Sailing Leander

October 2, 2011

“PAUL!!!! PAUL!!!!!! WAKE UP!!!! THE BOAT!!!!  WE’RE LOOSE!!!!!!!!”

This is probably just a dream.  I’m going back to sleep.

I mean, it’s got to be.  Only today we were fearing just such a bad dream.  I must have brought it upon myself.

As a sailor living aboard a boat, sleep is always a little troubled, and sometimes you rest uneasily.

Out at sea on passage, you’re concerned with all those open ocean thoughts, especially as you come off watch and try to close your eyes.  The boat is hurtling along through the ocean, and you’re wondering if you’re about to hit something? A rock? A great big tanker? A partially submerged container? Flotsam from the Titanic?  Is the wind going to continue to pick up? The seas? Should we have put another reef in?  What’s that humming noise? Are we drawing too much on the batteries?

You’d think that you’d rest comfortably once you make it into harbor.  But although it is substantially better, a whole new host of concerns arise.  Will our anchor hold? Did we put out enough scope?  Are the lines chafing? Will there be a problem with the tide?  Will the wind shift and bring in a swell?  Is that a cricket on board or is a water pump running endlessly?

Or maybe, “Is this mooring strong enough for our boat?”

We walked through a local village a couple of days ago, and Sima got to talking about these stresses.  “I’ve been thinking,” she said.   “I love our life, but I’m also starting to kind of want a house.  You don’t have to worry as much, you know.  Wind, waves, submerged rocks – they’re not so much of a problem when your home isn’t floating.”  We talked about it as we headed back to Leander.  It’s true, I agreed.  Especially when the weather kicks up, boats can be tiring.  A blowy wind can take the stuffing out of you, especially when it whistles – or even worse, when it roars – for a couple of days on end.

And the wind has been doing that recently.  We have been on Leros, a Greek island in the Aegean, for about a week.  We’re not too far from Kos and Rhodes and the Turkish coast.

Our anchorage in Pandeli, on Leros. Pretty but boisterous.

We spent our first five days in Pandeli, a town and small bay on the east side of the island.  The village was beautiful, nestled among some surrounding hills.   But the hills, as nice to look at as they were, also act like a funnel, gathering puffs of air from this hilltop and that, and channeling them into a throaty blow that harrassed Leander and her crew with varying degrees of intensity.   We went about the boat working to quiet various straps and lines, which whistled, creaked, or groaned in the gusts.  (Wind is a little less bothersome if you can’t hear it.)  We got rid of most of the noise, using a series of pulleys and blocks to lead the lines away from chafe points, but Leander still wasn’t noiseless.

Our anchorage in Pandeli. We are two boats this side of the gulet, with the tan sail cover. Can you see the wind on the water?

When we saw that the forecast called for 40 knots plus in the coming days, we figured it was time to move.  If Pandeli was uncomfortable in normal conditions, we could only imagine how bad it would be if the wind got really bad.

On one of our long hikes, we had visited another village on the southern end of the island, a place called Xerokampos.  It looked calmer and more protected, and the guide books confirmed this when we later checked.  So we decided to come here.

When we scouted Xerokampos on foot, it looked calm and peaceful.

We arrived yesterday, and took a mooring about 100 yards from shore, in just 20 feet of water. And today the winds did arrive, right on schedule.  When we paid attention, we saw gusts of 30 knots, and it was probably the case that some were higher.

Earlier today, I went for a run, and on shore I bumped into a Dutch couple, Jope and Anneke.  Their boat was also on a mooring.  As I was rowing back to Leander, I saw Jope suddenly sprint back to his dinghy, and then charge out to the harbor.  I looked to where he was headed, and saw that his beautiful forty-foot yacht was floating free, heading for the rocks on the far side of the bay.

Leander at anchor in Xerokampos. We are the sailboat on the far right, and the boat furthest to the left is Jope's.

A sailor’s worse nightmare.

Jope got to his boat, which had drifted about half a mile away from its mooring. Fortunately, the boat had moved sideways, its hull sailing crossways to the wind, rather than heading straight out to sea.  If it had done the latter, Jope, with his small dinghy, might not have been able to catch it.  As it was, he was able to jump aboard, start the engine, and back it away from the rocks.  As Jope headed back toward us, I rowed our dinghy to a nearby mooring, and then helped him secure his boat.

We joined Jope and Anneke later for a drink. (One beer for me and one glass of wine for Sima – we don’t drink much in general, never at sea, and only a little in an unfamiliar anchorage.)  Anneke told us how scared she had been.  “You have nightmares about such things, but you hope that it never happens!  And then today, it did!  I think that I will have unpleasant dreams tonight!”

We thought the same, as we returned to our boat for dinner and then bed.  The wind had really picked up, and was causing Leander to sail back and forth, jerking at the mooring, sometimes agressively.  The groaning of the line helped elevate the stress, but also our alertness.  We checked the lines again.  At 9:00 p.m., Sima and Alexander were able to fall asleep, and I dropped off a little while later, using a book to help take my mind off of the noises out and about.

But it was probably a troubled sleep.

“PAUL!!!! PAUL!!!!!! WAKE UP!!!! THE BOAT!!!!  WE’RE LOOSE!!!!!!!!”

I shot out of bed.  It was 1:00 a.m.

“WHAT?!!  What’s happened?”

I tried to blink the sleep out of my eyes, tried to see.  But I couldn’t make sense of the world right away.  Just what was Sima saying? What had happened? Wasn’t everything OK?  Couldn’t I go back to sleep?

“Turn on the engine!!  We’ve moved!!  We’re loose!!”

It wasn’t a dream.  Drat.

I went on deck.   I still couldn’t really see.  I tried to clear the cobwebs.  The wind howled.  My eyes squinted and blinked some more.

I started the engine. Sima turned on the instruments.  I kept trying to make sense of the world, but still couldn’t really do it.

It finally registered that we were floating loose.  We had drifted to the side of the bay, the other side from where Jope had been.  I looked at our depth, and saw seven feet.  That’s not much.

I put Leander into reverse.  Are we moving? Did I put it in gear?  I did.  Were we aground?  Even though the depth read seven feet, maybe the rudder or the bow was in sand?  On a rock?

