The two folding bikes that have been sitting in our garage for almost a year are now onboard, safely strapped into place by Mr C in the port aft cabin. Those, along with 5 spare fuel and water containers, we had a car full this morning. Dean’s vacuumed packed some of his shirts to save on space and they’ve been packed away under the bed, and some of Linda’s clothes have taken their new place in the other aft cabin wardrobe. We spent the rest of the afternoon fitting two more coat hooks, plus checking charts and the cruising almanac for prospective routes to St Malo.
Dean's going to be doing some reading it seems
Think Linda needs more hangers
Hope these shirts don't get too creased, no irons allowed
Extra coat hooks in the aft cabins
Sunday
4th February… Day 2 of the weekend brought bright sunshine
to Gosport, but it was still very chilly with a North Westerly wind averaging
17 knots. Thesee’s facing south at the moment, and so that means the wind was
blowing into the companionway. During the night we had our homemade protective
plastic sheet in place to keep the wind out, but Dean was still cold in bed. He
should follow Linda's example and put bed socks on. She was snug as a bug.
First job of the day was reinforcing the four bow
and stern cleats. Like I said it was chilly being outside but we were well
wrapped up. Dean’s made some backing plates for extra strength, should we ever
need to be towed or to launch the para-anchor. His next job was taking photos
of the mast. He’s thinking of putting extra mast steps in, but the ones he
likes are real expensive.
Here's the skipper in the sail locker reinforcing the starboard bow cleat
Meanwhile, and keeping warm inside, Linda and
Saffy were practising knots. Already competent in the Bowline and the Rolling
Hitch, Linda has now added a Water Knot (Double Overhand Bend), and a Double
Sheet Bend to the list. Charlie, I hope you’re taking note. How many can you
tie?
The making of a Double Overhand Bend
....and here's the Double Sheet Bend
It was a good ebaying day, Dean cunningly winning
the bidding on a Spear Gun. He says it’s Linda’s birthday present…. he’d better
be joking. Also today, Dean carried out some servicing on the engine, changing
the primary and secondary diesel filters, changing the oil and oil filter, plus
the gearbox oil.
Linda finally got some practise in with the
boathook. We went out later on to collect the Spear Gun. 'William Tell' insisted
on taking photos when we arrived back onboard. Not sure Linda was too happy
about that.
Whatever next??
Monday 5th February... Who set an alarm to go off at midnight? Not us, it was the gas safety alarm beeping and waking us up. Dean of course was up and out of bed first. Linda just raising her head occasionally to see if any help was required. We couldn't smell gas and Dean managed to silence the alarm. All was quiet after that until after breakfast, when it decided to keep going off and on at its own convenience. Obviously there's a fault, which we hope a spray of WD40 has fixed, as the alarm has been silent now for about three hours. Maybe it's just waiting for us to go to bed again before playing games with us.
There wasn't much to do today really. The main job was double checking the measurements for the new house batteries which we'll be ordering as soon as we get home.
Under the floorboards... the engine starter battery , plus two of the house batteries
Linda spent a good few hours researching Brittany's north coast ports and anchorages. There were charts, pilot books, and almanacs all over the saloon. Apparantly, Trégurier is a place not to be missed, so that's definately on the agenda.
Dean got the liferaft out of the locker. We're going to drop it in for a service tomorrow. Can't believe three years have passed since we purchased it. We have some flares that need disposing of so hopefully we can get rid of those at the same time. There's not many places that will take them off you these days.
Roll on summertime and warm weather xxx
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