Eating the elephant

1/8/16.

Back to the old conundrum, how do you eat an elephant? Answer: one bite at a time.

So here I am in Townsville, chomping away at that old elephant again. 

This is after all a “shake-down” cruise to iron out the glitches and  prepare Shanti for all that will ever be asked of her, including living aboard in relative comfort.  Hence,  I’m continuing on with tasks that could/should have been done before leaving Melbourne, only here in warmer climes.  (That’s another old saying: “cruising is doing boat jobs in exotic locations”).

I’m very fortunate to have my old friend from SYC, Colin Grazules, here.  He’s extremely competent in all things electrical (many owners refuse to let anyone else touch their boat) and despite being in high demand, willing to squeeze me in between as first priority, and at better than “mate’s rates”.

It was time to bite the bullet on that old, inefficient fridge that many an expert had previously looked at and declared an “anchor”.  So like pulling a rotten tooth, out it came.

A new Waeco (12V Danfoss) compressor and evaporator plate were ordered from Seabreeze Industries on the Gold Coast and shipped up here in two days (great service and good prices). 

The compressor is more compact than the old one, with built in fan, condenser and electronics. All the pipes are pre-gassed so just need feeding through various holes and connecting up.  (Harder than it sounds - "even after it's "FT" keep turning till it screams!"  Or Colin screams.

Yay!!!!  It's in.

It’s fantastic to have a much more efficient fridge that cools the ice-box down to around 3-5 deg without gobbling up all my battery power. 

Another problem:  The 2 x 100W solar panels are not putting in as much power as they should be, despite all of the abundant  sunshine up here so that’s another thing to check and fix.

(UPDATE: Discovered one panel not working.  Rang the supplier in Melbourne (Low Energy Developments in Preston) and they will send another panel up next week. - that's good service.)

Other jobs so far include installing a new 7-stage battery charger (for when I’m in a marina and can plug into shore power), relocating the inverter from where it was overheating, rewiring the autopilot, and checking out the misbehaving HF radio.

The old Furuno HF radio would receive but not transmit.  We discovered a tiny little yellow wire in the coupler cable had come unsoldered.  This is the one that goes into the ATU (Automatic Tuning Unit) and connects to the “TUNE” terminal.  Hmmm, now that might explain why it wouldn’t tune.  Even Colin’s steady hands failed to resolder it, so today it’s off to town to see the experter expert.

With all this going on, I’m glad I made the call to come back to Townsville and continue “shaking down” in places other than Darwin or the Indian Ocean this year.

Flicking through Jimmy Cornell’s “World Cruising Routes” whets my appetite with possibilities.  He sagely comments that any circumnavigation that takes less than 2-3 years is simply an endurance test.  It’s taking me a while to get that.

Townsville is a desirable winter holiday destination, now settled into its clear blue canopy of consistent sunshine with perfect temperatures in the mid to high 20’s. There’s that relaxed holiday atmosphere, with outdoor markets,  live music, and people just ambling around with no great rush to be anywhere other than where they are.  As my boat jobs-list shrinks I shall have a little more time to join in that present moment.

So what’s next? My friend, Maria Semple, is flying up from Melbourne in a couple of weeks to enjoy the sunshine and some short excursions to Magnetic Island or other islands nearby. After that I’ll pick my weather to beat back South down to the Whitsundays, where other friends and family may drop in for a visit.

Then it’s a matter of joining the mass exodus of the Southbound fleet once the Northerlies kick in, usually around October, and working out where to spend the summer.