Yard Life

We're still in the Carenage yard, working daily.  Here are some photo of our life in the yard.  Of course, so far we've stayed in a bungalow and not aboard. 

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This is SV Counter Current, a catamaran brought back from the dead by a Canadian couple, Phil and Ashley.  They've been working on her for several years, and have decided to sell her. 

This is our friend and main yard worker, Taputu.  He's very strong and a very nice guy, but speaks almost no English.

This is our little bungalow bedroom.  There's a roof leak, so workers placed a ladder to reach and repair it. In the end, they nailed up a piece of plastic to force the leaking water to run outside. No air conditioning, no ceiling, fairly primitive, but it's home for 10 days.

We had already replaced both tube valves in our dinghy, and now we're repairing a small hole.  To hold things in place overnight, we used the zinc anodes for our propeller, and a large main anode.  The main anode, I taped in blue tape to prevent sticking.

This is "Copper Coat", a new anti-fouling process that our German friends are having installed on their boat.  It's a fine copper powder mixed with epoxy that provides 10-12 years of no growth with no leaching into the water.

Lovely Conni peers out from Wings' rudder. 

Homemade steel boat that I thought was well maintained and outfitted.

Our friends on Turtle Blues, a Passport 42.  Jim has the pony tail at left, Bill, a friend, and Jim's wife, Barbara.

This is the yard next to ours, CNI.  We were visiting our friends and were returning. Lovely Conni pauses to look around.

This is "ProfaSea", a boat from San Francisco.  She went ashore and badly damaged her hull, here being repaired. Her keel and side were almost destroyed when a mooring broke on Fakarava.

This is the mast for Counter Current, being lifted for placement on the boat.

The mast has been lifted and will be set into the green oblong in the hull.

Even mom gets into the act! This is the woman on SV Viveka from Vienna, Austria.  Their port keel, at left, was almost destroyed in an accident in Papeete, and the family is working to get her together again.

Yeah, we're working hard, but this is where we're living.  That's Bora Bora through the clouds, seen through the TraveLift 

Another catamaran had bad dagger board damage, and this worker is removing "end-grain balsa", a common material to use as a filling.  It is inexpensive and if very light, but can be destroyed by water intrusion.  That's what happened here.

This small tuna boat was tied to near Wings this afternoon.  Note huge reels!  The go out for the day to catch tuna and sell it locally.

Our repaired dinghy!  It's holding air again!  Not bad for a 40-year-old dinghy!  We're very pleased at the outcome.  I should have taken a better photo, but on the port transom is our new 3/8" stainless steel eye bolt, pushed through an epoxy-filled hole.  Our wonderful new 3/8" cable is the blue cord that's locking the dinghy to our cradle.

This is one of the smaller and less complex winches that I cleaned.  It has only a few gears and ratcheting mechanisms, but is still complicated.

This is what remains of end-grain balsa after it's stripped.

Not a good photo, but that's Britta and Michael on our usual weekend evening out.  We start on their boat, Vera, and then drive to dinner someplace. 

The infamous, new refrigerator, fastened in place and wired to go.  To make room for the unit, I had to move both of the bus bars at left:  a lot of work.

Our friend and helper, Richard, is repairing some water damage.  Here, he removed some damage teak-faced plywood and will replace it with some composite materials.  That's the inside of the hull, exposed.

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