As the cobwebs cleared, I realized that the reason that I couldn’t see much was because it was pitch black.  But I could see that we were moving.  And I could to some extent orient myself with the lights on land, but the darkness and my fogginess combined to confuse me as to where I was, how I was moving, and where I was going.  I turned on the chartplotter, and now its screen blinded me.  I pushed buttons to dim the screen, but a process that usually takes a couple of presses took me about ten.  I kept on looking up from the screen to try to see what was happening, but with the bright monitor now inches from my face, saw little.

Finally the screen was dimmed.  Now I worried about where we were moving.  My first concern was the land from which I’d backed away.  Were there rocks nearby?  I maneuvered Leander to the deeper part of the bay, and watched the depth under the keel grow.  That was good.  Now we had to worry about other boats in the harbor, and the several other mooring buoys.  We couldn’t see much of anything on the water.

Can you see?

Sima took out our enormous spotlight, and illuminated our immediate surroundings.

I headed out of the harbor, slowly, to catch our collective breaths, get some room, and to make a plan.

Sima took the wheel, and I went forward to see what had happened.  The mooring line to which we had tied was thick and beefy, but it had chafed completely through at the bottom, where it had attached to the cement block underwater. It should have been chafe protected.    We cleaned up the jumble of lines at the bow to ready ourselves to take a new mooring.

As we headed out of the harbor, downwind, the seas began to pick up considerably, and we turned back in.  As we nosed Leander back into the wind, we felt its full force.  It was a gusty wind, and would abate for a moment, and then blow again like the dickens.

We discussed whether we should drop the anchor or take another mooring.  We decided on a mooring.  There were eight other boats that seemed secure.  (The Dutch boat had slipped because his line had come undone, rather than the mooring line.)  And it would be a challenge to find the space to swing at anchor when everyone else was moored.

As we headed back in, Sima shone the spotlight on the obstacles, and we dodged the other boats and the outer moorings.  Alexander helped immensely by calmly observing his surroundings, seemingly inured to the stressful overtones in his parents’ voices.  We picked a mooring close to shore, and headed for it.

We’ve become pretty adept at picking up moorings, and I can’t remember the last time that we didn’t grab it on the first pass.   But tonight was more difficult.

Sima got the mooring briefly in her hands on the first pass, but she couldn’t keep hold of it.  Nor could we get it on the second, third, or fourth passes.  The wind was really blowing hard.  It was pitch black.  The feeder line on the mooring was string-thin, and very difficult to grab.  And young Alexander was also involved.  Sima had earlier gone back down below, dressed him in warm clothes and his winter hat, and put him into a pouch and on her back.  I drove the boat, getting us as close as possible to the mooring, and Sima’s job was to grab it with the boat hook and pull the line aboard.  With Alexander hanging onto her neck, it was a challenge for Sima to bend down around the bow rail and get hold of the mooring.  One is somewhat less dexterous with twenty curious pounds on your back, trying to help but really just getting in the way.  In addition to moving the boat about, the wind also made communication between the two of us difficult, and its force gave Sima only seconds to grab the mooring before the boat was pushed away .  And I couldn’t see any of this very well from back in the cockpit.

On the third pass, Sima hooked the buoy with the boat hook, but the wind began to blow us off before she could pull it on.  I ran up to help, and grabbed the boat hook.  But the wind was too strong, and we couldn’t hold the line with the boat hook.  The line, however, had no problem holding the boat hook, and pulled it from my hands, just after it bent in two.  Something to add to the “To Purchase” list, I noted as it bobbed away.

We have a spare boat hook, but it is only half as long.  Sima’s job, which had been difficult a moment before, now became just about impossible.

On the fifth pass, the wind abated a little bit.  Leander nosed up close to the buoy, and Sima was able to get it close.  I took the boat out of gear, sprinted forward, and was able to bend down and scoop the feeder line as it began to drift away.  I pulled it aboard, got hold of the thicker mooring line, hauled for all I was worth, and we were able to secure the line to a cleat.

Tied to the new mooring, at last.

Ten minutes later, we were properly re-tied to the mooring.

The end of our mooring!

Back down below, Sima and I hugged – partly to give congratulations for good teamwork and a job well done, and partly in relief.  That wasn’t much fun.

How had Sima woken up? Paul had heard nothing!  Sima said that she’d heard a thud and then a bang at the back of the boat.  Even when she sleeps, her ears are closely tuned to hear anything exceptional from Alexander.  This bump in the night must have been on the same frequency.

Our adrenaline was still pumping.  Alexander’s too!  He and Sima crawled back into bed, but Alexander wanted nothing to do with it, crawling to and fro, laughing and giggling, and generally kicking up a ruckus.  It’ll take him a while to relax.  Us too. So at 3:00 a.m., I write this note, while Sima tries to ease Alexander back to la la land.

Alexander was as wired as we were, and had a tough time getting back to sleep. Here, he pops up like a whack-a-mole, as Sima repeatedly tries to pull him down to nurse.

It is early October, and we’re still sailing.  In the last several weeks, we’ve moved back and forth between Turkey and Greece. For the last three days, we’ve been on the island of Nisyros.

Nisyros is in the Aegean, just south of Kos, and not too far from the Turkish coast.

Nisyros was somewhat of a surprise destination.  We were supposed to go to Kos, and we had set sail for there.  But we made good time.  Sima kept Alexander company while Paul read some more about Kos and the surrounding islands.  Kos didn’t sound that appealing, being crowded and touristy.  But a little bit further down the road was Nisyros.  Paul read that Nisyros is a dormant volcano with a supposedly picturesque crater at its center.  “Where are we going,” asked Sima, peering out to see that we were bypassing Kos.  “Nisyros,” said Paul.  “Isn’t that the volcano?” asked Sima.  “Yup,” replied Paul.  “Yippeee!” cried Sima.

We Med-moored to a wall along the boardwalk in Pali, a small village on the island’s north coast. Soon after we were tied up, we walked down the waterfront to a car and moped rental shop called the “Eagle’s Nest.” Mike, the proprietor, has a good reputation.  He had lived in NYC for thirty years, before returning home to Nisyros several years ago. He spoke flawless English (well, as much as New Yorker can do so).

We talked to Mike about renting a car. The island was not terribly big, but there were four separate villages, a ton of monasteries, and some not so small mountains in between (topping out at 2,200 feet).   Mike was congenial and informative.  He spent a half hour with us and a map of the island, telling us what we should see.  We left, and told him that we’d probably come back for a car the next morning.

