Preparing Forty Two; Preparing her crew

We’ve been busy getting ourselves ready as well as Forty Two.

For ourselves we are essentially doing a customized cruising course through True North which brings our ICC to life. We are practicing all the basics on our own boat. Our comfort grows by the day and we’ve been able to successfully do all the basic things we need to do. Now the final ingredient is experience, experience, experience.

Forty Two had a few surprises for us as well. We’ve had to purchase a few things and repair a few things. On the purchase front, we needed to update some mooring lines, get a second anchor and rode (we bought a Danforth for our second anchor as it packs flat and should cover us for sea bed conditions around the med), a radar reflector (so other boats can see us at night), boat hook, cleaning supplies, lights, navigation tools (for paper based navigation), courtesy flags, spare flares, larger flag pole, winch handle, and a few other odds and sods.

On the repair front, we’ve replaced a pump for the shower, had some electrical repairs to ensure lights and the freezer work, a minor engine check, and still pending…ensuring our navigation instruments are all configured and working properly (that hopefully will happen in a day or so). We’ve also recently learned our dingy had a split seam and our holding tank is blocked.

The dingy can be repaired (read money and time). The holding tank has been an adventure.

Harry was on the boat helping deal with a few things and we basically worked our way through to determine that the holding tank was full and we had a leak around the sea cock (which allows it to drain into the sea – a system designed to irritate envrionmentalists). Basically this means things stink and are messy. This condition has existed for some time – we just didn’t realize as we’ve been living in the marina and using the facilities there.

We determined Saturday we’d have “operation Poo” and drain things out to sea. The family dutifully set to sea in the morning ahead of the winds, got a few miles out, and opened up. Nothing happened. We checked for a potential vacuum in the system, we tried putting some water in, nothing helped. Figuring a blockage hopefully near the exit, Margaret dove into the water and tried to prod things to move – ready to race away quickly should she be successful. It was a noble attempt but alas not successful. As the swell grew and the winds started to pick up, we remembered that we wanted to get back before the winds grew strong that day. We declared it great teamwork and learning and went back to port.

This week we are practicing a “passage” with our brilliant instructor, Dimitris, and have a morning’s rest in Larnaca Marina. Sheila, Margaret and me have all practiced our skills and we have an able crew. Back to operation Poo, we have scheduled a pump out so the holding tank issue can be better diagnosed. Wish us luck!

We’ve got some final repairs and provisioning (hopefully our dingy) due on Wednesday which means we’ve been preparing to leave Cyprus for Greece. It is closer by the day and we hope to get underway for more distant shores within a few days.

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A brief update on “Project Poo”. Our ever capable instructor, Dimitris, was able to connect with someone who could pump out the holding tank. He committed to come help between 11 and 12 am so we changed our sailing plans and waited for the expert.

He arrived promptly some time after 12 and set to work. With pump out, flush, pump out, flush, etc…all was resolved within 30 minutes. The very last bit was determined to cling to the boat but eventually gave way. We believe we have the problem resolved.

We still have some clean up to do but I want to buy some gloves, you get the idea.