Leaving New Zealand: On a Jet Plane

Hi All,

It still boggles the mind that we can travel by plane in 12+ hours what took us all last season to do by boat….whoa!!!

Yes, the date is finally here and yes, we are soooooo ready to go back to USA and see family and friends.

Gee, John, why are you so ready to leave Mystic Moon…..well, not to leave Mystic, but we need a vacation from boating. Why, pray tell…….how about 44 boat projects completed, 18 left to do when we come back…..all in the last 3 weeks. Yes, we are very tired of boat projects….we need a break!!!!!

And, why do a lot of boat projects morph into more projects…..arghhhhhhh!!! Prime examples:

Autopilot: I was trying to find out why our cameras do not work anymore, which btw I successfully found the loose connection, but in the process I had to remove the Simrad AP25 control head and the connection locking collar and internal plastic just disintegrated in my hands. In the course of trying to clean everything and seeing if the cables would still insert tightly into the pins….which they sort of did but not to my satisfaction….yep, a pin broke off…..we are screwed now. The unit now says there is a communication error.

So we spent 2 days on Google and Ebay trying to find a new control head. Of course our unit is obsolete now and the new ones run on NMEA 2000 and our boat is still NMEA 0183….so another conversion…..arghhhhhhh!!! Well, a long story short, we sent the control head to the electrician we used in Auckland who said, now worries mate, pins break all the time, I’ll just solder on a new one….no big deal. And, that is what we did….he called yesterday and the surgery went well….we shall see when get back. In the meantime we are still searching madly for a b/u unit and hopefully will find one soon!!

Engine Room Lights: After 10 years on the boat I decided to replace the 4′ fluorescent light bulbs as things seemed a bit dark. Well, it’s one of those projects which what should have been 15 minutes turned into a much bigger deal. The connections where the bulbs insert just disintegrated. They are plastic and where you twist to take the bulb out the plastic in 2 of the 4 connections just fell apart…..ugh!!! I didn’t even try the 2nd fixture but it probably is in the same condition.

So again, we have spent two days plus searching for engine room light fixtures in the USA to bring back with us….arghhhhhhh!!! Why not buy some in NZ….well, they are 50 hz here and the boat is 60 hz!!

Last Example: Sitting in the PH, through a hard rain, Kathy went down below and found lots of water coming from the ceiling right above the forward stateroom sink porthole…..down onto to the mirror. We have had a leak here off and on…well this was a gusher. So, 1 hour later we were 90% sure it is the starboard bow deck drain but have no idea how to get to it. We have tried through the forward closet as well as through the head. The black hose attached to the drain is right above the forward stateroom/head wall next to the hull and we just can’t get to it….lots of hoses and walls in the way and as it is so hidden we can barely reach it and feel it. I think I can feel the deck drain elbow and the hose attached but no way to get a screwdriver or anything in there to deal with it. We tried lifting it up through the deck drain but that seems to be 5200 in and now that I think I feel an elbow I’m not sure it can be lifted out.

Well…..24 hours later…..we finally concluded it is the bedding. We were able to fill the drain hose with a plug at the other end and observe and nothing leaked out of the drain grate where it was welded on the pipe, pipe elbow or hose. And, after a lot of squeezing with my hands and skin tearing I was able to get a socket on one of the hose clamps and indeed it was tight. So, bedding we can do….you know, get 4200 everywhere, but in the process I found 1 of 3 screws not touching anything…..Selene made the hole too big, probably how they got the elbow in…..went ahead and bedded as running out of time but will need to go back and drill another hole in drain and reset screw…..arghhhhhhh…..and found a void in the old bedding….so, now we know why it was leaking!!

So, enough of this nonsense…..we will leave Mystic in a few hours, drive 2+ hours to Auckland to catch our 12.5 hr nonstop flight to San Francisco….we will arrive before we leave…isn’t that a kick!!!!

We will be back the end of January, move the boat to Auckland for some repairs by Steve, rent a car and go see New Zealand for a couple of months. Hopefully we will startup the blog at that time.

Until then, hope all is well with everyone!!

Project John going on vacation!!!!