Can We Bring This Boat Back To Life?

Let the boat work begin!  And, the first item of business…transportation, aka the dinghy, aka Minion.

Our poor dinghy has become a mold factory sitting underneath our sailboat for the past year.  And our engine has been attached the whole time.  Not ideal to say the least.  She is going to need a lot of work to bring her back to life.  Luckily, our enthusiasm to (finally) be home and get our boat back in her natural element (floating on water) is providing us with a lot of motivation.

RIB Restoration

The cleaning products were sent to us by Highfield (the manufacture of our dinghy, thanks guys!) and are not sold in the USA (at least not that I could find).  They are Blue Marine cleaning products specially developed to clean and care for ORCA fabrics.  They worked well considering the state of poor Minion.  I have tried the 3M products along with some others we’ve picked up at West Marine and other chandleries along the way.  I can’t say it was a drastic difference from other products, but the Mold and Mildew stain remover did work better than anything I’ve tried so far.   I went through 2 bottles of the cleaner, 2 bottles of the mold remover and 1 bottle of the protectant to get her looking presentable.  All that, plus a few magic erasers, and endless hours of scrubbing.

Fuel Water Separator Filter

Don’t you know they don’t sell the same exact filter in the USA either?!  The one sold in the USA is the metal version, which is fine but, it will no doubt rust and is single-use.  Still, it’s better than the big Racor version we’ve seen where you throw away a big plastic filter and housing with each change.  The one we purchased has a tiny replaceable filter and easy drain valve which totally won us over.

New E-bikes

Technically they are a year old now (been sitting in our shipping crate) but still spankin’ new to us.  We ordered them after much debate. They are NOT perfect and you must know I recommend them with many reservations.

But so far, we’re thrilled to have them.  They are the smallest, lightest (34 lbs), most compact folding e-bikes we could find.

The Bad – The bike is not ideal for taller or heavier individuals. It struggles to maintain speed when climbing hills and depending on your weight, slows to almost a stop if it’s really steep. It has a responsive but not reliable on a steep downhill rear brake. The seat is uncomfortable for long rides. It has a limited range of 17 miles (because of no pedals).

The Good – The E-Bike doesn’t have pedals, a chain, or cassette (less to rust and maintain). The bike can fold down and fit in almost any of our large storage lockers (main deciding factor) and easy to load up in the dinghy.  They are really affordable for an e-bike…but you get what you pay for.

If we had a bigger dry storage locker that could have fit our Blix E-Bikes…we would have loaded those up in our crates.  We absolutely love those bikes and miss not having them.  If you have the room, go for a Blix or similar quality.  You will never need to rent another island car and they are a helluva good time!

Romantic Island Bungalow

A big thank you to our friends Kjell, Adriana, and their extremely sweet dinosaur-loving son Kristian for hosting us at Mystic Sands.  It has been the most relaxing place to be while we de-mold and get our home livable again.  We owe you guys A LOT of Tepache.

🙏THANK YOU!

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