The next morning, however, we still hadn’t made up our minds about the car.  Paul wanted to hike.  Sima was somewhat less inclined to do so.  We didn’t really know the trails.  It would most likely be very hot. We would have to carry Alexander the whole way, in addition to our water and supplies.  On the other hand, we have loved the hikes that we’ve gone on, and tend to be able to see so much more along back roads and trails than we see flying about in a car.  And Alexander tends to like them.  OK, we finally decided.  We’ll hike.

We went back and saw Mike on the way out of town, and gave him a small tip, plus two banana muffins that Sima had baked.  He laughed and graciously accepted, and then gave us some more guidance about the island.

So, at about 10:30, off we went.

Mike had sent us out of town along a short cut, some stairs that led straight up a steep incline, and avoided the snaky main road.  We started climbing, and within minutes were both sucking wind.  Uh oh, Paul said to Sima.  What have we gotten ourselves into?

We got to the main road, and then walked about two kilometers to where, supposedly, there was a path that branched off the main road and lead up to a monastery.  We stopped at a gas station to ask for directions.  The woman at the counter stepped outside, and pointed us towards the next coastal town, but said that the monastery was “very, very far.”  No, we protested, we’re not going along the road.  There is supposed to be a path somewhere right around here, we said, gesturing with our hands.  Another fellow from the garage joined in, apparently understanding that we wanted the path, not the road.  “No, no, no!” said the woman. “They have a baby!  They can’t take that path!”  We’ll be just fine, we said. Where is it?  She walked to the road side, and pointed to a gap in a fence 100 yards down the road. “It’s there, “she said.  “But the baby! You shouldn’t go!”

So off we went!

The path was fine. It was steep and twisty, and led over and through a series of terraces up the hillside.  We sometimes lost its thread, and would find our own way up through the terraces. After about two hours of it, and having climbed over a couple of fences and walked along the border of a farm, we happened upon the monastery, about where we thought it should be according to the map.   We took the camera out of the backpack, and began a day of picture taking.

Nisyros from sea. We anchored in the town seen as white buildings on the lower right.

Paul and Alexander at rest on the roof of Evagelistra Monestary. The building fronted a small plaza, in the middle of which was a fresh water well.

Alexander was intrigued by the bell.

The scenery on the climb was wonderful. Here, you can see the island of Kos furthest left, and the Turkish coast in the distance. The island direct center, with the bleached white exposure, is Gyali, and is being mined for pumice. In the foreground, note all of the terraces on Nisyros. They were all over the island, and represented an enormous amount of work. The terraces are old, and probably ancient, and were no doubt built over many generations. But when were they built? What crops were grown? When were they abandoned? And why? We asked some of the locals, and found no reliable answers. We know that they were probably abandoned no more than a generation or so ago. We have read that it takes only 20-60 years after abandonment for the terraces to become overgrown with scrub and brush. Certainly, that hasn't yet happened here.

Sima and Alexander take a feeding break higher in the mountains, at another monastery, this one called Dlavatla. We've seen it written that some of these ruins are "neolithic", but the arches on these buildings are a giveaway that they are post-Roman. But maybe some parts are older.

There were villages and dwellings along the way. The arch above this house seems to say "NI 193," but maybe we're misreading the Greek. And maybe there is one more number after the "3?"

We didn't see anyone anywhere in this part of the mountains, and yet the church was in remarkably good condition and, obviously, still used.

A simple altar.

The houses look ancient, but from their condition one suspects that they were lived in only a generation or so ago.

Four and a half hours of hiking brought us to the center of the island and its volcanic crater. With the spewing gases, pungent smell of sulfur, and pools of boiling water, you wouldn't think that the volcano has been dormant for thousands of years. To provide a sense of scale, you could probably fit three or four professional sports stadiums in the crater.

Before the islanders went to work on building terraces, the landscape would have looked like what you see in the distance. Just imagine what they would have looked like in use, green with leafy vegetables or flush with olive trees.

Leaving the volcano, we started up one of the main roads, which ran behind the volcano around to the south side of the island. We had, at this point, six or so hours into the day, hiked up a mountain and down its back side. Our legs were starting to feel it. Now we are going back up again, this time headed to the village of Nikia.

Gaining elevation from the volcano.

From the paved road, we were trying to find a path up the mountain. Found it! Looking like something out of a fairy tale, it snaked up the hillside toward Nikia, a small village that we wanted to visit. But we couldn't figure out how it could possibly reach all the way up to the village, perched precariously high and seemingly separated from us by a couple of shear cliffs.

Looking down a well near the side of the path.

The road became even more magical as we hiked. It was a stone path! Oh the work it must have taken to build it!

Up we climbed through the terraces, gaining height once again.

We came to one corner, at the top of an incline, and wondered what would lay around the bend. We knew we had to get across the ledges, but wondered how the road was going to do it. Sima moves forward to see.

Ahh, this is how it goes! They built the road out from the side of the ledge! It was such a beautiful climb.

Wild goats were everywhere. We were warned not to hike on Wednesdays, Saturdays, or Sundays, "because those are hunting days." The two fellows are actually about a mile away from the ledge from which we took this picture.

Many of the houses had these circular structures on their roofs or in their yards, which were used for threshing grain.

All the dwellings and farms were abandoned. It must have been even more beautiful when the farms were working.

Yay -- we finally reached Nikia! It was beautiful.

The village playground.

Paul and Alexander go for a walk in the town square.

Alexander makes friends everywhere. Here, a new friend from Nikia.

A view of the volcano's crater from Nikia. In the foreground, the road on which we hiked before turning on to the path up into the hills.. Can you see the precipitous drop down to the crater, and how we wondered how we'd be able to climb to the town, which seemed to be straight up above us?

On one of the few flat places in town, the villagers built their basketball court.

This black cat has found a nice place in the fading sunlight to get some warmth. The sun WAS fading, and, after seven hours of hiking, we found ourselves seven miles from the boat through the hills. Should we hike back, or call a taxi? Paul was sure that Sima would vote for the latter, but she wanted to walk!

So off we set on the road back to Pali. Here, Sima works to keep Alexander entertained, who is being carried, forward facing, by Paul.

Looking back at Nikia, a blaze of white in the fading sun.

Due south, the island of Tilos.

