Living the Dream!

Living the Dream!

Tuesday 4th - Thursday 6th June 2024

The haul out went well and Cotinga is safely parked in Clarkes Court Boatyard, Grenada. We completed the first half of our two year plan! She is  resting on her keel with an additional seven jack stands supporting her. We also chose to pay extra for a hurricane cradle, which is an additional rigid steel support with four arms that should keep Cotinga upright should there be storm conditions.  Finally there are four heavy duty tie down straps, each attached to a huge concrete block. The staff at the boatyard are highly professional and my only reservation about the situation is that we are only about 8 feet above water level in the event of a large storm surge.

On Tuesday afternoon we moved in to an air conditioned apartment for three nights, which happens to be right next to the boat. We have been sweating our brains out, working through a long list of projects in high temperatures (~86 oF / 30 oC) and high humidity, and it has been a blessing to be able to return to a cool room and shower. As well as preparing to leave the boat for five months, we have also been trying to ensure that everything is ready for when we return in November. Essentially we have crammed in all our off-season boat jobs into a few days. We have spent hours cleaning and tidying inside the boat, removing all perishable food, boxing or double bagging staples like rice or pasta that we hope will be okay. We have bleached and drained the water tanks; the diesel tanks are full and treated with biocide. The engine has been flushed with fresh water, the batteries have been charged to max capacity with our portable generator and the dinghy is strapped down on the foredeck under a tarpaulin. But the biggest and messiest job by far has been working on the undersides of the boat. 

Cotinga looked like she was growing a beard when she emerged from the water. A thorough power wash removed most of that growth, and on closer inspection most of the antifouling has held up well. The exceptions are the areas where the “electrolysis” caused the antifouling to burn off. Although there aren’t lots of barnacles, these areas are pretty rough. The latest theory is that inadequate priming around metal fittings in the hull (grounding plate, zinc attachment point, rudder skeg, prop-shaft housing and keel bulb) and direct contact with copper containing antifouling paint is the source of an electrochemical reaction that causes this “haloing”. What we have done is sand and wire brushed the areas immediately around the metal fittings to remove the antifouling, and then applied two coats of underwater primer (Primekot). We also wimped out and hired a local sub-contractor to machine sand the rough areas, lightly sand the rest, and apply fresh bottom paint. He will also clean and polish the topsides for us, all whilst we are away. We try and do as much work as we can ourselves, but this seems like money well spent. We did clean and service the Max-Prop propeller and that looks good.

By the time we finished yesterday evening we looked like a couple of bedraggled survivors rescued from an oil slick … soaking wet and absolutely filthy. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo. It was at this point that Gloria uttered the words “Living the Dream”. We do think that anybody who is contemplating a cruising lifestyle should spend a week working on a boat before they buy one … unless they are super rich and can hire others to do all the dirty work. But where is the fun in that! Our thoughts over the past week or two have been dominated by all the jobs we have been working on, so it’s a good time to reflect on the past 8 months and the experience as a whole.

I think we both feel that this has been a fantastic trip; more enjoyable than our 2017-8 journey to the Caribbean. Some of that is undoubtedly due to the impact of the loss Gloria’s parents in January of 2018, but we also think that the two-year plan has allowed us to travel more slowly and enjoy the places we have visited. We have been to some wonderful places, walked on pristine sandy beaches, swam with turtles, enjoyed some incredible snorkeling in crystal clear water and witnessed countless sunsets with cocktails on deck. The tropical rainforests and waterfalls, along with some of the hiking we have done on the islands, have been amazing. As ever, it has been great to have friends and family come and stay with us, and we have also met many wonderful people along the way. It’s also worth noting that we have done some really fine sailing since we have been down in the Caribbean, although our journey down was a bit lacking in wind for much of the time. Cotinga has mostly worked well - she truly is a fine boat and our confidence in her makes a difference. We did have a seam rip on the mainsail and I broke the oven, but other than that (and the dreaded electrolysis) everything has worked well. I am particularly happy with the combination of cell phone and Iridium Go satellite system for communications. That combined with the Predict Wind weather tools and forecasts from Chris Parker have provided us with excellent weather and routing information, albeit at a cost ($). We had a few bumpy passages and some uncomfortable, rolly anchorages, but overall I think we have been fortunate to have had great weather. In the past few weeks it has become a little too hot and humid for our taste, so it will be nice to take a break and enjoy the summer and autumn at home. 

This voyage has been an incredible experience that we will never forget. We recognize that the blog is primarily for our own benefit, as it creates a diary of our travels that we can go back and revisit in the future, filling in our memories of what we did and how we felt at the time. Thanks for reading and sharing our adventures with us. We hope you have enjoyed what we have posted so far and if you have suggestions of what you would like cover in the future then please let us know. 

At this point we will sign off for a few months and resume our blog in the middle of November when we return for the second year of our big adventure. 

Launch date: 14 Nov 2024

Mike

Cotinga is raised out of the water using a huge travel lift. this is the only boatyard we have ever been to that puts a diver in the water to ensure the slings are in the correct place (and not for example wrapped around the propeller)

The travel lift lowers Cotinga and she is temporarily blocked up on stands for power washing

The diver does double duty power washing ... well he is already wet!

A separate tractor trailer picks up Cotinga and drives her to the space where she will be stored. The boats are packed incredibly tight and I had to go up a ladder and remove our davits before this process could be completed.

A view of the jack-stands (green) and the heavy duty hurricane cradle, which is T-shaped with supports at the front and stern. At Nanny Cay in Tortola in 2017 I saw rows of boats that had blown over like skittles and the jack-stands punched through the hull. The hurricane cradle should help to avoid that

Looking back towards the keel - you can see the structure of the hurricane cradle and the silver Primer paint on the bulb

A view from the bow with our dinghy tied down under a trap on the foredeck. Three boats are within 3 feet of Cotinga at the stern. The bow of one is just 6 inches away from the rail of Cotinga.

I love taking abstract photos around boatyards. I finally got a quiet hour this afternoon and had fun with my camera. This image was created as a panorama from 5 separate pictures, each of which generated using focus stacking of a separate set of images, all taken with a 105 mm micro lens and a tripod. 

This image is also a 3 - photo vertical panorama of a rudder assembly

This photo of the same vessel as above, was generated from a 30-photo focus stacked set, in order to generate a sharp image across a wide depth of field

A bow thruster (or as we like to refer to them - a "bow cheater") that allows you to push the bow of the boat sideways. It helps a lot with docking ... but we do not have one!

Hull lines