On Tuesday captain's tooth chipped off. Not a catastrophe really, but this spring we were visiting our dentist very frequently to make sure all our teeth are fixed and we wouldn't have to search for a dentist in some unfamiliar country. So he had to make another appointment, luckily it was already next day. Hope that this was the last one, but it still delayed us for half a day.
And here is a sad story about my new cooker for the boat, that begun already in March, but culminated last week. You might have notice that on every photo of Heron's galley there is a hole where the cooker should be (well, hole with some random things we didn't know where else to put).
My old cooker was already 14 years old and it survived 6 seasons of charter before we got it with the boat in 2010. Not to mention that it was also heavily used while we had it. The burners started to corrode and were chipping off, the electric ignition didn't work, the grill was corroding as well, the knobs were pretty worn down, so we wished to repair some things and make it better and prettier. We contacted the cooker manufacturer, which is Eno from France and they let us know that they do not produce spare parts for our model any more. So I decided I shall have a new one, after all cooker is one of the most heavily used pieces of equipment on our boat. I studied different models and types and it was really hard, because it is difficult to find any reliable information. All the manufacturers state that their product is the best, so that doesn't help much. And among the sailors the cookers are not the most talked about topics in forums, there are very few that have tried or owned different models of cookers so they could compare them, or they are so in love with their own boat including the cooker, even when they are ancient, that there is no room for any objective opinion. After a lot of comparing I figured I want an all stainless steel one, with good oven with thermostat, three burners and of course it have to approximately fit into its space and gimbals. And I thought - why not have another Eno Bretagne again, it would fit exactly, and the newer model is better, more modern and prettier than the old one was. So I wanted to order one, but it turned out that cookers are heavy, they have glass door, so they are difficult to transport, so even many on-line shops that are selling such a cooker wouldn't ship to Slovenija. Needles to say, I was not able to buy it locally, it is way too exotic for a small Slovenian market. After a bit of frustration with ordering, captain decided we would buy the cooker in German Segelladen and organise the transport ourselves. That was in second half of March. Initial information that we got was that the cooker would be available in 7-10 days. After couple of weeks we contacted them and asked if the cooker was ready. The answer was that they are very sorry, but the cooker is going to be shipped to them in third week of May. By that time we already knew our departure was not going to be before end of May, so we didn't panic too much. On fourth week of May we contacted them again, they said sorry, there is some more delay, the cooker will be available in the beginning of June. We contacted them again last week, and they said, it will be any day now. Then we got a mail this past Wednesday, that the cooker got lost during transport, but we could choose another model from their shop or order another Eno Bretagne, which will take another 6-8 weeks. And they are sorry, but it isn't their fault, because it got lost between the manufacturer and central German distribution center. Ok, maybe it wasn't them who lost the thing (that by the way weighs 34 kilos and is transported on a pallet), but to have such a bad control over ordered items is shocking. After initial shock we realised we needed to act quick or we will have to put our old sad cooker back into the galley. We checked what is available fast and meets most of my criteria, so on Friday we ordered Techimpex Deluxe with 3 burners from SVB (another German company, hopefully better organised and run), they have it on stock and they do ship to Slovenija, and now we are hoping it will arrive soon. And that Segelladen will return our money soon, as well. I know, we were way too patient about it, but with another 1376 project we had to do, this one wasn't always in our focus.
The thing that weighs on us the heaviest is our fridge - it just stopped working. I think I might have jinxed it by writing so cocky about how great it works and boasting how well we made it in my last post. The water pump, that was giving us the hard time, was replaced some time ago and is working well, the compressor is also still working, it just stops after couple of seconds with error: high pressure. We're hoping it could just be the pressure of gas inside the system that is too high and it worked before when the temperatures were lower, but not in the heath that we're having now. If it means any blockage or leakage, we will need to take apart half of the galley and we're dreading it already. Another thing is that it is not easy to get a fridge expert to diagnose the problem fast, hopefully we'll get some help next week. We can't leave without a fridge.
We do have a backup system, that is air-cooled and is working well...
And now we could really use a very good week for a change!
You are way overdue for a much better week!
ReplyDeleteYou two have been working so hard to have everything ready.
Fingers crossed the time is close for you to be on your way and looking back and laughing at all this.