What would a Greek island be without a church or two set on the mountain tops? Here, Agios Theologos. Just try to pronounce that name without sounding Greek!

Sima pushes on.

The sun sets behind one of the island's peaks. (And Paul said, after he snapped the photo, "Darn those electric cables!")

No more daylight! But we have a flashlight, a half moon, and a good wide road. On we go.

Alexander asleep on Sima's feet.

Done! Just the last kilometer down hill to our berth at Pali!

One day in early July, after we’d finished some back-breaking projects that we hadn’t been anticipating, and as we prepared to get back to sea, Sima noticed that the refrigerator wasn’t very cold.  In fact, it was at about room temperature.

We investigated.

We’d been low on refrigerant before, and it was simply a matter of attaching the necessary gauges and a refill can to bring things back to normal.  This time, however, we found that system was drawing a vacuum.  Our manual says that when we see this, we’re to “call the manufacturer.” Uh oh.

So we did some more reading and investigating over the next two days, and figured out that we must have a leak somewhere.   But we didn’t know where, nor whether it could be fixed.

On day three, we had a vendor come by and re-pressurize the system, and the leak made its presence known with a large hissing sound.  It was in the line connecting the condenser to the evaporator. The vendor told us we couldn’t repair the line or the evaporator to which it was connected, and offered to custom build a new holding plate for us for about 650 Euros. It took us another day or so to figure out that this solution wouldn’t work.

The next day, we met some folks at the dock swore that it was easy to repair a leak in a refrigerant line, with the right welding tools and careful work.  Although this was counter to all that we’d read, they provided the name of a vendor, and so we arranged for him to come by.

He came by the next day.  He conceded that he wouldn’t be using welding tools, but rather  epoxy glue.  Even if I wanted to pay someone else to do an epoxy job, epoxy has no chance whatsoever of sealing a high-pressure aluminum refrigerant line.

Another couple of days had passed, and we had now come to the grim conclusion that we’d have to replace the entire refrigeration system.  We also came to realize that if we would be permanently installing new components, we’d also need to address some long-standing problems with the physical structure of the refrigeration box itself.

We have no “before” picture of the inside of the fridge, but trust us — it was a mess.  It had always been much too big, and we had cut down on some of the space by cutting up Styrofoam boxes (that we’d picked up at a fish market in Sri Lanka) and using them to raise the floor and decrease the width. The unit had originally been designed as a literal ice box, which meant that it had an extra, foot-deep space at the bottom, covered by a wooden grate, into which one was supposed to stock ice.  When it was changed into a real refrigerator, however, that dead space at the bottom, covered by a teak grate, did nothing but increase size without offering any storage space.

It was colossally difficult to pull the heat from such a huge space, and our refrigeration system has long been a huge draw on the batteries.  You might be able to imagine all the jig-saw-shaped pieces of Styrofoam that had to be propped into just the right places to make this work. All the Styrofoam looked ugly, was impossible to clean, and didn’t really do the trick making a smaller box, because it wasn’t sealed and the cold air could flow through the various cracks in our packing job.

(To add insult to injury, the Styrofoam floor had hidden the fact that an inch of water had collected along the real floor.  The evaporator line sat in this water.  Electrolysis set in, and a the leak had developed there.)

Another problem was that the two top-loading doors did not fit properly, and there was a gap between them through which the cold air escaped.

We put our thinking caps on.  The first job was to find the fridge we needed, no easy task in Turkey.  Turkish chandlers are terrible for this sort of thing.  No one carries stock, and we learned it would take upwards of five weeks to get the parts shipped in.  And we knew from past experience with Turkish customs that when the parts finally do arrive, you get held up again until you pay a hefty customs fee.

We didn’t have the time or patience for that.  Eventually, we found a vendor in Greece, “Alex Marine,” with a system that would work.  George, our contact there, said he could have them waiting for us in Rhodes in just two days.  As Rhodes was a short sail away, this was a good result.

We made plans to check out of the country and head to Rhodes!

As if a vendor would actually do what he promised!  After paying for two-day delivery, we received our refrigerator TWO WEEKS later.

We went to work on the reconstruction of the box while we waited, and installed the fridge when it finally came.

Here’s what we did:

The start. The white snakey looking thing rising up above the locker in the background is the offending line in which the leak developed.

Here is the fridge interior with a piece of the old Styrofoam still floating about. Envision a brick wall made with this stuff, although the pieces were in general larger, and you have a sense of the disorderly nature of our previous setup. The teak grating sat upon the lip that runs along the wall to the left and right, and the small black dot in the floor is a drain, useful for when this was an actual ice box. I'm going to fill the space up to the lip with layers of extruded Polystyrene cut to fit the space, covered with a new stainless steel floor. Note the metal bracket and spring support at the top left, used to prop the door to open. In addition to being yet another source through which cold air would escape, it is a terrible practice to prop the fridge doors open for any length of time. These will be removed.

The old compressor/condenser just after being pulled out of the locker to the lower left. The copper snake is the continuation of the refrigerant line. Although the compressor still worked, it had to be replaced because it had been filled with R12 refrigerant, which has been banned in most countries. We could find R12 in Turkey, but we are replacing the evaporator, and most of them come pre-charged with the newer refrigerants (R134A, for example). You can't mix the different types of lubricating oils found in the old and new refrigerants. Also, with the hole in the refrigerant line, there was a good chance that moisture had made its way into the compressor, which would freeze and plug the evaporator.

Cutting the Polystyrene. The boat got messy, and would only get worse, as the Polystyrene cutting would be followed by work with gooey epoxy, glass mat, epoxy filler, spray foam, epoxy paint, and 5200. Boy, this project was a handful.

After the Polystyrene was packed in, there was still a small, uneven gap between the top layer and the ledge where the new stainless steel floor would sit. I used spray foam as needed to fill the remaining, uneven gap, sanding down these uneven globs to a flat surface. Can you tell that spray foam is messy to work with in open spaces?

A local metal worker fabricates the new stainless steel floor, putting the finishing touches on a new drain. But we later re-read Don Casey's book chapter on the subject, and he convinced us that drains are a bad idea as they pull cold from the fridge. It would be sealed over.

"Ha ha ha, Dad's still working on the fridge! Ha ha ha, ho ho hodie harr giggle. Snort!"

