Finding and fixing leaks
Sowell Family's Travels on Gijima
Skipper: Tim Sowell Admiral Tracy Crew Sean & Alex
Sat 31 Jul 2010 05:33
tradition here, but it is nice as it freshens and makes the evening nice.
But we see the odd deck leak come through, and we note them down and then
make a fix during the day and test again. Today I did to leak fixes, one
seams to have worked the other I reduced the amount but it is still getting
in, that one is going to be difficult, without redoing the hatch, but it is
just a drip now, big improvement, so we keep trying.
But I really appreciate our cockpit for two big reasons:
1/ The whole cover provides us the rain protection by easily dropping the
Izen glass sides, and rolling up in the day, and it is really dry, so you
can sit in it, and watch everyone else getting wet and having to go below.
2/ Plus the mosquito net that fits completely over the outside, provides
great bug protection.
The whole design took months and trial and error, but to sit here as the
storm goes through, and be dry, and bug free is a pleasure and reward for
the hours we put in. Like with so many things on Gijima (which we basically
rebuilt our way over the last 10 years) the functionality has worked as we
planned.
Today after Sean had done school work in the morning, he joined me for a fun
afternoon of:
1/ Being towed at high speed behind the dinghy on a blow up board, he loved
it, we still need to refine the board.
2/ Then he asked if he could go sailing so we put the sails into the
Walkerbay and off we went for a 45 minute sail around the boats up the
stream. He steered a lot of the way reading the wind and angles this was a
major improvement on the last couple of trips, so we will keep this up here.
3/ His island friend Rodney came over and swam in the pool with him, it was
good to see them playing, tomorrow I will take him over to island to play
soccer. Rodney is 2 years older than Sean, and has as much English and Sean
Spanish but they communicate and enjoy the company, it will be good for Sean
to develop with him, over the next 2 months it will improve his Spanish.
The days a busy here, between work on the boat, and some work for Invensys,
and then kids education, the day goes fast, but I have dedicated at least an
hour a day to reading, which I am loving always have but usually do not give
it the time, but it is an ideal way to escape, and both Tracy and I are
finding good books mainly biographies and eating them up. It is something we
must maintain even when we seem not to have time, now we do it when the boys
are sleeping.