Sailing around the World. ( Presently in Mackay, Australia, )
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Wed 28 Jul 2010 22:44
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WEDNESDAY 28th
JULY 2010
07.00hrs,, Still blooming
raining, But as we said before, its their winter down here,
We got " Michelle", ( Aileens sister ) on the Skype
video this morning, We can only do this on the laptop when we are in
Port,
07.30hrs Mark arrieved on board and we
started up the generator, It sounded good, He fine tuned the engine and
by 10.00hrs the whole thing was running like a
sewing machine, Thats the first time it has worked properly since the "
Panama Canal"
We are making progress, another thing off the
list,
Mark then examined the hydrolic connections to the
headsail under the deck in the anchor locker up forward, These were totally
rusted,
they were replaced at some stage with just
steel fittings, Its hard to belive that anyone could do this in an area that
spends most of the time
under water, and salt water at that, so these have
to be replaced, another thing onto the list.
11.30hrs we took the semi ridgit over to the
dock to have that repaired, We tore the ass out of it in " Tanna" when we
ran up on a coral reef
at full speed and 4 people on board, Of course it
was dark at the time, so we could not see the reefs, and we had crossed
this path lots
of times in the previous few days,, just one of
those things,
The spinnikers are all repaired, another thing off
the list, and to be sure, to be sure that this would not happen again, we got
a rigger to go aloft and tape up any snags up
there, and examine the rig while he is up there, Also asked him to replace
the outhaul on the mainsail.
He also suggested we put the jib sheets into a
bucket of clothes softner, this he said, would make them nice and plyable. thats
a new one for us...
We also had to get a fridge man to look at our
fridge, the blinkin thing thing has gone beserk and is more like a cold store
than a fridge.
just solid ice, even the milk is solid in the
mornings, all this happened after we defrosted the thing when we arrieved in
Mackay.
another thing on the list.. anyway, it seems
it is the thermostat in the fridge itself and is easily repaired. He will have
it done tomorrow,
14.00hrs Skipper took off to the
airport and collected a rent a car and returned to the shopping mall ,
met Aileen and did our grocery
shopping for the next month.... no more than that,
as we will have to dump any food we have on board again when we get to
Thursday Island......... T.I. is up close to the NE
corner of Australia, about 1000 miles from here. but we will cruise the
Whit Sunday Islands,
Cairns, Port Douglas, and lots of other places on
the way. We hope this blinking weather improves in the
meanwhile.
19.00hrs We returned to the boat, still very damp,
and stored all the provisions on board, By the way, we learnt a new thing
to day in the cookery shop
at the shopping mall, Olive oil is very bad for
roasting meat , It will destroy any roasting tray and is not good for our
health either.
Later we went to the Clarion Hotel on the marina
and had a meal, yeah, it was ok.Of course we met some of the others
there and had a pleasent evening before returning to the boat and catching up
with the blog and all the emails.
We got up a grib file, ( thats for looking at the
weather on the computer ) and things look very poor all around this part of the
SW pacific,
We will have to send our family ambassidor
( Aileen ) to say a few prayers , talk to your man above and sort this
out. Amen
We have had lots of chats with our old friends
from Mallow, Johnny and Mary Horgan over the last few days,
Do you remember Jim Ahern's fathers saying, "
remember well and bear in mind, a trusted friend is hard to find, and when you
find one
good and true, never part them for the new."
............. we think that is a great saying.
Thats all for today
Signed :- Stephen
Hyde ( Skipper )
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