Up early as usual, again a lot of rain during the night.
08.00hrs two blokes came to clean the diesel tank, to remove the existing 400L and polish the inside of the tank.
We had to dismantle half of the saloon to get at the tanks, but in the end it was worth all the effort, we could almost see ourselves in the tank when they were finished ( it took the whole morning ), and the stuff that came out was hard to believe. Its a wonder the engine worked at all.
Donal went off and did some more provisioning while Aileen did a bit of local exploring. Shops in particular. Skipper got the Derick working again, even though "Cooney Marine" sent some wrong parts and so on, however skipper is not totally happy with the derick. as its still making a lot of funny noises.
Later we had the SSB looked at again, they replaced the ariel and looked at some of the groundings, but could not get it working at all, and eventually admitted that we would have to wait untill we reached Australia to get it sorted.. blast, what a dissapointment. However, we got here without it, so we are really no worse off.
A & S had a light lunch on the marina in lovely conditions, later we returned to the boat where Aileen finished her packing for the homeward trip tonight, and Donal had his siesta, Skipper cleaned out the lazarette when the electricians were finished.
18.00hrs Aileen and Stephen had a farewell dinner ashore before taking a taxi to the Airport for Aileens flight, first to LA and then onto London and from there to Dublin, arriving on Friday 7th.Meanwhile Donal entertained, Jochem, Jutta, and Tom from "Chessie" on board " A Lady". They are such lovely easy going poeple and never in a rush anywhere. Nearly always the last boat to arrive at our destinations.
Later, skipper called into the "Intercontinantal Hotel" and met Bill and Rosmary from "Crazy Horse" we had a few beers and watched a local show of dancing vibrating women .. WOW grab that! Bill is having problems with his "Sundeer 60" also, the muffler (exhaust in our language) on their engine disintegrated yesterday as they left the harbour, and also have propeller problems, so they had to get the boat hauled out of the water and therefore decided to stay in the hotel
untill things get sorted out. They drove Skipper back to the Marina and after a night cap, we all went our seperate ways.
That's it for now,
Stephen Hyde (Skipper)