Gearbox removed

Jigsaw
Mon 10 Sep 2007 17:12
Jose, the engineer, turned up this morning at about 11am and swiftly removed the gearbox before disappearing along the pontoon with it under his arm. Impressive performance, no fuss or bother, all done in about 40 minutes. He found a piece on the engine room floor that looks as if it should be part of the gearbox, so that may be the source of the problem. Having the engine open and the boat in bits provoked a flurry of deep bilge cleaning, the like of which has never been seen on Jigsaw. We went as far as washing out the main bilges with bilge cleaner and water, rinsing it all through with the pontoon hose. This is the reality of the cruising life, scrubbing three year old oil out of out of the bottom of ones boat and wandering around with carrier bags full of very smelly oily rags. The upside is that the boat no longer smells of old diesel and fish, which is a definate plus.
 
Hopefully gearbox will be replaced as effeicently as it was removed permitting us to sail on from Peniche. We need to start going south towards the Algarve as Mary and the girls fly from Faro to Manchester on the 27th, returning from London on 9th October, allowing this years Dad's Afloat to take place in the Algarve from 5th to 9th of October. I think that it is Monday 10th September today so that gives us two weeks to do the trip down there.