Tuesday, 27th July 2010
Ohhh, bloody hell, it was a wet and windy morning (sometimes I wonder if the readers of this blog notice that when I am tired or fed up with something else, that the blog suffers, mostly by being very short or light on the information) and right now, I am struggling to stay awake, sooooooo who knows...
It was great to hear from Roddy, Michelle (as always), Anne, Judith, Arnaud, Dave Meagher, Marrion, Ronan, and more.
Anyway, Aileen remained in the scratcher for most of the morning, while Chris the electrician and electronics guy spent some time on the boat sorting out bits and pieces, but as the weather was so wet, he could not do what we really wanted.
The parts for the generator did not arrive until after lunch. So then Mark reappeared on A Lady and started a process of elimination on the "Govenor", bit by bit, he chipped away at the engine and by 17.30hrs he had the confounded thing running very nicely, purring like a cat.
Mark, as a good mechanic, said he would be back at 07.00 hrs in the morning to test the thing when it was all cold, so we had to let the batteries run down in the meantime. This was to allow him to evaluate the voltage input from the generator when we start it up. I said before, at the start of this cruise last May, that we would be expert mechanics, expert navigators, expert electricians, expert engineers, expert fix what ever the feck, by the time we completed the trip... actually, I think we will qualify with masters degree's in just about everything. Christ, I nearly forgot the drink, and the cooking.
We met Mike from Jeannius, moored next to us on the marina. He was totally dejected as his generator had a broken crank shaft, and was therefore going to have to get a new generator. That's boats...... nothing but ............... ahhhhhh well, sure we love it all. At least, ours had only small problems in comparison. ...........well that's our thinking today, god only knows what will happen tomorrow!
19.00hrs Aileen and Skipper got a taxi to "the church" restaurant on Palmer street (about 15 mins drive). Ohhh this was just super doper. The food was excellent, despite the fact that they had a huge crowd, and were under pressure all night. This was all as result of a "Mining" conference in Mackay for 3 days. A bit like an Expo, and of course the city was jammed pact with guests.
We did not have a very late night, as we are exhausted from all the bleeding activity.
So, an early trip to the scratcher, (23.39 hrs) crash zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
That's it for now.
Signed :- Stephen Hyde ( Skipper )