Since Trevor has been in “skool” for almost the month of January, we only have a few weeks to collect boat parts, complete projects, and provision for the next 3 months out at sea. What was Kimi doing while he was gone and working on the boat…? Well…you guessed it…Blog posts (LOL)…. and researching the next countries we were to visit, preparing tax files, finding insurance for our boat, and passage planning. But enough about me…let’s see what Trevor’s been up to… test…again
Up first…see what we have, see what we need, and a bit of re-organization.
Remember our dinghy motor bracket come apart during our passage to Cape Town?
Ah oh…. 
Trevor had to find a tropical hard wood. He found African Mahogany. 
Back at his craft…a bit f wood working. 
Mounting brackets will be different than what we had before…. 
…Trevor oiled it to make it endure the sun better…. 
…he had to recess the top back plate so the motor would actually fit over it.
…and remember our engine heat exchanger had a pin hole…
But after taking apart and checking things our tachometer stopped working. Trevor spent 2 1/2 hours searching for the issue….guess what it was….
The culprit!!!
Our third crew member, “Lincoln” our auto pilot, has been in full workout mode for almost 2 years since he installed it in New Zealand. We are about to spend 2 months crossing the Atlantic Ocean…we can’t live without Lincoln…so it was time to get a back up pump just in case…
While he was there, we decided to permanently fix our rudder indicator which would sometimes work. However, it was as easy as just switching it out. We ended up needing a new rudder angle indicator that would “talk” to the Garmin auto pilot system….not in the budget…but time is money!
New and shinny… 
We needed a new rudder gauge since the it was 25 years old!
For both prevention and cosmetic purposes, our carpets that have done us well for almost 4 years were leaving a sticky residue on our teak/holly floor. …and looking really tattered. So Trevor found a carpet company and an upholstery shop to trim the custom cut carpets….they feel amazing!
We had a electro-polished stainless steal backslash manufactured for behind our sink in the galley. Water leaking from the faucet was deteriorating the wood so Trevor made a template before the holiday season…now time to install…with a new facet…no more leaks!
WIP…. 
Complete…it will never look this good again : )
You won’t believe the prices of lines here in Cape Town. There is a manufacturer here that sells lines/ropes for like 80% less than the US…so the last time we purchased lines/sheets/ropes was in Mexico…4 years ago. Most were fine but for the cost it made sense to get a longer life for the incredible cost savings….crazy..? Yes… did we go back 3 times..? yes!!!
We had a diver clean our hull and new zinc on the prop and shaft….
bottom cleaned, zincs checked….
…and our friends Kevin on SV Canace knew of a guy who does re-galvanization..so “Spock” got a dip and now looks like new!
Shinny….there we 5 of us who all decided to get our anchors re-galvanized. So getting them into a car and back to the boat was a team effort. 
Trevor also changed the oil in the windlass…a job we sometime forget to do…boy she needs a paint job…no time for that now.
Getting spare parts is an on-going task and when you find one you need, you generally snatch it up….and depending on the part, sometimes the cost just doesn’t matter. We found this guy Chris, who bought out Gun Boat Catamaran South African shop. Why would he do this..? Well his wife and daughters have already been around the world and now have a catamaran in the Chesapeake that they will be out-fitting to charter in the Caribbean. However, it still meant he had extra of brand new, American, items to fit out catamarans. From engines, generators, hatches, canvas, batteries, electronics, rigging all the way down to stainless steel screws, washers and the like….a F-ing gold mine! He would generally sell it for about 50% less than list price as he was just trying to get rid of stuff. We took 3 different trips to his place of business to shift through his inventory…you never you need it until you see it or touch it…. it was crazy!!!!
BUT… boy did Chris come through for us… Thursday afternoon while Trevor was doing maintenance on our Northern Lights generator, Trevor sees our exhaust elbow had a crack. OMG!!! We leave in about 4 days and there is a weekend coming up. We call Chris to see if he has a spare in his ‘plethora’ of spares…he didn’t but he called his friend who has an engineering shop to see if he could do a rush job for us. Sure enough, he could do it….Trevor got it off, Chris picked it up.Saved by the hearts of cruisers!!! Don;t hold your breathe….it wouldn’t be until Monday to get it back….we leave Tuesday morning. Looks like Trevor will be doing a VERY LAST MINUTE project…generally we don’t leave things this tight to a schedule but our visas are running out and we got to go….fingers crossed it goes well.
Among boat projects, Trevor needed a few fixes himself. Do you remember when we were in Richards Bay for a dental appointment…he had a broken crown and a filling. So dentist it was…. he also needed new glasses…so an eye doctor he went. We also went to see a travel doctor to refill a few prescriptions we had depleted during our travels…all in all we are all in good health : )
Crown all fixed… 
prescriptions filled… 
bifocals….?…ekks!
Final provision…it was 3-4 trips to the grocery store for cans, paper products, beverages, dry goods, and fresh foods….man…it’s exhausting! However, Pick N Pay in the mall does free delivery if you spend more than a certain amount of money….so we used that a few times…but mostly we just rolled a shopping cart from the store to the marina…yup you can do that and there are guys who are take the carts back to the mall….thank goodness for them! We are full to the brim…
Next Up: Clearing out of Cape Town, South Africa….with crew…?
Great post. Wishing you safe passage and No more projects (at least for awhile)
Cheers from Martinique- inspecting an Amel Maramu 83 😉