The Volky goes to Florida

We were not only busy on ORION these past few months...we also accomplished a few non boat related tasks that had been put on the backburner for a while! We are happy to report that our last piece of equipment from being land lubbers is at long last with its rightful owner (our daughter Julia in Florida)...rendering the two sweeties on ORION truly free of all land-based possessions! I am talking about our 1970 Volkswagen Beetle, lovingly called "Volky" in Puerto Rico...Volky took our three kids through High School and beyond...Jessica, Julia, and Michael all learned driving in Volky, which gave all three of them the advantage of knowing how to drive a "stick shift" or manual transmission :) When the last one left for college we sold our house and put Volky into storage...we will be forever grateful to our friend Richard Lisch for providing a space for Volky in a hurricane-safe hangar for as long as we needed it...thank you Richard...you are the best!

To make a long story short...we gave Volky as a gift to Julia when she graduated from college with the promise to ship it to her whenever she was ready to receive it...and at long last the time came this year! Many friends helped us in the process of getting the Volky ready for its new life and we thank them all from the bottom of our hearts...there is "the old man" in Ponce, who owns a Volky repair place and never ever let us down when we needed his help over the past 10 years...he has become a true friend...there is Richard and his wife Mercedes whom I mentioned earlier...there is Angel, our mechanic in Salinas, who helped get Volky ready when we were living at the marina on ORION...there is Don Miguel and Thomas of Marina de Salinas, as well as the staff there, who all helped in their own ways and kept an eye on Volky when it was parked there...a big thank you also to "Berto" in Ponce, who advised us on all the paperwork needed for shipment and who transported the Volky to San Juan after all the paperwork was finished...and also to the Police Department in Ponce, whose officers helped us tremendously in getting additional paperwork done for verification of engine number and approval for the shipment of this 1970 VW Beetle...and also many thanks to "Laurita's Mom" for rendering attorney services for Julia at short to almost no notice in advance (yes, it was a hectic few days)...and of course there is Ruth, Julia's best friend from Ponce, who kept Julia sane in all the huzzle and buzzle of running to different agencies by being with her for moral support and assisting wherever she could in legalities...Ruth will be a great lawyer when she finishes her studies!...special thank you goes to two friends in Culebra, Paul and Suzie Moran for inviting us to dinner and an overnight in their beautiful home, so we could catch the ferry to Fajardo early in the morning...and last but not least there are our wonderful wonderful friends Claudia Procko and her husband "Pochi", who were the ones responding to our initial quest...without "Pochi" and his professional connections we would still be sitting here trying to figure out how to ship the Volky...we cannot thank them enough!

I hope I have covered the most instrumental players in this orchestra of friends and acquaintances, who helped make it a reality...we could not have done it without you!

We had dinner with some of our good friends in Ponce to celebrate...and of course we are happy that Julia's boyfriend Max was able to accompany her on this visit to Puerto Rico and that we were able to fit in a few sightseeing trips for the two of them :)

Now the Volky is living happily at its new home in Florida...and already made friends with another Volky...all's well that ends well :)

 

Exhaust-ion Tales

the old and the new

Back safe and secure on our mooring ball in Culebra the time had come to investigate the overheating engine problem...a job for my captain, because he is "the engine guy" on ORION without a doubt! Armed with an infrared temperature gun he submerged himself into the engine room whilst the engine was running to take readings at various places...he was able to pinpoint the place of the most intense heat accumulating in the area of the exhaust manifold. The problem was definitely somewhere inside this structure of metal tubes and elbows...a difficult place to reach, of course! Our boat is 40 years old and we have no idea if the exhaust system ever got replaced...chances are that ORION either still had original equipment or a replacement put in many many moons ago. To make a long story short my captain, "the engine guy" dismantled the system by sawing through the metal...a hard and tedious job! Low and behold it revealed the problem! The elbows of the riser section were completely clogged...the insides looked as if they were filled with charcoal!

Rick built a replica of the old system...with diligence and patience and a few swear words, which I will not quote ;)...the end result looks pretty impressive and will do the job it is supposed to do for hopefully another 40 years...but we'll be happy with half that! Congratulations to my captain, "the engine guy"...for sure!

 

Exploring Vieques on ORION...Bahia Icacos

Having established our temporary base in Culebra it is time to do a little cruising and explore the nearby areas. We sailed to Tamarindo Bay in Culebra on Saturday, June 8, 2013, stayed overnight, set sail again the next morning and made a spontaneous decision to sail to Vieques...just like that! The weather was perfect...10-15 knots wind with waves around 6 feet...we sailed for 3 1/2 hours under full sails (both main and jib) to Bahia Icacos on the north shore of Vieques! We plotted a course on the go...with the Navionics app on our ipad this can be done in no time at all...a simply amazing tool!

Bahia Icacos is stunningly beautiful...a horseshoe shaped bay surrounded by a white sand beach as far as the eyes can see! Hundreds of star fish can be viewed through the crystal clear water. We arrived on Sunday afternoon when 20 or more power boats were anchored along the shoreline...but they all left well before darkness on their way home to Fajardo, where most of them had come from. So we found ourselves alone on ORION, virtually in Paradise...this beach is made for walking hand in hand for miles and of course this is exactly what we did :) Vieques used to be a bombing range, so unfortunately there is plenty unexploded ordinance left in and out of the water! There are signs placed all over the edge of the beach warning not to venture inland beyond the imaginary line between postings...it is a shame, the clean-up process will most probably take decades, but that is how it is. On a positive side the area is now a wildlife sanctuary with hundreds of different species of birds calling it home :) We had no desire to walk inland...there is so much blissful beach area to explore...we had a great time away from everybody and everything...it almost felt like "The Blue Lagoon", hahahaha...just kidding ;)

We left Bahia Icacos a few days later with the unspoken promise of returning to explore more of Vieques...whilst maneuvering through the reef we noticed the engine overheating, so we shut it off and sailed the rest of the way...got soaked by a passing squall but were happy and enjoyed the journey...had to enter the main channel into Dewey under sail only and continued to sail right onto our mooring ball...phew...there is always a first time for everything and this was our first time having to approach our mooring ball without deploying the good old diesel...it worked out okay and we are pretty proud of ourselves...another notch in the belt of our learning curve :) Why was the diesel overheating? That's the story to tell next...stay tuned please!

 

Our Own Mooring Ball for ORION

Here we are again :) Instead of making excuses for not updating the blog I am jumping right in with the gory details of our wonderful life! As last reported in March we decided to stick around the Culebra area for as long as we like it...well...in that spirit we had our own mooring put in in one of the small bays off the main channel that leads to Culebra's main harbor Ensenada Honda and the town of Dewey. We were fortunate to have the work done by Carlos Cruz, a professional in the field...Carlos put in the system in April, using three extra long and extra strong sand screws, chain to connect them and chain to go up to the mooring ball...all in all a pretty secure system...we feel safe on our mooring ball! I made the splices for the line that is attached to the mooring ball, called a pennant and I also made two bridles, which are lines that run from the pennant to the cleats on the boat on both sides. The drawing in the photo collage shows what a mooring ball system looks like above and below the water. Ours looks slightly different, because it has three sand screws instead of the mushroom anchor and chain attached to each sand screw.