Without any crew onboard, the Sea Dragon feels quiet and empty…which is why we work so hard to get her ready for the next lot arriving!
The list of jobs to be done is massive, but luckily myself, Maggie and Anna are all keen for a day off so we smashed out the first load of things to do in the first few days.
Anna had the wonderful job of taking the steering apart as it had started squeaking towards the end of last trip. The bolts holding it all together kept coming loose, and Anna (covered in grease) discovered a one had sheered. So, we found a machinist and dropped off the parts to be fixed.
Both Maggie and Anna had a lot of fun servicing the outboards ready for use at Palmyra (our next destination). But (as jobs usually do on boats) that opened a whole can of worms as one of them wouldn’t actually start. For 2 days, a frustrated Anna pulled it apart and put it back together again and again, changed the oil, the fuel, the spark plugs, and still nothing. So we found an engine man to have a look at it. Turns out the fuel injectors needs cleaning, which unfortunately is a job for a shop. The new fuel injected engines are so much more reliable and fuel efficient than carbureted engines, but unfortunately the trade-off is that when they do need work you can’t do it yourself.
Maggie has done so much paperwork and made so many phone calls; I’m in awe of her patience and determination to get it all done. Before arriving in Hawaii, we had to make sure there was no fresh fruit and vegetables on board for environmental reasons. Maggie re-stocked and made sure herself, Anna and I had enough food to survive the next week of hard work.
I had my hands full of winch parts and grease. There are 10 massive winches onboard and all of them need servicing regularly. (I do love the dirty work!) I also cleaned the bilges, and replaced a rather bent stanchion on the port bow.
But, alas, jobs keep popping up and the hard work never ends (just kidding we’re going to Waikiki on Saturday!!)