Position           44:08.26N 068:55.29W

Date                Friday 17 August 2012

Dovka and we went ashore in Rockland, Elizabeth going off by taxi with Sid and Rebecca to a supermarket whilst I bunked off to the chandlers to try and find bits to link our Garmin handheld GPS into a PC.  The main GPS has developed a fault in that it is not supplying data to the VHF and SSB radios and I was concerned that we might be about to embark on a few days complicated island dodging without a chart plotter if that side ceased to work as well.  In theory of course I had all the necessary leads but when actually linking the various bits up I ended up with two males trying to couple.  It may be legal but it is no use when linking data cables.

Well we both succeeded, I got the correct Garmin lead, with a suitable female end, and the Mate returned with enough provisions to fill the dinghy.

Dovka elected to head south for the night and we eventually eased our way across to North Haven Island and anchored in Bartlett Harbor; a small lobster fishing community that we had not visited before.

Techie bit - I may have mentioned previously that our water maker was not functioning on 24 volts, something that is very useful when we are motoring as we can make water for no noticeable additional cost.  Fortunately the 220v side has been working correctly; it just requires the generator to be running.  Initially I thought that this was a problem with salt water starvation at the water maker or air being drawn into the salt water manifold when running the main engine.  Eventually I realised that it was the freewheel clutch linking the 24 volt motor to the pump that had ceased to work.  I also found out that there was a fault in the design of the original clutches so I had taken the precaution of ordering two replacements for delivery to Camden, one for the 24v side and one for the 220v side.  It is just as well as today the 220v clutch ceased to work.  We are really dependant for independent living to be able to keep producing fresh water from the sea so just in time ordering has worked; just in time.