Repairing rigging

Posted on November 9, 2016 Updated on November 9, 2016

We woke at 5am to an obnoxiously loud version of the song “When you wish upon a star”, and looked out the window to see that the Disney cruise ship had pulled in to port. Later in the morning I glanced up on our deck to see Jude and Mycah watching Disney movies through binoculars. On the top deck of the cruise ship is a large screen where animated Disney movies are played all day long. They also have a huge waterslide which the creatures were trying to figure out how to climb up to.

We have continued to work hard on Tanda Malaika. One of the two projects we needed to get done was to replace the blocks for the jib sheets. These blocks are important because the sheets (ropes) that hold the jib (front sail), are run through the blocks – which have rollers on them, and back to the helm where we work the lines to furl or unfurl the jib.We noticed that some of the parts weren’t lined up properly and between Mycah and Jude, they wrestled them till they were straight.

After a little of this and a little of that,

the blocks were on, the lines run through them, and Bob’s your uncle the job was done.

The other project was to replace the car on the traveler. The car holds the main sheets (ropes for the main sail), and it travels along a track called the traveler which allows the boom so safely move from port to starboard, allowing you to adjust the main sail as needed. Our car has obviously never been replaced, and since this is a 2007 catamaran, the time had come.

After we spent some time trying to figure out how to remove it, we finally used Danny’s advice and called our rigger friend, Bienvenido, to remove it for us. He happily pulled up in his dinghy and removed it. Jude and I caught a taxi into Nanny Cay where we purchased a new one, the returned and watched as Bienvenido showed us how to put the new one on. It’s definitely one of those jobs that is a bit tricky but once you’ve seen it done it all makes sense and we could do it ourselves next time.

It’s such a great feeling to learn and to know that there is always more to learn.

Later on in the day we rescued a floating fender from the ocean. This is a great find because fenders are so expensive and you can never have too many.

I have an underwater camera cemetery in my berth. A few weeks ago we bought a Nikon Coolpix, which I’ve had great luck with in the past, but in just this short time it has proved to not be very durable. After coming back from snorkeling we noticed some droplets inside the camera and it no longer works. A few days ago, I was snorkeling with my ancient Hero 2 Go Pro, which I’ve had for several years now, and while in the water i noticed bubbles rising from it – which is never a good sign. Looking down at it I could see that one of the tiny hinges had finally failed and had leaked water into the case and killed the camera.

Presently Jude is the only one of us with a working underwater camera, so any underwater photos I post for the next bit, were taken by her with her GoPro Hero 5.

We continue to miss Danny like crazy. His trip is going well, but things are taking longer than expected. We hope he will be home in about a week or so. The creatures and I will probably meet him in St Martin.