The new Isotherm refrigeration unit finally arrived! The evaporator came as big flat panel, and needed to be bent into a rectangular shape to fit the freezer space. This was made all the more challenging by the fact that the evaporator had certain "no bend" zones and because the corners would be rounded rather than square, so that one needed to calculate where the bend would start and finish along the panel. It took a long time to figure out if and how the panel could be made to fit. But we figured it out. Here, I'm putting in the first bend.

The stainless steel floor in place. The edges were first filled with epoxy filler, and then sealed with 5200. Getting this completed felt like a major milestone. Note, at the top left, that the brackets and door braces have been removed. And the drain that we had thought to include has been filled with 5200 (the white dot in the middle of the floor).

The parts to the new wall. To provide strength, the extruded foam has been covered with a priming layer of epoxy resin, then glass mat, and then four more layers of epoxy. The glass mat can be seen protruding, fuzzy-like, from the edges of the blocks. The long skinny piece on the right will be a new bar that rests between the two doors, allowing them to seal more tightly. And the piece on which it rests will be the wall that separates the freezer from the fridge.

The new walls have been sanded smooth and put in place. A hole was left in the top so that the empty space behind the wall could be filled with spray foam insulation, the first layer of which is protruding from the bottom. The dividing wall is also in place, separating the freezer, to the left, from the fridge, at right.

The empty space behind the wall has now been filled with insulating foam, and the hole atop the wall sealed. The wall's yellowish tint comes from the epoxy filler, which has been used to smooth the joined edges and also the uneven surface created by glass mat. This will now be sanded smooth.

The finished bottom and new wall. A coat of white epoxy paint has been applied to the new wall. The noodly looking things on the far wall consist of foam that has oozed out of some no-longer-used screw holes. They'll be shaved smooth and then sealed with epoxy.

Here, MarineTex has been used to cover the drain. This would later be sanded smooth.

Isotherm only supplied four plastic spacers, used to keep the evaporator away from the wall, and the evaporator plate had pre-drilled holes in only two places -- at the ends -- where the spacers could be attached. We'd bent the evaporator into a square, and so four spacers weren't enough. So I made my own spacers from some elecrical conduit plugs, and used 5200 to stick them to the walls. I also made some small plastic wedges (cut from a neoprene washer) to keep the evaporator from resting on the floor, and they can be seen in the corners.

The separating wall in place, with holes now cut in the middle, sealed with epoxy and epoxy paint. This will be a "spillover" fridge. That is to say, all the cooling takes place in the freezer section, and cold then "spills over" through the holes cut in the divider. The holes can be opened and closed with plugs to get an appropriate balance. The covered plug for the drain can be seen as a gray circle at the bottom of this picture, and it has cleaned up nicely. (We would eventually install a small fan in one of the holes, controlled by yet another thermostat, to create better air flow in the fridge and decrease frosting in the freezer.)

The separating wall is here topped with the new divider, which will nestle up between the two otherwise poorly designed top-opening doors. There was a big gap in the protective insulation between the two doors, which this divider will fill.

With the construction of the box now mostly completed, I could now turn to the installation of the compressor. Here, electrical and refrigerant lines are led through a galley storage locker.

Isotherm supplied a mounting bracket for the condenser that had a side wall. If mounting on the floor, the side wall served no purpose other than to diminish air flow. Here I take a Dremel Tool to it, cutting away the unneeded side.

Preparing the installation of the new Isotherm compressor.

Wiring and refrigerant line exit the fridge through a new hole drilled for that purpose.

Re-wiring the exhaust fan, left, and thermostat, right. The thermostat turns the fan on when the compressor compartment grows too hot, and the fan draws air into an adjoining compartment.

Final wiring and plumbing of the compressor. The bus bar at the top was added to deal with the proliferation of junctions.

The holes through which the wiring and refrigerant lines ran in the fridge were sealed with insulating foam.

Applying new gasket. See the gap between in the doors above that I am talking about? They will now close around the divider. How could the person who did the original design not have addressed that?

The old teak grating was in pretty sorry looking condition. It could be put to good use, however, at the bottom of the freezer.

The re-sized grate inserted in the freezer, after cutting, cleaning, sanding, and oiling.

The old baskets were too big for the newly sized fridge, and so I needed to cut them down and then sand them smooth.

The baskets cleaned up and inserted in the fridge.

Done!! Hallelujah!! Frozen things!!

Refrigerated things! Including a bottle of cold bubbly to celebrate the fact that we have the ability to make cold bubbly!

Ahh -- a sweating glass of ice cold tea!

Game On

This is a story about hockey.

We had been following the Bruins closely from over here, seven time zones removed from Boston and ten time zones from the site of game seven.  This is not exactly hockey territory.

Keeping abreast of the NHL from here takes more effort than turning on the TV.  On game days, or, rather, on the morning following games, we learn results from the sports websites, with only a quick glimpse if the B’s have lost, but a full hour reading stories from  Boston and Vancouver in the event of a win. (Yes, “we.”  Sima followed the series as closely as I did, although admittedly she lost no sleep.)

As the series went to games four, five, and six, I had been getting up at four or five a.m. to “watch” the last period on one of the sports websites.

I say “watch” because I was following the game by reading “live” text commentary, rather than watching video or listening to radio.   Following a game in this fashion is a little limiting and very annoying, as the typical postings combine live-game commentary with tweets from the unwashed masses, so you get something like “Goaaaalllllllll!” followed by “I can’t believe he let that one in,” and then “this series is sooo over.” After what then seems like an eternity, a couple of minutes will pass before you are able to learn important details, like which team scored.

As the series crept toward a seventh meeting, we started to think about finding a way to watch the game.

We had been trying to locate an on-line radio station or a website that streams the games in Turkey, but weren’t having much luck.  Many of the available pay-per-view sites are blocked in Turkey.  We did find that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation allows the games to be streamed for free, but, alas, one must be in Canada to take advantage of that offer.  Maybe you have to be Canadian, to boot.  I dunno.

We came across this exchange on one Internet forum while during our research:

Query:  “Hey, does anyone know where I can stream NHL games for free?”

Answer (chosen as most useful by others in the forum):  “In hockey heaven.”’

That option not being readily accessible, we began to look for others.  The NHL doesn’t have many fans here, and it didn’t help that the game would start at 3 a.m. locally.  Sima, began to make telephone calls.   She learned that the game would be on Fox Sports Europe and, further, that Fox Sports Europe is carried by one of Turkey’s largest cable companies, Digiturk.  This was a good start.

