Manzanillo, June 24th

This was quite an exciting day for us. We had gone yesterday and picked out the lettering for Fortuitous' name, and today Flavit was going to apply it. Of course, they didn't have the same lettering as we'd had, but we thought we'd found something we liked as well, if not better.

First they place it in position and measure to see it's centred etc. Then they remove it from the backing, spraying it with soapy water.

Almost there!

Reminds me of wallpapering and worrying about getting all wrapped up in it!

There we are!! We are renamed!

This photo is a bit blurry, but they are so happy with their work!

The name is on both sides of the bow, now, and we are now getting ready to do the stern. Lots of measuring going on. Bet Flavit wishes our name weren't quite so long!!

Remove the backing and apply! It's kind of scary because those names cost us about $75! I'm guessing that's still half the price of at home!

Squeeze out the bubbles and flatten!

How does that look?

Applying Canada!

Here we are!! But, drat!!! Right after this photo, Gato (on the right) was cleaning up and drying the handiwork and rubbed off the centre "a" in Canada!!! What!!! We'll have a new "a" tomorrow!

A group shot, with us, of the entire crew. What a great bunch of guys and terrific workers!!

Here they all are, front row sitting, from left: Tuty, Jorge, Carlos, Flavit. Back row, from left: Blake, Jorge, Willi, Gato. Most of these guys have worked on our boat 5 1/2 days a week for the last almost two months!

We bought them some after work drinks...mostly a couple of beer, but some only had coke. Should have been champagne for the renaming but the local store didn't have that!

Willi and Tuty chilling. Most of the crew are 30 or less. Tuty is our age...that would be 40!

Carlos...he tries to teach me some Spanish words for various tools and I teach him some English. He gave up on scissors because he couldn't say it at all!

Gato wondering if he should have a beer. After he "cleaned" off our middle "a" in Canada, he said, "No beer for Gato!!"

I guess Tuty's wondering if he should go for that second beer! Today we also bit the bullet and are having our glass in our main hatches replaced. We've already sprung for new plexi in the little ones in the salon, but every new job seems to sprout another. We can't possible have all new hatches except for the largest ones, can we!!?? So, now we're $400 poorer for new plexi in the large ones too!! Yikes!! Time to go home!!

This is our main salon with the new headliner. The small hatches aren't completed yet.

We are never without problems of one kind or another. We already had one major flood, when the nav station became a swimming pool. This is the remnants of the second one. These are all our expensive cruising books drying in our apartment. What a mess. The new propane box didn't yet have drainage holes. We had rain, you guessed it...the box filled with water (even though covered with a tarp)...the water siphoned through the openings where the propane hoses go...into our cabin. The water dripped everywhere and poured over all our expensive books! You don't want to know how Ralph took this one!!

Just to finish off, I have to show you some close up photos of our "apartment". Don't get me wrong, I'm very appreciative of being able to live where we have air conditioning and can come and go as we work on Fortuitous...but this apartment is not up to my usual cleanliness standards. This is our kitchen sink and blow-torch...er stove. Those of you who know me well will realize, just by viewing these photos, how I feel about this place...words are not necessary!

Suffice to say, the place needs work!!

Yuck! What's living in there???

June 22nd

Here we are hoping to be in the home stretch. Today we went off with Flavit to try to fix our aft cabin window that has something or other spilled on it. No luck being able to get it out of the frame so we'll have to try something else. He will try to buff it and, if that doesn't work, we'll be forced to get new windows eventually...but not yet as enough money spent. We also chose our lettering for Fortuitous. It is similar to the old, but a little different. We've got them in brown, instead of black. Since everything on Fortuitous is brown, it seemed the better choice. We'll see; more photos to come over the next few days.
This is our new propane box in the making. Getting there, but still a ways to go.

These are our new hatches, one over the nav station and one in the head. Getting there too!

This is how the cockpit looks now with the new seating arrangement after removing the aft cabin doors. It looks great and is...getting there.

There was a big space here, in the combing, so we had Flavit's crew cut an opening and fashion a storage box for winch handles etc.

Tuty is working hard to complete our headliner. There's a bit of sanding that needs new varnish...but an excellent job! We couldn't be happier with his work.

He finished up most of the headliner in the main salon today. It looks great too! We still need hatch trim for the small hatches. Bit by bit, but still a big mess. We need to sand the old hatch wood as it looks pretty crappy compared to the new trim. So much to do to clean up and yet so little time!!

Continued Renos for Fortuitous, June 21st

As we continue down the reno road, more work seems to materialize. Ralph and I are both gettng tired, but we can't possibly leave Fortuitous in the shape she's in, right now, and go home. So, we are staying on awhile to see most of the work through. We are extremely happy with the work, but it is also a lot of work for us too. The mess is incredible, and we need time to get Fortuitous cleaned up once the dust settles...literally!!

