to look forward to on our return!