Over the next month we got hauled, a new thru-hull installed, bottom painted and the sugar scoop steps raised 2", all at about half the cost of Puerto Rico. The bottom paint, Sea Hawk 44 (hard) with tin booster, went on in four coats of green and blue at about $400/gal. Ouch!
7/1715 - finally got a tech from Furuno after a week of calling to diagnose the autopilot which had started turning the boat when engaged to starboard (right): "Crazy Ivans"! After testing it and finding nothing wrong he cut the leads to the hydraulic pump and lead them directly to the battery. Voila! The pump that should reverse when the leads were reversed (positive/red and negative/black to positive/black and negative/red) only went one way: to starboard! Bad, bad pump. We ordered a new one from AccuSteer and I, would you believe it, installed it. However, the copper pipe fittings to the pump leaked (brittle and old and moved around by me in reconnecting too much) and I had to hire a mechanic to lengthen the copper and reattach all three. Again, however, Linda and I bleed the system (twice) which got us to the ocean-testing on 7/9/15.
where we had to circle for about 20 minutes before they opened it. Once thru the bridge and the channel entrance slop-chop we turned to ESE and motored into the 3 knot current and 20-25 knot NE trades. The pump and autopilot performed well and we moved along at about 4 knots for the 5 nm trip. Bright but cloudy sky's; no rain. Seas1-2' on the nose with a 4 second period. Just found out that the Curacao Yacht Club's fuel dock opens at noon, so we cut the revs to 2,000 and speed to 2.9 knots. We passed a monstrous oil loading platform on the way.
$370 for fuel after 30 minutes of circling for a three-outboard speed boat getting gas. Then when we tried to pull away from the dock with 20 knot breezes pushing us on, we couldn't start the starboard engine. Turned out the start battery had literally blown its top. We were able to jump from the port start battery to the leads and get her started, but we had to keep the jumper in place because the fuel pump needed the power to operate. Mike and Jean Corbett on Tomorrow's Dawn helped us both on and off the dock plus gave us a battery terminal for our dingy battery which Steve remembered seeing stored by the helm. Another "Voila!" Hooked it up and the engine started and off we went.
Returned to Curacao Marina doing up to 10 knots down wind and current. Got thru the swing bridge with only 6 or 8 circles at the entrance. The slip is only 20' long so we had a time getting Kuhela in straight. Going to be a hassle to get on and off as we now have to do it amidship with our dock steps (a gift from The Rapers) rather than off the lower stern.
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