Blog

The new MasterVolt Mass 24/100 charger bought from Marine Warehouse arrived in Trinidad last week sometime and was collected by Brian Sellier from Caribbean Marine, Chaguaramas, Trinidad. A couple of days later Brian fitted, tested and completed the charger installation on Revelations.

We are very thankful to Brian Sellier for all his support and advise he offered during the past 10 months. In particular, within days after arriving in Trinidad, Brian Sellier loaned us a temporary charger until this very moment. He offered the loan of his charger without asking for any money nor any favours in return - this is indeed remarkable generosity, bearing in mind that he was a total stranger at the time. Most generous, helpful and REMARKABLE!

Thank you Brian! We will not forget this!

This is Dr. Gina Borges and her assistant (who we simply call "Nunu" due to the language barrier) who meticulously worked on my teeth over the past few weeks. You might recall, my tooth felt a bit sensitive when I went to bed the one night and I woke up with a golf ball implanted in my upper right side gum. How the hell can a tooth swell up like that within a few hours!? As the pressure climbed, the throbbing pain went through the roof. Sue immediately had me on strong anti-biotics and with two days, the swelling was down and so was most of the pain. But where to find a decent dentist here in the strange lands of Salvador?

Prior to this, whilst walking around looking for supplies, I noticed a number of so-called dentist working from dirty offices strewn throughout the poorer areas of Salvador. Some of these dental practices had a number of patients awaiting their turn and seeing them sitting there, I would cringe of their pain as imagined in my mind. Hey man, some of the places are so bad you will be lucky if you have any teeth left once they are done with you. If you survive the teeth onslaught, then you might die of some disease or another caught within the dirty and disgusting interior of these practices.

So we asked the people around the marina if they knew of a good dentist. Marcello, a really nice guy who did some repairs on the boat, recommends a certain "Dr. Gina". Recalling the Frankenstein movie and having seen a couple of the pavement dental practices, I am super skeptical about this Dr. Gina and I want assurances. I find myself staring at his (Marcello's) teeth for a quality clue and they looked OK, so they pass my quality test - I now demand to know if this "Dr. Gina" worked on his teeth. With Marcello's confirmation and assurances, especially him passing my teeth quality test, I feel a bit more at ease and the appointment is made.

My concerns and fears were absolutely needless as Dr. Gina is most certainly one of the very best dentist's I have ever encountered. She, her assistant worked with meticulous care, spanning many appointments to sort out my teeth. Her attention to detail, making sure that everything is done well, all without inflicting pain, going out of her way to cross the language barrier explaining most of the procedures, all the time making sure that I am at ease and without discomfort - should be an benchmark and inspiration for other dentists. Then there is Aiara, (pronounced "Ajara"), Dr. Gina's niece who especially came to the dental practice on most of my appointments to translate and bridge the language barrier between all of us - without compensation, always friendly and giving us a further insight into Salvador and Brazilian life. So a HUGE THANK YOU to Dr. Gina, "Nunu" and Aiara for everything you have done! Although we are privileged guests in your country Brazil, will be leaving soon and perhaps never see each other again, we will not forget your kindness, your laughter and most important of all - you as a person.

Obrigado a cada um de vocês! Muito apreciado!

So you have a Icom M802 radio with it's DSC functionality onboard and it is rigged to it's main antenna. Yeah, real fancy (and expensive) piece of equipment. In many ways the built-in DSC function can be a life saver for both you and other mariners. But, there is a problem! Whilst you can certainly send distress messages with the DSC functionality, you will not receive any DSC messages. For you to receive DSC reply or distress messages from other mariners, you will need a second aerial - specifically, a DSC aerial. We learned about this awhile ago and ordered one from Metz Communication Corporation. It is now installed high up on the mast and connected to the Icom M802. But I wonder why we were never told us about this requirement - not the distributor nor the marine electrician.

It is reasobably priced, the product is excellent and so is their service. If you have a Icom M802 marine radio, you should get one.

We arrived in Cape Town and the following we fetched our new snubbers. When ordering the snubbers, we only had a couple of small photographs of the product and it kinda looked like a quality product. Further information and emails from INMARE. convinced us that it seemed like a quality product. well, we noe have the product in our hands and I can tell you that it is a top quality product. The people from Inmare was friendly, helpful and went out of their way to assist us. The goods were promptly shipped and it all arrived safely within a week. Unfortunately, we had to pay BLOOD MONEY when it came to the South African government and their ridiculously high import duties.

The workmanship, strength and quality of this product is far superior to the normal black rubber snubbers. In addition, it is UV resistant and unlike the black rubber snubbers, it will not deteriote as quick in the sun. To prolong it's life, we will pull a sleeve over these snubbers to further protect them from the sun. With these snubbers, we will no longer have snapped ropes or cleats which have jerked their way loose.

The netting itself is fine with no visible damage but the edges around the netting started getting frayed and tattered from years of exposure to the sun. The netting was manufactured by Quantum Sails (now called Ullmann Sails) in Cape Town and they really did a good job at the time. So they came back, stripped everything and restitched a new seam|border around the existing netting. They delivered the goods and installed it. Job well done! This should last me at least another 5 years.

We looked around for electronic maps which will work in our Furuno NavNet VX2 chartplotter. This was quite frustrating in finding a supplier who we were happy with. Some suppliers readily gave answers but shocked the crap out of us with their prices. Other suppliers offered good prices but their service is absolutely shocking - some never even responded to our inquiries. In a depressed economy, one would think that suppliers would be keen chasing and closing extra business - clearly not!
Then we found Bellingham Chart Printers.

We dealt with Megan who delivered excellent service, promptly answered all our questions and gave us a great price for the electronic charts we were interested in. We ordered the C-Map Mega Wide charts for South America, Atlantic Coast Mexico and Caribbean, Australia New Zealand and Papua New Guinea Solomon Islands. We already have the Mega Wide charts for Africa and we will later expand our chart inventory to include Japan, South China Seas, Thailand and the Indian Ocean.

You also want to check out the Chart Portfolios offered by Bellingham Chart Printers. These papers charts are available in various sizes, in bundles which are printed in black and white (or rather grey scale) on durable paper. These charts bundles really sell at excellent prices. If your navigation and charting system is electronic, these chart bundles will do an excellent job as a backup chart system.

After struggling with so many workers, professionals and suppliers in the boat building fraternity in Cape Town, South Africa - one cannot help but have a sceptic and dim view when dealing with these people. However, it was refreshing dealing with Mr. Simon Botes, Harken, Cape Town, South Africa. We went to their offices in Paarden Island with a problem we had with the Harken batt car system. He listened to our difficulties and undertook to visit Revelations to assess the situation.

Judging him by typical Cape Town standards, we expected that he would only visit the yacht at his leisure some 2 or 4 weeks later after repeated pleas from us. To our suprise, he came around to our yacht literally first thing the very next morning! This was great service compared to the usual treatment one normally receives.
Indeed a breath of fresh air!