Waiting on parts and working on chores is made a little more palatable by being somewhere we can dive and snorkel and socialize with friends, but we're sure getting antsy to get going. At this point, Christmas in Cartagena is looking more and more unlikely. The trade winds have filled in and the waves have increased accordingly, so we missed the window of light winds at the change of seasons. (We spent it in the Venezuelan islands, which was certainly worthwhile, as being anchored with only subsurface reefs as protection is a lot more comfortable when the wind isn't howling.) It's going to be a bumpy ride when we do go. Whenever that will be.
We've been doing a lot of waiting. Our prop shaft and new bearings finally arrived five days late, after having been routed by mistake to the Netherlands, rather than the Netherlands Antilles. (We understand this is a common problem!) Our dismay at this inconvenience was more than made up for by our discovery that Everfair, the makers of the Four Winds wind generator, treated this as a warranty replacement and only charged us for the shipping, which was very kind considering that the failure was the fault of the arch manufacturer, not theirs. Our propane tank is still awaiting propane; maybe mañana. The new base plate for our wind generator is all done, though, and it's a nice job, welded all around onto a thick slab of stainless steel. We also had a base plate made and drilled, since we couldn't find U-bolts of the right size. Of course finding regular stainless steel bolts was still a pain, and they cost nearly $5 each -- about three times the West Marine price back in the US (which isn't exactly cheap either). But the new system should be solid, compared to the way it was before, with the socket just welded at three points onto the bars. (Note that the "before" photo shows our existing radar pole installation, which is welded the same way. However, last February we added two guy wires running between the top of the pole and the arch, for additional support. We couldn't do the same for the wind generator, of course, because the support cables would get in the way of the spinning blades, as the generator rotates freely on the pole to point into the wind.)
Putting the generator back together was an adventure. When Britt reassembled the newly-repaired blades onto the new prop shaft and hub, we both thought it looked like the rotation direction was wrong. So he took it apart and turned each bit over in his hands, verifying that everything was symmetric -- there was no way to put the blades and shaft together such that the leading edges were on the opposite sides. After reassembling it again, we put it on the pole, and sure enough, it started turning the "wrong" way, with the trailing edges leading. While taking it down again, I started thinking out loud about how to solve this problem, distracting Britt and causing him to drop an important bolt into the water, which resulted in complete cessation of all work while we got furious at each other, at the wind generator, at the boat, and at life in general. Britt stuck his head in the tool locker so he wouldn't have to talk to me, and I retreated to the computer desk so I wouldn't have to talk to him. After a few minutes he had another bolt that could be modified to work, while I had a digital photo from last year with the wind generator in it, showing the whole blade and prop shaft assembly mounted with the prop shaft facing away from the hub (backwards from what we had thought was the obviously correct way), and we kissed and made up. After we turned the blade assembly around and remounted it to the hub, the leading edges were where they were supposed to be. We've got windpower again!
We've got some groceries -- staples from the store and a load of fruits and vegetables from the Venezuelans who sell fresh produce near the wharf. We picked up a few little items at Budget Marine, and I replaced my old, worn out dive booties with a new pair from one of the many scuba shops. We also sprang for an expensive book, Reef Creature Identification by Paul Humann; we bought the companion volume Reef Fish Identification back in Puerto Rico and have gotten so much use out of it that we've been anxious to buy the other. The dive shop I got the booties from also had a used copy of the third book in the series, on coral, for a very good price, so now we have the complete set. The only thing we haven't been able to do here has been get our laundry done; the laundromat is a long hike from the waterfront, and paying to have it done means filling out a detailed list and waiting several days. So we'll do it at our next stop...Curacao, here we come.
