Annual maintenance is keeping us busy!
- jeanneb
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Its been a whirlwind since we've been back in Panama. The weather is still hot and humid but we are seeing less rain and slightly less humidity. Our air conditioner wasn't working great, so we made an executive decision and purchased a standalone one that sits proudly at that bottom of our stairs. We aren't sure what we'll do with it when we have to leave but for now it makes us very happy. Its been a life saver!
Buenaventura is in a small rain shadow and somehow the clouds just go around us. After working in the morning, we head to the pool around 3 or 4 if we can. There is much more activity going on these days as Panama has had several national holidays over the last few weeks. It has been getting a little 'cooler'. The other day, I put a blanket on at night--perhaps it was just that the AC was working so well! We both got sick after Italy with a light cold -- that we picked up along the way. While it is mostly 'over', we've both been 'out' for a few days and are just now fully
getting our energy back.
The first few days of being back from Italy we had our virtual safety inspection with the WorldARC rally committee. We spent an hour on zoom going over all our gear, and answering questions with the committee on our preparedness. The items that we didn't 'check off' were the ones we knew we still needed to address. So no surprises. But a list of outstanding things to resolve before January.
Our days are packed with annual maintenance chores on the boat. Dan carefully serviced all the winches -- which entails taking them apart CAREFULLY without losing any pieces overboard, soaking them in diesel to remove the grease then putting them all back together. He's cleaned the decks, fixed the dock lines and polished all the stainless steel. He also finished the last bit of replacing all our standing rigging (the wires that hold up the mast). He's been splicings our running rigging (the lines that hold the sails) to replace those that are worn. I sewed a new rain/sun cover for the aft deck, went through the first aid kits and have also scrubbed the galley. Its amazing how small a space can get so dirty so fast! In addition, I have been doing a thorough re-organization of our forward cabin to make space for crew that will be joining us over the next two years.
I also have removed any expired food, cleaned all the lockers of any mold and inventoried every item of food we have on board. I am now using an app called Pantry Check to scan in every item, note it's location and expiration. You can ask me where anything is and I can tell you exactly in which one of our 45 storage lockers it lives. Its a brain saver for sure! (granted, I still lose my reading glasses and sometimes my phone!). For provisioning I'm using a cookbook app to save every recipe we cook while at sea/at anchor and have a 2 week rolling menu plan that will help me calculate a rough shopping list. I tried chatGPT too this time. It was sort of helpful. And sort of not -- unless you like hardboiled eggs for lunch every day. Which I do not. I compare what we have in stock to my grocery list and head off to the store.
Even with all the tech, I still find that at the grocery store I go with my gut. I fill up one shopping cart each time go. I generally know how many bags of canned food will fit in a locker. So shopping over multiple days I'm able to see how things are filling up. First I get all the dry goods that last the longest -- and hide away deep in the bilge. Then I work to the fresher foods. We can't provision any fresh/or frozen food yet -- its way too early -- and we still have 2 weeks in January when we'll be hauled out and will not be able to run our regular refrigeration. Food in the south pacific is expensive and often lacking diversity so we've got to get the chinese spices while we can!
This week we also rented a car and drove to the city of Colon on the Carribbean side of Panama. We took our liferaft in for its 3 year service. There they are going to inflate it, test that it has no leaks and repack it with updated flares, food, etc. The Viking shop is located in the Colon Free Zone -- it is the second largest free trade zone in the world. It was a fascinating place to visit. They stamped our passports (or at least looked at them) on the way in. We payed a small fee and then drove to the Viking shop. It poured rain the afternoon we were there so we didn't shop much -- but Dan did eye the Lamborghini store. I guess if you are going to buy a fancy car, perhaps a free trade zone is the place to do it???
We stopped in Panama City on the return from Colon, spent the night and visited at least 6 different marine stores. We purchased a bunch of spare lines, lots of bits and bobs that we forgot and we suddenly needed. We purchased a ridiculously high priced flare that we were missing and scoped out the marina we'll be staying at for a few days at the end of January. It seems each store has a few things, but none of them have all of the things. We did some additional reconnoissance on what would be needed for our the last few days and are with each day are feeling better prepared to head off to the Galapagos. We've got 4 short weeks to enjoy the lovely Buenaventura Golf Resort so we are aiming to make the most of it! Onward!
Comments