The boats all back together now, the engine runs sweet as a nut. I threw away 25gallons of fuel and topped the tank with fresh fuel, not before spending the day upto my armpits in deisel tank scrubbing it clean and getting all the sludge out! I changed the filters and off she went sounding much nicer than she did before. I even changed the oil and topped up the transmition fluid, very good indeed.

I also overhauled the anchor situation, I now have 150ft of new 3/8” chain in the anchor locker, enough for a generous 10-1 scope and a size up on what I had before, I also have 140ft of rope and 20ft of chain on that as my manually deployed anchor, heavy duty stuff, I'm going to get a new anchor a size to big when I get to Lauderdale but will make do with whats on board for now.

So now I'm sat here with fuel and water in the tanks, food in the fridge and the weathers turned a bit foul. I've met Pierre and Valarie who are also off to Ft Lauderdale and so this time we're going to head out together, heading back to Chub Cay and onto the banks before crossing the gulf stream. It'll be nice to do it in company but Valarie suffers with Sea sickness and wont leave before the weather turns nice again. Mind you, it's was gusting 30knts in the Harbor last night and it's not been much better today, so I probably wouldn't go anyway. We're hoping to catch the last of this system to push us up to Chub on Wednesday at the moment, then on to the banks in nice calm warm weather.

I've given up all hope of leaving on time, I'm guessing mid June at the mo but can't really say, there's nothing for it but to sit and wait, it'll take as long as it takes. Thats the beauty of boating though eh?