ORION: Life is good :)

All smiles again!

Yes...we are all smiles again after the completion of the installation of all seven new chainplates on our Orion :)

We are very grateful to our rigger Efrain (Fraito) Lugo who got the job done despite a personal set back...our condolences to him and his family on the passing of his father a few weeks ago...God bless you all!

Orion's interior was quite a mess for a little over six weeks, but things are slowly getting back to normal :)

Okay...new chainplates are installed and ditto goes for new lifelines :) Next on the list is the new solar panel and the new wind generator. Buying them was the easy part...now off to installing! BUT WAIT A MINUTE...WHAT ABOUT SAILING? Well my friends...after the completion of the chainplates and the lifelines we just had to get away from the dock for a while! I mean, we had not sailed for almost half a year because of bad weather and family commitments and Rick's work schedule...of course in hindsight this was a good thing, because Orion's old chainplates could have snapped at any time given the state they were in!

Ahhh...relaxation time...

Work is of course a four letter word now that my captain has retired :) Freedom here we come...So off we went for a "shake down cruise" on Orion to our beloved Coffin Island...the weather was gorgeous as was the downwind journey under full sails...we stayed for 5 days and had a ball :)

We did not really want to go back, but in order to be completely self sufficient we need to get the solar panel and the wind generator and increase the battery bank! It is work also, but not the "four letter type word", hahahaha...

sunset at Coffin Island

With sunsets like these...who wants to leave? We are so blessed! Our sail back from Coffin Island was a wild one...with high wave action and angry seas...took us almost 5 hours with the wind on our nose constantly! We even got quite wet in the cockpit...but we still had a ball...did I mention that we love sailing?... :)

Back at the dock we gave Orion a good rinse and then we went to have a good rinse also :) We are very happy with our "shake down cruise"...nothing broke, refrigeration worked perfectly...we only had to run the motor once every 12 hours for an hour and even were able to make ice cubes for that sundowner by putting the trays right against the cold plate (!)...A big thank you to our friends Dick and Jane for giving us two vertical ice trays :)

Cheers!

What's up next? We will stay at Marina de Salinas, which we love by the way, until the end of this month (August). It is easier to have solar panel and wind genny installed whilst on the dock! My captain will also install four new batteries...the solar and wind combined with the increased battery bank should make us self sufficient in terms of energy! Hopefully things will be finished by the end of August...right now a welder is fabricating the fixture for the solar panel, which will be mounted on top of our dinghy davits (a stainless steel holding frame on the back of the boat where you can lift up the dinghy out of the water when underway...for my non-boating friends)...next will be the wind generator, which will be mounted on an aluminum pole anchored at the deck...and last but not least the new batteries! After everything is installed we will go for another shake down cruise to make sure things are working correctly...no problem, because of the hurricane season we can not sail down the islands anyways until November! So we are making the best of it and stay at beautiful Culebra and Vieques (small islands of Puerto Rico) and if a storm should threaten we will come back to Salinas and hide in the mangroves. It is an el nino year though (usually a year of few hurricanes) and we are keeping fingers crossed that this Atlantic h-season will not be a wild one!