But from there the road got a little bit bumpy.  Sima called a handful of sports bars.  They’d be closed.  She found one that would be open, but, alas, it would be disco-like loud with music by 3 a.m. and, even if young Alexander could have dealt with that, it was going to close at about the time the third period would start.

(A brief digression, as this reminds me of a similar story that played out some 35 years ago.

My Dad was, and is, an avid Celtics fan.  My mom tells the story of the 1964 finals, when Dad, unable to get off of work, sent her into Boston to stand in line to buy tickets for a game, one-year old Paul strapped to her back.

I don’t remember that event, but I do remember that for game five of the 1976 NBA finals, I was in Ithaca, New York with my dad and other family members to attend sister Joanne’s graduation.

It was the 4^th of June, and game 5, between the Celtics and the Phoenix Suns, was to be played that night in Boston.

There was no TV in the dorm room where we stayed.  So we started walking into town.  There were probably some bars that would be showing the game, but my age, 13, would keep that from being a viable option.  As we walked down the street, we found an appliance store selling TVs.  We walked in and Dad was allowed to switch the channel to the game.  Or maybe it was already on.  In any event, we stood in the aisle and watched.

At around half time or so, however, the small shop began to close.  But the TV would be left on for us, and we could see it through the window!  So we stepped out into the increasingly darkening street, and on we watched!

We might have been OK had the game ended in regulation.  But it didn’t and, in what is by many considered to be the greatest playoff game in NBA history, play stretched into triple overtime.

At some point, maybe it was midnight, the TV snapped off.  It was on a timer! Dad and I found ourselves staring at our reflections in the window, and nothing much else.

Dad quickly went to work, and upon finding a nearby bar, headed towards it.  It was our only option now.

Dad approached the bouncer, and peering over his shoulder at the game being displayed on a TV at the bar, explained that he was from Boston.  And this was the finals.  He would be at the game, for goodness sakes, if it weren’t for this silly graduation.  Could he and his young son come in?  Dad would watch him as closely as the game.

Sure, OK.

So there we sat at the bar, pop with a beer, which he nursed because he doesn’t like beer so much, and me with a coke, which I nursed because dad told me to, as finishing it would mean that he’d have to buy me another.

Boston won in the third OT, and although I remember none of the details of the Greatest NBA Game Ever, I do remember just about every part of being with my dad that night.  It was with this memory in mind that I looked forward to finding some place to watch the Bruins with Sima and Alexander.)

Sima began to call hotels.  If we could get a room with TV that carried Digiturk, that would work just fine, especially for young Alexander.   But many of the hotels did not have TVs in their rooms.  Others had TVs, but did not carry Digiturk.  Sima was growing increasingly tired of the exercise, and we were about to pack it in.

Then she called a place called the Eden Garden Hotel. (Could this be hockey heaven?!)  They did not have TVs in the rooms, but they had a giant screen by the pool.  Does it carry Digiturk?  Sure it does.  Are you sure?!  “I’m 100% sure!”  The proprietor said that he would be willing to set us up by the pool late at night.  We were a go!

It was late on game day, and we called, texted, and emailed Seth and Jamie, our good friends from a boat called Slapdash.  They are from Vancouver, and were as eager to see the game as we were.  We didn’t hear back from them, and so figured that we’d be watching the game by ourselves.

We headed out for the game, which required that we dinghy in from our anchorage to the local marina, take a bus to central Marmaris, and from there catch another bus to the other side of town.

En route, we called Seth and Jamie again.  They would be coming!

We all checked into our rooms and, at about 10 p.m., went to sleep.

We awoke to alarms at 2:50 a.m., and trudged out to the pool.  Some golf finished up on the screen, and then, in what almost seemed like magic, the start of game seven began in full living color.

We were stretched out on deck chairs and, because it was cool that night, wrapped tightly in blankets.  But that’s the way it should be for hockey.

Everybody's happy - it must be early in the game

It was good to watch it with Vancouver fans, and knowledgeable ones at that.  (Seth is Canadian and a hockey player and a former lumberjack and brought a keg of beer to the 3 a.m. game.  You can’t get much more authentic than that!)  But it was also difficult at times, because each of us had to keep our emotions in check.  Sima and I couldn’t bounce about when the B’s scored, and Seth permitted himself only a single explicative, under his breath and through gritted teeth, when Boston’s third goal wandered in.

Alexander cooperated bravely, raptly watching the first couple of periods, then becoming fidgety in the third, which allowed me to pace about the pool, using the ruse of carrying him to and fro to hide my need to walk off the adrenaline.  Maybe he felt the same.

With five minutes to go, we were still holding our collective breaths, but, at 3-0, the writing did seem to be on the wall, and the open-netter with time dwindling sealed it.

Daybreak brought the game’s end and an unhappy Seth, none too pleased that Vancouver’s 40-year wait for the cup would continue.

The game ended as the sky began to lighten and the air to warm.  We lingered, watching the post-game ceremonies. Seth and Jamie were gracious in defeat, and we tried to be so in victory.

It was nice to win. We reflected, however, that watching the game in hockey heaven with such good friends was about as good as it gets, and would have made a less fortunate result easier to take.

Making our ocean-going sailing vessel “baby proof” is something new for us, and we look at our living space with new questions these days:  Can that hollow be converted into some type of a playpen where baby can be safely tucked away?  We’ve got little that fills that bill.  Or, with more trepidation, can anything bad come of that sharp edge, or drop-off, or spinning part?  That list has been easier to complete!

But, as Ali ably demonstrates in this video, we’re making progress.  He likes his “Jumperoo.”  We’ve had to turn a deaf ear to the comments from some of the elders here (“Stop that!  You’ll make him bow-legged!”), but it helps that he seems to enjoy it so much, creating a racket with the squeaky spring and his own shrieks, that deaf ears come easily.

Making Friends

Where to start?!

We’re in Marmaris Turkey, “we” being the good ship Leander, papa bear Paul, mama bear Sima, and young Alexander.

Our most recent blog posting was – gulp – last year!  So much has happened, and there is so much to write about, that the thought of catching up is somewhat overwhelming.

Of course, we can’t tell seven months of stories in one posting.  Do we start with Alexander and our new life with him?  All the people we’ve met — the good, the bad, and the otherwise?  Do we tell of all the boat work? The things we’ve seen?

