Category Archives: Repairs

A Cartagena Fort, Castle, and Bastion

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The Walled City is a giant fort in and of itself.  The construction of the Walls of Cartagena lasted nearly two centuries, ending in 1796. The historic center is complemented by fortifications and bastions, where you can watch sunsets.  The Walled City being the largest Cartagena Fort.

In addition to the 7 miles of stone walls that make up the Walled City, you can also visit other forts.  Matt and I had fun exploring several of them.

One of the largest structures built in Columbia is Castillo San Felipe de Barajas which is a World Heritage Site.  San Felipe de Barajas castle was the only access to the city from the mainland.  Not sure if a castle constitutes a Cartagena Fort, but just go with it.

We arrived at the Walled City just as a tourist bus unloaded its passengers.  Drat!  We bought our 15,000 peso tickets and scurried up the hill to get in front of the crowds.  Most of the people were not the “scurrying” type so we had some time to explore on our own.  This was a very large castle.  It just kept going and going and going.  We were able to stand on the walls, check out the bastions, and go on a quest underground.  They opened up several underground tunnels where we believed the soldiers slept.  We were not sure as we did not buy headphones or go on an official tour.

Images: Matt inside a bastion, me next to one, shot between the walls. Matt in a tunnel, fort walls with modern city in back.

Castillo San Felipe de Barajas. Cartagena Fort.

Castillo San Felipe de Barajas

Images: Fort entrance, me with a pretty view, me locked up, sleeping quarters, and wall exterior.

Castillo San Felipe de Barajas. Cartagena Fort

Castillo San Felipe de Barajas

As we were coming out of one of the tunnels, a tour group was at the entrance. The guide was showing how they built the tunnels in such a way to always protect them from intruders.  He joked, in English, that we were pirates so when we came out, I said “Argh, give me all of your money” which garnered muzzled laughs.

On the far end of the Walled City, we discovered a construction zone.  They are building an huge entertainment area.  New restaurants, bars, shops, and an enormous round outdoor theater are being built.  I sure wish we could see this completed – what a hoot it would be to see a play here!

Cartagena Fort. Round Theater

Round theater being built above and image of completed project below.

The Baluarte El Reducto is part of the walls of the Historic Center of Cartagena.  It is a fortification bastion facing the lagoon of San Lazaro.  It was the first work of fortification enclosure built as a result of the enlargement of the city.  On top of the fort is Casa Cerveza, a restaurant that has a beautiful view and a great name!  Who wouldn’t want to live in a Beer House?  (Casa Cerveza=Beer House)

View from Casa Cerveza.

View from Casa Cerveza.

EL fuerte de San Sebastian del Pastelillo is where Club de Pesca is located which is one of the 5 marinas in Cartagena.  Even though there is not much left of the fort, it makes for an impressive entrance to the marina.  I can imagine you’d feel safe keeping your boat within Cartagena Fort waters.

Fuerte Sansebastian

We visited several bastions:

  • Baluarte Santa Catalina
  • Baluarte San Pedro Martir
  • Convento de San Diego

Walking around town we found this cool world map

World Map - where are we?

World Map – where are we?

End to a perfect day – Matt and Teo

Matt and Teo walking and talking.

Matt and Teo walking and talking. Photo credit: Jon Wright

Light It Up Sparky – Alternator Issue

Sugar Shack has four alternators on board, two for each engine.  The small alternator charges the starter battery and the large one charges the house batteries. One of our large, 130 amp Mastervolt alternators has “issues” and it was time to fix it.  Matt had already taken it a part, cleaned the brushes, and tweaked things, but it still wasn’t working.  He suspected it needed new diodes which we did not have on board.  He found a place called “Marlon’s Garage” in Aruba that had good reviews for rebuilding alternators.

 

Matt pulled the big boy out of the engine, placed it in a plastic bag and we hefted it to Marlon’s Garage.  When I say “we” I mean “he” by the way.  We scouted the location earlier so we didn’t have to walk around carrying a 40 lb bag.  The garage was nice, clean, and stocked with a variety of vehicles in 15-20 bays.  All of the employees had really nice embroidered shirts with “Marlon’s Garage” on the back and their names on the front.  Surprising since these are mechanics working around dirty cars and parts wearing these expensive shirts – but good branding!

The garage was filled with lots of treasures.  The owner, a lifelong car enthusiast, had a few Ferrari’s, a porche, couple of corvettes, classic mustang, and old caddy.  We later discovered that he has over 50 cars in total and he is still collecting.

We walked in and they immediately took the alternator in to be tested.  They determined that we needed new diodes and possibly a new rectifier but they could easily do the repair.  They asked us to check back just before 12 to see when we could pick it up.  We left an $80 deposit and went on our way.

We met our friends Dave and Tanya on “Dea Latis” and headed to Price Smart to load up with some groceries.  Half way through our shopping, I realized it was almost 12 so I went outside to try to call. After several failed attempts I went back inside and finished shopping.  Matt kept trying but it was a bad connection.  However, Matt was able to determine that our alternator would be ready before closing.  We returned our fresh groceries to the boat and decided to explore the town while we waited for the repair to be completed.

Around 5p we headed back to Marlon’s Garage to pick up our alternator.  All three diodes were replaced. The shop did not have a rectifier so they actually fabricated a new one for us.  All for the low price of $130.

We loaded her back up into her plastic and headed back toward the dinghy dock.  It was hot, with little to no breeze and we were both exhausted.  A cold beverage would perk us up!  We stopped in on a local bar to regroup.  After we addressed our more pressing needs by cooling down and resting, we realized we were famished.  We left after two rounds and stopped at a Cuban place by the marina.  It was really lovely, with a band, nice ambiance, and super tasty food.  28k steps later, we crashed hard!

