How time has flown, here we are at the beginning of March and no blogging since Feb 2. My nails are covered in crazy glue drying slowly, so the typing is peckish.
The last of Guadeloupe has faded into the dim past, we will lleave it be.
On return we were faced with a good deal of maintencance and repair. First, as is sometimes the case after having Whit aboard, the windlass failed, this time for good. The motor, the reverse side of which is shorted out, wrung itself free of the driveshaft of the windlass. It had been binding badly for as few days previously. After some exploratory surgery, I declared it beyond repair and ordered a new one from Budget Marine in Jolly Harbour. During the two weeks it took to arrive, we tackled several other jobs
- refurbishment of the davits, with new bearings made up at the Slipway from delrin stock.
- tracking down and repairing the Cetrek auto pilot which has been intermittent in its duty since we have had the boat.
- removal, dismantling and repair of the watermaker, which ceased functioning shortly after our Guadeloupe tour. The damn thing was installed in such close quarters that we decided to reinstal it in a more convenient location, involving the drilling of a 3" hole in a bulkhead to accomodate the membrane enclosure. This latter job took nearly two days to complete, using two rechargeable drills in series, cooling them on ice between uses. All rather intense and non-conducive to blogging.
Finally, our new Lofrans Tigres windlass arrived and K and I installed it without serious incident, leaving a day of rest before the arrivaL of K's son Dan, Genevieve and Maya for a ten days holiday.
Five on Django is a bit of a challenge, and our guests are not sailors, so lots of learning needed inre water consumption, getting in and out of the dinghy and so on. But, however, they did very well and had a pretty good time messing about in English Harbour, hiking up to Shirley Heights, escorting a solo transatlantic rower into the harbour in the dinghy, horns a'blowing, and attending the start of RORC 600 Caribbean yacht race from Fort Carlotte across the way. They took over 400 photos, some of which you may see.
We made one foray out to Green Harbour for clean water to test the watermaker out, and to give a sea trial to the refurbished Cetrek autopilot. All worked very well indeed.
Later in the week, Jordy comes and we hope to make a run up to Barbuda for some lobsters.
