3R's: Rigging, Rudder and Removal.

Rigging.. it has arrived! ..Now we're just waiting for the terminals😨.
The one month-or-so delay has in fact been a blessing in disguise, Dave has managed to get a lot more jobs sorted than we expected. On land is usually, much easier than in a roly anchorage and having the resources made available by Lelle has been invaluable.
Also, the wind was real strong last week, we wouldn't have wanted to be heading out into the Caribbean Sea in that.  We also need to do a day sail over to Curacao and spend a few days sorting out some more jobs ie fill gas bottles for cooking!  It seems to always be windier there and anchoring in those winds would not have been pleasant.
During that windy week, our white mosquito net quickly turned a lovely rust-brown colour.  This week's free newspaper revealed the reason being that sands from the Sahara Desert have been getting blown across the Atlantic! Apparently it happens every now and then.

The Saharan flavoured mosquito net!

With three weeks left on our visa, and the terminals still another 1-1&1/2 weeks away, we are trying our upmost not to panic and focus on the jobs we can get done!
Rudder.. the brain drain since we bought the boat 3 years ago: what to do with that gaping hole?

Dave whipped up a design, showed it to Lelle who said we could utilize some bits of stainless steel to cut from, get it all ready, then he could do the welding for us.

The curved stainless part Dave found and was allowed to cut up.

The six curved pieces required for the job.

Welding almost done.

The finished piece,attached to
the tiller arm.

We are massively relieved to find that his design fits well, not affecting movement at all and should minimize any water intake by following seas.  Another job well done by Dave!

The completed work of art.

Removal... with the prospect of the Panama Canal transit looming, we needed to do a test run on the removal of our bowsprit. Removing and stowing it on deck will take the length of our boat down to 43'.  Getting the length under 50'  will then save us US$500!!  That's two weeks of living/eating!

It's out, finally, now to swing it round without
smashing into the boat!

Posing while awaiting
instructions!

Stowed successfully on deck.

Our challenge was to do it all without leaving the boat because we need to know we can do it at anchor.
If we'd been at anchor on our practice run, we would have given to the sea:
2 spanners
Some pins
1 phone!!

Assessing the situation. 

With Easter here and not on the water yet, I decided to take up Lelle on his earlier offer of borrowing the ute.  So we are going to do a bit of tiki-touring!
Apparently, the island Easter tradition is open camping..but not as we know it.  More on that next time.

Happy Easter everyone!