19122011 Chicken
After a morning of pottering about Peter takes to
walking while Lars and I bike into
town in search of a “Hole in the Wall” to get cash for our
imminent Diesel purchase, some waterproofing spray for
our recently laundered jackets, and a Chicken.
But first we stop in the “Office” for Lunch, a beer and a
Blog session on the now working Internet link.
It’s a nice sunny day as we make our way up the hill to
the main shopping street. We leave the bikes outside the Town Hall, and search
for the Bank on foot,
then into one of the bigger “Sports” shops where we find
our spray.
Back on the bikes down the hill onto the main road, we
head for the supermarket. As we pass the Aerolineas Argentinas office I decide
to go and pay for my ticket
as it’s just re-opened at four and it may be quite. While
Lars carries on I park the bike and to my consternation the office if full to
overflowing.
Undeterred I pick a queue ticket to find I’m number 63
and their on 44!
Patience is rewarded and just before they close at 5
extra staff appears and I’m directed to a room at the rear of the
counter.
Here a very helpful English speaking young lady hears my
tale of woe and sorts out my ticket with instructions to give me full
international travel baggage allowance
on the “local” leg of the flight from Ushuaia to Buenos
Aires.
Just hope it works as the local allowance is one bag of
20kg compared with 2 bags of 23kg internationally!
Returning to base a chicken the size of a Turkey sits on
the worktop. “The smallest they had” says Lars. We reckon it’s about 5lbs+ and
is cooked on that basis.
Peter makes a nice sauce for the Leeks and I enquire
about “Gravy?”
I set about spraying my jacket whereupon its freshly
laundered scent is replaced by the smell of petro-chemicals, as it’s given a
liberal application of waterproofing agent.
At the call to dinner it’s considered to smelly to be
brought in and is left outside to dry and hopefully lose some of its
potency.
So with roast potatoes and carrots, leeks in a white
sauce, chicken breast and gravy we all tuck in, accompanied by a selection from
our newly stocked wine cellar.
The rest was a bit underdone as we’d evidently under
calculated the weight of the bird and the heat of the oven so it’s returned for
another session.
20122011 Repairs
1000 and the men of welding appears with their trolley
loaded with equipment. Their soon cutting off the bent stanchion and as it’s
free the top rail spring back up
to its correct height. After a bit of trial trying to get
it out the deck mount it’s free and the new one, cut to fit, is being welded in
place.
Cutting
away
Bent bit
After polishing up the weld the whole job is over within
a couple of hours and a very neat job it is.
At Pesos 450 we reckon good value for money and hope that
the skipper of the S/Y Vagamali that hit us also thinks so!
TIG-welding
The new bit
Through the wonderful offices of Roxanna she organises
transport and empty 40gallon fuel drums for us to purchase our 800
litres.
We have been cleaning out the “Gas Locker” in the
morning. It’s pretty grotty as the drain holes have become blocked allowing it
to fill with water and the
small metal gas containers have rusted contributing to
the mess.
Lars has to clear out the main deck locker to access and
take apart the blocked plumbing while I manhandle to hosepipe to flush them
out.
In the meantime we get the call that the truck on its way
to pick up Peter, the drums and our gas bottle we want to refill at the same
time.
We get chatting to a “biker” on the dock who is making
enquires about Skip Novak (Well known for Antarctic expeditions over many years)
and when he and his boat are arriving.
He is John Brinkers, a Dutchman who lives in Southampton,
who is a sail maker.
Johns
dictionary
Rented bike.
Having hired a motorbike in Buenos Aires he has ridden
the 3500 kilometres from there to Ushuaia and regales us with tales of the
trip.
When queried on his linguist skills he produces a piece
of paper with some half dozen phrases on it in Spanish which he assures us was
all he needed get by!!
Peter and fuel arrive dropped off by the club. Now the
fun starts as we have to trolley the drums down the jetty to
“Dawnbreaker.”
After some considerable effort if not risk to life and
limb all four drums are alongside and we break to regain our strength with lunch
and a beer.
Diesel
delivered
Out on the Jetty
There is a Polish yacht alongside us who very kindly lend
us their hand pump (Better than sucking and siphoning!) and we take it turns of
a barrel each to wind
the pump for the 25 minutes it takes to empty one barrel.
Eventually it’s all transferred and its time to turn our attention that other
barrel hanging astern, curtsey of the Beagle Brewery.
The pump
assembled
Pumping away
By now the mountains are disappearing as low blackening
clouds descend over their peaks. Then the thunder starts followed by
rain.
The heaters turned on and we retire to happy hour, dinner
and our books
Rain is coming
Bob the Blog
