22 July 06 - Starting to feel home
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Today I woke up at around 9 in the morning, after having had a good nights sleep. Katharina and Esmeralda decided to sleep a bit more.
I brushed my teeths and went out in the cockpit to sit and relax for a bit. Then Soeren showed up.
We had been told that the carpenters were to come and install the new varnished bathroom walls today, but unfortunately it seems to have been postponed until tomorrow (Sunday). Anyway, the good news is that the carpenters are working during the weekend.
One of the plans for today was to go off to Marathon, but Panos came and told us that Marathon was quite an ugly city with much too much traffic. Soeren was given the opportunity to make the go or no go decision, and he decided no go.
While anyway staying the boat, we could just aswell do some more practical ressearch. The 220V generator wouldnt start for example. Supposedly due to lack of power on its starter battery. One of Panos people had brought a charger earlier on the week, so I decided to climb down into the small generator room and charge the generators battery. After a while, we attempted to start the generator with success. We left it running for an hour or so, to charge its own battery, and also tried to stop and restart it again without problems.
The main engine was also started today, and was left running for about 1/2 hour. Apart from charging its own starter battery, it also runs a compressor for the frigos, which are similar to something inbetween a fridge and a refridgerator, but which do not require electrics to cool. The internal frigo cooled very well... I think its possible to freeze things there for 24h without problems having had the main engine running for an hour or so each day. It held its low temperature equally well.
The 2 outside frigos however dont work at all it seems... something for Panos to look at.
The dinghy was hanging slightly awkward in one of its wires, and I decided to see if I could get it hanging straight. I climbed into it, had Soeren lower it down to the water, to relieve the tension on the wires to make it possible to fix the problem, and got the wire (in the bow of the dinghy) untangled fine.
At the same time I discovered I was starting to get wet feets and knees... the bottom cork of the dinghy was out and water was poring in. Soeren then lifted up the dinghy again using the electric davits (cranes) to save me from getting more parts wet.
We tried to refit the cork (rubber thingy with a tensioner screw), but was unsuccessfull in doing that (and yes, we did loosen the tensioner screw). Its rubber has probably deformed so over time, that its not flexible anymore, why we have to go find another useable cork somewhere.
On our starbord side a charter yacht (Benetaux 46) with americans on board was going to leave Alimos to start their vacation. Their engine was running and they slowly moved ahead out of the mooring, until suddenly their engine not running warning signal started to sound.... they caught a mooring line in their propellar which tangled completely up and stalled the engine. They had to wait for a diver to come fix the problem, which resulted in a delay of some hours for them.
On our port side, another yacht with Spanish people on board had arrived yesterday. Today some Alimos cleaning guy decided to waterhose the vessel all over... all over our vessel too... thru our portholes etc. So our galley floated with water.... man... was I a bit annoyed! I immedately sent out Katharina to tell him off!
Ive rigged up the new portable so we can watch DVDs (Katharina wanted to watch Spiderman 1 or anyway the first 20 mins of it). The navigation and weblog portable was also setup on the navigation table (after cleaning it for about an inch thick layer dust from the rebuilding).
Im going thru the navigational instruments, to ensure all is working properly, checking all switches to see if all works as expected (and to test what they all do).
Late during the day we went off to Haagen Dass to get icecream or smoothies or milkshakes (different people different taste). Very tasty but also quite expensive.
Esmeralda cooking |
Soeren and Katharina |
Breakfast |
Breakfast 2 |