Sailing around the World. ( presently in the Coco's Keeling Islands , Indian Ocean )

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sat 25 Sep 2010 01:19
FRIDAY  24th  SEPTEMBER  2010
 
We had very strong winds all night along with plenty of rain and real heavy showers,
After a light breakfast, terry ferried Aileen and Neil ashore to D.I. as they wanted to relax on the beach,
Now , the wind was still honking, and as sure as eggs are eggs,  rally control cancelled the BBQ for tonight, the
reason for this decision was they could not get the food suppliers to ship the food across from West Island to D.I.
as the sea was too rough...
So bang goes our lovely BBQ and rescheduled to Sunday before the cheese and wine party over on West Island,
 
Skipper and Terry got into reparing and replacing  some of the items on board that were giving trouble,
first,  the pump for the galley sink. the diaphram had broken on the existing pump and all the waste water was just spilling into the bilge,
of course this caused a substantial stink,
Lucky for us, Our Mr Hugh Gibson at home had put an assortment of spare electrical pumps on board before we left Cork last year
and these have proved invaluable. so we dug out one of these spares and replaced the broken pump.
 
We then took the crystal "Aqua fresh" filter for the water from our starage tank, which had a little crack in the side of it for ages and was also
leaking into the boat.  It was not a huge leak, but none the less , it was a leak, loosing water on the boat is not good, and of course it put more pressure on the bilge pumps , and all these things add up to more wear and tear on the boats equipment and eventually shortning their lives.
 
We repaired the filter with metal putty, This putty comes usually in a roll , 1/2" thick and two cores , you cut off the required amount and kneed
the cores together untill there is a uniform colour and then apply to the damaged item.  In less than an hour it will be as hard as steel
and can be cut, filed , sanded or shaped ..absolutly great stuff on a boat.  It will stick anything to anything. and in this case, did the
job and repaired the leak,, 
 
Then we spent the next two hours cleaning out the bilges,  ohhhh what a dose ! but we got there and finally sprinkled some
peppermint essance into the bilge to give that fresh feeling to the place.
 
Terry went ashore to join the others, while Dave from " Voyageur"  came over to " A Lady " and sorted out the dept alarm problems
we were having with our instruments. That was a relief, as we were really worried that there was something seriously
wrong here.
 
16.30hrs,,  Skipper and Terry went ashore to the Skippers briefing for the next leg,  this was held on D.I. and was followed by a few beers and
Emilio from " Kallopie" provided some whiskey for good measure. It waqs all very enjoyable and we returned later to the sweet smelling boat
where Aileen had cooked a mince curry with rice,  yum, yum,
We wolfed down the food,  Neil was collected by the younger members and taken off to the beach for the night.
 
We had another early night, but happy that we achieved a lot today..
Oh, and Cork won the Football final, we had to get that info from Niall in Dublin,  Well done Cork, its been a long time.
 
Thats all for today.
 
Signed :-    Stephen Hyde,    ( skipper )