Maybe these stories will never be told.  And if we attempted such an undertaking now, one would surely be hard pressed to slog through it.

So here, instead, following Alexander’s example, we take a baby step and share a little bit about our current status.  (Alexander has not, at six months, actually taken any baby steps, but you get the picture.)

We write on a slow and sunny Sunday afternoon.  Just now, Alexander and Sima lie aft, Alexander suckling through lunch, fading in and out of sleep.  When it appears he has truly nodded off, Sima rises to leave him, only to have his sleepy hand tighten around a strap of her clothing, pulling her back.  Sima sighs, returns to her book, and Alexander continues to nibble in a semi-conscious half sleep.

Leander at anchor in Fethiye

The boat has been back in the water for about a month.  It was on the hard for the duration of the winter, and the amount of work with which we were faced and got done was mind-numbing, a phrase which we don’t use loosely.  As an exercise in catharsis, we’ll post a separate note about all of that.

Leander at anchor in 22 Fathom Bay

We began sailing again just over two weeks ago, on May 20, and have done three short day sails along the coast, leaving Fethiye and stopping first at 22 Fathom Bay, then at Ekincik, and now at Marmaris.  We’ve stopped here (perhaps stalled is a better word) to deal with three lingering must-be-addressed boat problems.

One was knocked down easily – the new batteries weren’t charging properly, and after a morning of tests, we isolated the problem at the high-output alternator.  We removed it, took it to a shop, and after some back and forth with the electrician, saw that the internal wiring for the diodes had frayed and broken.  An inexpensive fix, a return to service, and now it’s cranking out amps at a better clip than it ever did.

The second problem was our chartplotters, which have been misbehaving ever since we left the U.S.  This could be the subject of a three page essay itself, and we came to Marmaris to meet (confront?) the local authorized technician who previously had vowed that he’d done fixed them.  He done hadn’t, but has now told us he’s contacted the manufacturer to have new units sent to us.  We’ll see.

The third problem is the rigging.  New as of 2007, it should be in the prime of its life.  We go aloft regularly to inspect it, and this time we found not one, not two, not three, but FOUR of our standing rigging cables had broken wires where the cable enters the swaged terminal.  That’s bad news.  This, too, could be the subject of a long and sad tale, but we’ll spare you, except to say that we’ll be here for a couple of extra days to get our standing rigging replaced.

These are hopefully just temporary setbacks, and we’ll get back to having fun.  We had started doing just that, a couple of weeks after the boat splashed back into the harbor.

(Sima has finally come from the back room, “Jeepers he took a long time!”  But think –if you could get the royal treatment that he does at nap time, wouldn’t you learn how to pull mom back down into bed?  This Alexander is a clever one.)

Looking back over Fethiye from the road toward Kayakoy

Before leaving Fethiye, we took a long hike to “Kayakoy,” ( “Rock Village”), an abandoned Greek settlement that lies about five miles from Fethiye, over rolling hills and through piney woods.

Alexander and Paul hiking to Kayakoy

Alexander was a champ! He likes to hike, and alternates between sleeping and gazing about at the passing scenery.  As long as he is moving, he is happy as a clam.

Ali stops for a trail-side snack

The Lycian Way

The path, part of the ancient Lycian Way, started out somewhat nondescriptly, but then became pretty cool.  The dirt path morphed into a cobbled road, about a third of the size of a traditional street, supported as it went along ledges by stone embankments.  We saw some literature that referred to the road as “medieval,” but it seems more likely to be Roman, because it has all the earmarks of their roadwork, and because from what we’ve read the folks that were here from the 10^th to 16^th centuries wouldn’t have been up for building roads like that.

The abandoned village of Kayakoy

Kayakoy itself was haunting.  The settlement is hundreds, maybe thousands, of years old, and occupied through to the last century.  When the Greeks and Turks exchanged populations in the 1920s, the entire site was evacuated.  Some exchanged Turks came to replace them, didn’t like it, and the place has been crumbling ever since.  The Turks called it “Kayakoy” because the homes, streets, shops, walls, and churches are built entirely of stone.

We got a ride back to Fethiye on a dolmus (a Turkish mini-bus), shopped for a kilim in the markets, and then had a spectacular and well-earned dinner of pide (a kind of Turkish pizza) before finally going home to collapse on Leander.

Alexander's first passage

Alexander was similarly easy going during our three sails.  He fusses sometimes, but no more than usual, such as when he wants someone to play with him, or he’s hungry, or sleepy. He may be getting a little bit seasick, as one of the early stages of it is sleepiness, and he seems to be more sleepy than usual on passage.  But he is certainly not becoming visibly sick or crying endlessly, something we had feared.

Leander at anchor in Ekincik as viewed from the mountain trail on the way to Kaunos

We did a second hike with him earlier this week, a longer and more arduous trip from our anchorage in Ekincik, again over pine-covered hills, to the ruins of ancient Kaunos.  These hills were much steeper, and the path, at times, extremely hard to follow.  We lost its trace on several occasions, especially when a newer dirt road intersected with or ran alongside our very old trail.  Sima, however, proved to be a pathfinder extraordinaire, repeatedly finding trail markers hidden deep in the woods, across a graveyard, or further along the road.  Her skills kept us going in the right direction, and we eventually passed through the village of Candir and then closed on Kaunos.

Sima in the theater in Kaunos

Kaunos was impressive.  The ruins are being excavated slowly, as in over many years, with the vast majority of the site still engulfed by tall grass, scrubby trees, and thorny bushes, through which sheep, goats, and the occasional cow wander.

We arrived, hot, sweaty and utterly exhausted from the hike, via a back entrance and away from the part of the site that had been cleaned up.  At first, on a distant hill a half mile distant, we saw another group wandering the ruins.  But they soon abandoned the place, and it was once again left to the wandering vegetation and livestock.  And to us.

We tramped down a steep embankment along a narrow path into the ruins, and met a local coming the other way with a bag of seaweed he’d harvested from the briny marshes below.  “This hill is tough,” he shared, and then pushed on after opening his bag to show us his haul.

We, in turn, moved down through the underbrush.  The back entry was certainly not the way to go, and we repeatedly found ourselves pulled at by the prickly bushes, clambering over uneven rock piles while trying to keep the thorny limbs from taking junior from us.

