It’s been a rainy week and we were only able to get in about 2 days of work on the exterior paint projects but it gave me a chance to work on internal projects like putting in a new transducer for depth and speed. This is actually a second depth transducer, the sender mounted in the bottom of hull that sends and receives the sonar signals as I wanted to have a backup for this critical information. Here in Fiji and in many of the places I most like to sail there are lots of shallow areas and coral reefs so having an accurate depth reading is very useful. However this usually just augments the visual navigation I do in such situations and is why I make sure to time my entrance into new harbours and areas to be when the sun is high in the sky and I can see the various depths clearly based on their different colours.
The overall weather continues to be quite good given that we had two named tropical cyclones, Jasmine and Cyril, form last week. They both gave Fiji a miss thankfully but Jasmine is quite large and slow moving now sitting down south of us and is kicking up some of the rainy weather and also pulling the SPCZ (South Pacific Convergence Zone) down on top of us and bringing its wind, rain and clouds with it. Things look better for the week to come with no new TD’s forming and so the cyclone potential is essentially zero for now.
This past weekend (it is Sunday evening here) has also been very wet but the forecast is looking much better for the week ahead and I’m hoping for several dry hot days so we can start to spray the decks and topsides with the high build primer/filler paint. You could think of this as liquid filler that fills in the low spots and then we start sanding and sanding this all down to level it off and spray on another coat. You repeat this process until the surfaces are all very smooth and flat and then you’re ready for the final top coat of glossy colour paint. That day is still a ways off but we are making good progress.
I had a bit of a setback last weekend when I tripped while carrying some parts up on deck and when I put my other foot forward to catch myself it landed right on top of one of the hatch openings and so I fell right through with my other knee crashed down onto the deck with my full weight. Ouch!! Wrenched my knee pretty bad and tweaked my hip and back so I’ve been taking it much slower and easier this week and all is on the mend. Still a bit painful to walk and move around but I’m able to get around fine and I’m sure I’ll be back to full strength later this week.
Otherwise all is well over re in Fiji and on the good ship Learnativity and I hope the same is true for you and your world.
Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog