Rodney Bay
Moonbeam
David and Lynn Wilkie
Sat 15 Jan 2011 02:06
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The Marina is a good one and not too hot in that a
breeze does blow through although it is still seriously hot. ( 32 degrees in the
cabin ) The staff are pretty friendly and each section of the marina has its own
dockmaster and ours is called Nigel Rodney! I am not sure if his dad is a local
or he changed his name by St.Lucian Deed Poll but it seems very suitable- if you
want him you call "November Romeo" on the VHF!
I took the Autopilot rotary drive to the agents on
Monday and told them parts they needed. They looked at it on Wednesday and asked
me what the problem was and by Friday lunchtime they did not know if they could
get parts ( bad weather in the USA ) so I recovered the unit. On Wednesday I
took our empty gas bottle to be refilled but unfortunately the lorry that comes
to fill the bulk tank had broken down so on Friday afternoon I recovered the
still empty bottle!...we will have to get used to this service.
However on Wednesday I installed a blower into the
engine compartment to try and lower the engine room temperature -- it has not
been a problem in Scotland! Hopefully this will improve the efficiency of the
charging system! I also tackled the autopilot hydraulic linear drive and
stripped and cleaned the bypass valve and drained out all the hydraulic fluid.
To my amazement there was half a cup of "crud" in the header tank; presumably
from the oil breaking down so hopefully after a flush and new oil it should be
much improved.
Thursday saw more boat jobs and a spell following
the customs agent around while he cleared in the replacement masthead Lopo
navigation light.
Everywhere you go someone will do your laundry and
as we had a lot of bedding and towels to do we gave our business to "Mr.Sparkle"
who comes round by dinghy. His henchman told us he was Scottish as his name was
McCoy and to prove it he turned up in his "See You Jimmy" hat just for our
benefit!
 So the minutae of life goes on - but it is much
hotter!
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