Matt installed the rebuilt alternator the next day and was pleasantly surprised to find that it charged at 30-40 amps while the engines were in idle.  The other alternator charges at 10-15 amps at idle.  Then he pushed the engine to 1500 RPM it charged at 100 amps.   Whereas the other one charges at 30-40 amps at 1500 RPM.  Wow, this is amazing!

He was so excited that he took the other 130 amp alternator off and said let’s go have this one checked too.  We huffed back to Marlon’s, had them check it and they said it was fine. They suggested that the regulator might need to be tweaked.  Humf…Matt had checked that it was still not putting out the same amps as the rebuilt one, but it was still charging the house batteries.

The good news is that both large alternators are charging the house batteries.  Yeah.

Channeling Betsy Ross

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We have had a laundry list of sewing projects that we have been “meaning” to get to but haven’t had time.  Maybe it is because there are so many and it is overwhelming, maybe because setting up the sewing machine is a “process” maybe because I was not 100% sure I remembered how to sew (since it has been 35+ years since I touched a sewing machine), or maybe it was just plain procrastination (and a combination of all of the above).

This week, I sucked it up and jumped right in.  First let me tell you how we prepare to start a sewing project:

  • Matt pulls the sewing machine case out of the bilge
  • Pull out supplies from various storage areas: hot knife, extension cord, carpenter’s square, tape measure, scissors, blue tape, pencil, chalk, velcro, basting tape, shower curtains (for patterns) and fabric
  • Turn on inverter to provide electricity to sewing machine and hot knife
  • Set up machine

Sewing supplies

My first project(s) was to create new helm seat cushion back covers.  Our current blue ones are stained, torn, falling apart and need to go.

Old helm seat back covers in blue.

Yep, we procrastinated long enough – these need to go.

So, I took the Starboard one off first, measured, double and triple checked the measurements, created a pattern, transferred the pattern to the fabric and cut into my huge 15 yard roll of Sunbrella Toast fabric.

Transferred my pattern to the fabric.

After I created my pattern on the fabric, and remeasured and cut the fabric with a hot knife to prevent loose strands. Then added basting tape to hold the hems cleanly to the fabric.

Basting tape for the hems.

Next, the female velcro was added to one side (we used velcro that had a sticky back side).  Then I flipped my piece over and added the male velcro (so that when the piece is rolled they stick to each other).

Velcro applied to pattern.

Test, with just the basting tape holding the piece together, I take it outside and test to see if my measurements were correct.  EEEK Gads!  They are not!  I had measured the circumference 7 3/4 but did not take into account an extra 1″ for the velcro overlap.  Yikes. Luckily, I had not sewn anything yet so I had to go back a few steps, shorten my hem and create an overlap so that the velcro actually overlaps and sticks together.  Yeah!  Worked swell. Now the hard part – sewing.

I had not touched a sewing machine in over 35 years and was a little intimidated about using this one.  But, Matt figure it out and walked me through a few things, tested using scrap fabric, fixed mistakes, tested again, fixed mistakes, rinse and repeat.  Finally when I felt confident, I broke out the project piece and started sewing the velcro to the fabric.

Working diligently on getting the fabric, basting tape, and velcro through the machine.

Yep, I got this!

Almost done and feeling a little giddy, I start working on the last step which is sewing the end tie pulls into the left and right hems so we can pull them tight to hug the pole.  Easy enough, little basting tape, hold the line in, shift the foot on the sewing machine to get a closer fit to the line and call her done!

Yep, the lines are askew, but not bad for a first project.

Finished the port helm seat cushion back cover the next day.  The first one took me about 5 hours to complete from start to finish and the second one took me about 3.5 hours.

Completed port helm back cushion cover.

Super pleased with myself, I moved on to a much more complicated project – the outboard cover.  I won’t bore you with a separate email on the outboard cover, just give you the highlights here.

It took me 7 times to create a pattern that worked – yep, that is 7 different patterns.  Part of it was because Matt had a different idea of what he wanted for the cover than I had so once we got on the same page, we worked it out.

Since it was using two different fabrics and had many curves and uneven measurements, I taped the pattern to the cover to see if it would work before I cut my fabric.

Using a shower curtain, I created a pattern.

This is way beyond my sewing scope, but I am willing to give it a whirl.  Keep in mind that this entire process is over multiple days and I have already been frustrated, recovered, frustrated, recovered, over and over.

After blood, sweat and tears (literally all three) Matt and I finished the project together.   It was such a relief to have his help, logic, and different outlook and it made all the difference in the world.   Let me tell you – this was a complicated project!  Glad it’s done.

Hole on the front is for the starter handle.

We were going to remove the stitching on the phifertex to make it fit the opening but decided it wasn’t worth it.

Phifertex over the to let the engine breathe and hand hold to lift the engine.

Matt likes his new engine cover.

Next, was a simple cover for our ICOM as the screen is getting wonky from the sun.

ICOM Cover at the helm station.

New pillow covers – done

Recovered two new pillows in Sunbrella red to match with the boat better.

New socket holder.

New socket holder.

Made several wind barriers to stop the whistling

Made several wind barriers to stop the whistling

 

Before & after: Curtain for office shelves with sewing junk.

Before & after: Curtain for office shelves with sewing junk.

Before & after: hide shoes & yoga mats.

Before & after: hide shoes & yoga mats.

Too embarrassed to show true before with all the shoes and yoga mats but you get the general idea.

We have several other projects, but I will save those for another time.  They include:

  • New sunshades (this will be a huge one as our old ones are small, dirty, and old)
  • Cushions to set over the line storage area
  • New man over board cover

You can tell I don’t like to have my “stuff” to be seen so hide it behind a curtains.