Eric went right to work as soon as he got up. He took down the rest of the mountings from the mast. The second shot is of one of the broken mountings. You can see it used to be a perfect square with 4 holes.
Eric had agonized yesterday over how to fix the problem, until he remembered that in his cache of spare parts there is a rubber hose intended for exhaust, so it could stand to get really hot. He dug out the hose and cut it into squares, then made holes for the screws. It was a total pain in the rear to get the shape and holes just right. He is becoming a pro at fabricating spare parts these days.
Eric went outside and mounted the rubber pieces to the mast. Originally, there had been three pieces of rubber sandwiched into each bracket, two thick pieces and a thin piece. Because the hose is slightly thicker and has a curve, he couldn’t get even two pieces of hose wedged into the bracket. He wound up using one piece of hose and one old bracket turned sideways, giving each side of the mounting bracket three points of contact holding it into place. Eric thinks our hose is stronger than the original rubber pieces, and that the our set up is as strong or maybe even stronger than the original set up.
Once all the screws were in place, Eric tied a halyard line that happens to be attached to the top of the mast to the fallen smokestack. Christi helped him hoist the stack up. She stood on the dinghy and lifted the stack up as far as her arms could reach, then Eric pulled it up the rest of the way using the rope. It was very windy, and we had a hard time keeping stack lined up properly. The wind was blowing it off track.
Once the stack was up, Eric tied off the rope. He climbed up to the top spreader on the mast, tenuously standing on it. If you look at the photo above, it is the bar above Eric’s head, which gives you a sense of how high up he was and how precarious his footing. With Christi standing below him, we twisted and turned the smoke stack and mountings until they all lined up properly. It was not easy. Eric fastened the screws of the top one. It was tricky balancing up there while trying to get the screws all lined up and properly tightened. Then he did the middle one, where he sat on the spreader, so at least he was more secure than standing. In theory, the last one should have been easiest since standing on a solid base, but it was hardest. We had a hard time lining up the two sets of mounting brackets. Actually, it is tricky enough off that we could not get one screw in place. We don’t think it is a big deal, though, since the real pressure on the brackets is up high. The original rubber pieces lasted three years, and we are sure our homemade fix it job will at least get us back home.
The entire time we were out there, it looked like it was going to start raining at any minute, but it never did. God was being nice to us. It would have been even harder if it was wet. Getting that stack back up was a serious effort, and we were relieved when it was completed. We were also surprised that we were done at 1430 we had expected it to take longer. Once the stack was back up, we were able to deploy the paravanes and get the dinghy down. The paravanes really help make rolly anchorages more comfortable, and it was a relief to have them down.
While we had been working on the stack, our friends on Arielle pulled into the bay and dropped anchor in front of us. We were absolutely delighted to see them again. They had left Antigua about the same time we had moved from the anchorage into the marina. In the evening we had the Arielle crew over for cocktails, then we all went out to dinner on shore. We picked one of the nicer restaurants, in the northern end of town with its own dinghy dock. Eric got fish fondue, where they bring you pieces of raw fish that you cook to your liking. It was served with a couple of sauces. He enjoyed it. We have never seen fish on a fondue menu before.
Our meals were accompanied with mixed vegetables. One of the veggies in the mix we did not recognize. It looked like pieces of honeydew, and has a texture incredibly similar to honeydew, soft but not mushy. But it was hot and tasteless, not cold and sweet. We asked the waiter and found out it is christophene. Oh. In Guadeloupe, every time we were served christophene, it was twice baked. This is the first time we have had plain christophene, and we aren’t sure whether we like it. It is kind of weird. Our meals were also accompanied with breadfruit pie. Breadfruit, as you will recall from our South Pacific posts, is a bland, tasteless fruit that is made into a wide variety of dishes. This dish tasted just like twice baked potatoes, except it was not served in skins, and was quite good. And we got accras, which are pretty much the same as the ones on Guadeloupe. The sauce it is served with was OK. In Guadeloupe, the accras sauces all varied a lot.
As we dingied back to our boats, we were struck by how amazing the stars look. Portsmouth is a small town and there is little light pollution, so the stars are almost as vivid as being in an unpopulated place. The moon is getting to be small, which helps with the vividness of the stars.
While we were on shore we found out there was a big bash going on at the same restaurant that had played the loud music last night. We didn’t enjoy the loud music until 0200, but it was tolerable. Tonight, the music reached a whole new realm. It was ungodly loud. Even with every door and window shut tightly, there was no muffling the music. And it went on until 0400. Needless to say, we didn’t get a lot of sleep.