What we saw, initially, left much to the imagination, with stones lying in undulating mounds, and thousands of pieces of crushed terra cotta scattered about as far as one could see.  This piece looked like it came from an old pot.  Maybe that was part of a roof.  Who knew?  But these fragments, and the village itself, dated to the time of Christ and before, and it was fascinating holding the pieces in your hand.

(We later were befriended by a watchman, whose job it was to patrol Kaunos’ at night.  After a heavy rain, he told us, top layers are removed and the stuff of antiquity is spit up.  He’s found copper coins dating to the Roman era, he tells us.  We had looked, but found only terra cotta, rocks, and animal droppings.)

An ancient but recently excavated road

But as we came to the part that had been well-excavated, less work was required of the imagination.  Here, a church from the sixth century.  There, a temple to Zeus from the time of the Romans, with other remnants unearthed from the Hellenic period.  Over there, a street that had been buried under several layers of town that, when uncovered, was as shiny, new, and ready for use as those we had seen from Kayakoy, abandoned only three generations before.  Except this street was in use Before Christ.

A sixth century Christian church

Blinking in the sun on the church’s stone terrace, gazing out at the now-silted harbor from atop the 5,000 seat theater, and stepping down the stone stairs towards the outdoor temple, it wasn’t hard to imagine a time when children ran about the streets, neighbors gathered to gossip, and merchants hawked their goods from colorful storefronts.  One hundred generations ago.

Eventually, we too abandoned Kaunos, and walked on toward the nearby town of Dalyan, looking for a ride home.  We found instead, at first, a family ending their day out on their terrace and, after striking up a conversation, were invited for tea and cookies.  Alexander was passed around, with smiles and giggles from his admirers and him both.  A ride was arranged, and as the sun set, we were driven home.

These were good first forays into the continuation of our journey with Alexander.  It appears that he is a good addition to the team.

Leander has been hauled out of the water, and sits in a yard in Fethiye, in the south of Turkey. She will rest there for the winter, giving us time to welcome our coming child, and, later, to do some repair and maintenance work.

The boat had been at Setur Marina in Finike, but we don’t like staying at commercial marinas. Fethiye is also easier logistically. We have set up camp for a few months in Istanbul, requiring that we fly back and forth to the boat from time to time. The local airport down south is far from the marina in Finike, but it’s a shorter hop to Fethiye. (Don’t worry – reading these blogs doesn’t require that you keep separate in your head place names like “Fethiye” and “Finike.” Paul is still learning the Turkish language, and the names sometimes swim in his head. Erzurum or Erzincan? Izmit, Izmir, or Iznik? Throw in some slight dyslexia, a fast-speaking Turk, and little bit of stress, such as, say, when trying to grab a last-minute bus from the airport, and a mild panic can set in. Did he just say he was going to Alana, Adana, Antakya, or Antalya? Amasya? Alaca?!)

In September, when we were staying in Bodrum (easy to distinguish from Batman, in the eastern part of the country . . .), we took a couple of days to drive the coast and scout out marinas. We visited the boat yard in Fethiye. Filled mostly with Turkish gullets and only a handful of fiberglass cruising sailboats, we took to it right away. We met the proprietor, Levent, and he said all the right things about providing outside workers access to the yard and seemed laid back about things in general. We asked around, heard good things, and so to Fethiye we decided to come.

The boat yard in Fethiye where Leander will sit for the winter.

But how to get the boat from Finike to Fethiye, a two day sail?! Sima, at eight months pregnant, was encouraged not to take the trip, though she longed to do so. (“What do you mean you’re going to sail the boat without me?!) Paul figured on finding another cruiser in the marina at Finike, but did not look forward to sailing with someone that he didn’t know.

Paul flew down to Finike at the end of October and began to prepare the boat.

October 29 is Turkish Independence Day, providing a good distraction from the need to move the boat. The day started early with the thump of drums and martial music rolling over the marina. Forgetting the need to find another sailor for the moment, Paul donned his running gear, packed his camera, and went out to try to find the source. Out on the streets, he ran into another cruiser, Martha, of the New Zealand flagged sailing vessel “Silver Fern.” She was looking for the source of the music too, and so they travelled together along the streets of this small coastal town in the south of Turkey.

Where was she from? The U.S.? Paul too. She was from Boston? The North Shore? She used to work in Lynn?! What a small world. A quick friendship was formed, and when Paul and Martha found the stadium where the bands were marching and the students parading, they took up seats and enjoyed the festivities together.

Turkish Independence Day: The lead drummer signals a change in cadence. She was nothing but business throughout the celebration.

Martha was returning to the U.S. in a few days. Where to find someone to help with the boat?

Enter Samet!

We met Samet Bilgen and his wife Gugi at a wedding in Bodrum, and took to them right away. Samet is himself an avid sailor, and we had talked for a long time at the wedding about boats. Gugi had given birth to their first child, Bora, about five months earlier, and so we also talked about the birthing process and caring for toddlers. We ended up changing hospitals and physicians based upon comments that she made, and agreed to stay in touch.

Gugi found out that Paul needed help moving the boat. Samet was on the phone to Paul within minutes, asking about particulars. It would be difficult, he said, because the holiday weekend was coming up, but he said that he would make some calls to see if he could make it work.

He called back a short time later. He could make it work. He arranged travel, absolutely refused help from Paul with the cost, and was at the boat three days later.

Samet pilots Leander in the early morning light.

Samet was a treat to sail with. Paul and he talked about sailing, Turkey, reading the weather, and a host of other topics. The days passed quickly and effortlessly, and they arrived safely in Fethiye Harbor two days later. In harbor, we had slow dinners where Samet displayed skills at uncovering very good Turkish food in mediocre restaurants by drawing it out of the waiter. He also, unfortunatley, forever ruined for me Turkey’s staple beer, Efes, by helping me taste the sugar that is added at the end of the brewing process. My taste buds were perhaps happier in ignorant bliss.

The view from the boat yard in Fethiye Harbor.

Fethiye is a pleasant place to be. It is nice to hear the banging of hammers and rasping of saws instead of the whine of high speed power tools and the beeping of forklifts maneuvering in reverse. Here, calmly, in the midst of the soon-to-be snow-capped mountains, Leander will rest for a few months, while her crew prepares for a new member.

We’ve posted additional pictures in the photo gallery, which can be accessed top left.