This is our main salon as we see it every day. It doesn't do it justice as you can't really see all the dust and dirt. Worse yet, we have overspray on our beautiful teak and holly floor. I've sanded it and will try to re-varnish it before we leave here.

Another shot of the salon.

This is my galley, I think??

Tuty has been working hard and these are the first of the headline panels in place in the V-berth. We have still to sand the old boards in the hatch, one of the new trim boards is in temporarily.

This is a shot of our newly painted hull ports. This is the right colour as opposed to the first colour which was rust.

Our carpenter, Tuty, is very exacting. we have an air conditioner that we are installing in the companionway for while we are back in Canada. Hopefully that will keep down the mold and mildew. We needed a couple of steps to get in and over it. He built these...note the curvy side supports. Not really necessary for throw-away steps, but he's an artist.

More varnishing for yours truly. These are the cockpit seat edges and the companionway hatch pull.

Aft ports, newly painted.

We did take an afternoon to go and have some lunch in Old Town. This young lady was sitting selling her coconuts on the corner outside our cafe. What a long day for the little one!

This is the cafe. Lunch of soup, main course of fish, rice, beans and salad and a banana for dessert cost us $3.00

This is what is left of the whole fried fish we each had. It wasn't bad.

More Boat Renos, June 2010

We are progressing with all our boat renos. This blog page, I'll start with a "rain shower" and I use that term very loosely. This is very typical of the downpours we've had here. They usually only last about an hour or so, but the downpour is unbelievable!
This is the view from our "apartment" window...and I use the term apartment very loosely too!

This is also taken from our apartment window. This would be the local coffee vendor...neither sleet nor hail...well you know the rest!

Take a look at the current going over his foot...this would be the road in front of our marina complex.

After the rain! This is all the plywood panels for our boat headliner. They all had to be painted and then we've covered them with thin foam and then vinyl.

They will all be installed and then trimmed with teak strips. They will look great, but a fantastic amount of work. We had to do this because we had to remove various deck fixtures for repair and replacement during our new gel coat.

These are some of the guys beside Fortuitous getting ready to start the day. We have 3 Jorges, Carlos, Willi, Blake, and Flavit, plus Tuty usually working on our boat...a big crew!

This is Flavit and Jorge applying gel coat to the cabin sides.

This is Carlos.

This is Willi, which is short for Wellington...a good Spanish name.

They use whatever is available to mix up paint etc. They are all very resourceful.

Here are the sheets of plywood ready for vinyl covering...oops, missed one.

Willi and Jorge applying gel coat to the back cabin sides. What a crummy job this would be!!

Flavit and Carlos hiding in the shade and contemplating what's next!

This is why I say it would be a crummy job!!

So...we had holes cut in our aft cabin so we could install our new hatches. They were covered with a tarp...and it rained like hell overnight!!! When we arrived at the boat the next morning, I thought Ralph would have a heart attack!! Over the large hole, the tarp had filled with water, then finally pulled away from the tie and dumped all the water (and the rest of the rainfall) over and into our nav station!! Amazingly, the nav station top is unbelievably water-tight!! Unfortunately, it was full of about 3" of water! Ralph lost it; I sent him away, bailed and cleaned up. These are some of the things drying out in our room.

Window/port painting number something or other...it took at least 3 tries to get the right colour or deal with rain ruining the right colour. This is not it!

Blake and Jorge taping to paint the bowsprit.

Just when we thought we were getting somewhere, one of the Jorges thought the deck felt a bit spongy...we explored and guess what??

He was right!! We found this big ugly mess...more to repair!

This is the view from inside the lazarette...take by someone much smaller than Ralph!

One of the Jorges grinds down all the fibreglass to a nice smooth finish. Another terrible job to do!

Meanwhile, on Fortuitous' aft deck, the new propane locker is being constructed.

An Tuty works hard teaching us how to install vinyl on the plywood panels. These will be installed in the ceiling.

Flavit looks on as Carlos tries to find out how bad the new-found hole in our deck is.

We have such a great crew, and the yard workers are so great, we decided to order in pizza for a thank you meal. Maurice, the manager of Manzanillo supplied the drinks for the festivities.

These are a few of our crew having a well deserved break.
This is the new arrangement in our cockpit. No more doors going into the aft cabin, a new seat and small lazarette instead.
This is me checking out all my varnishing. These are about half the teak strips needed to put our new ceiling in place. Two coats of varnish-minimum.
Here are some more of them and our bow decoration (which needed 8 coats of varnish).