Good news and bad news

Scott-Free’s blog
Steve & Chris
Fri 27 Aug 2010 18:00
Good news first  - the fridge/freezer is working again and the replacement gear box for the autopilot drive arrived yesterday, a day earlier than expected.
 
Bad news - it doesn't fit.  The Raymarine agent contacted Lewmar in the UK to discuss it with them only to be told that the one guy who knows about these things had just gone off on holiday for two weeks.  So, worried that we would be held up by a couple of weeks we phoned them ourselves and it transpires the guy has gone away to Sweden for work, but it's only for the weekend and he will be back on Tuesday.  So it seems that nothing can be done about it till then, but at least it shouldn't be two weeks.  We do not want to stay here until the end of next week, which is what it will be by the time another one can be sent, so we have told them to sort it out and get the part sent to Gibraltar.  We have contacted the Raymarine people there and they are expecting us.
 
More good news - Apparition and Wind Machine arrived yesterday and it was good to see Jackson & Rico and Michelle and Jim and catch up on their news.  We met up in the eveing and went for a Chinese meal in a restaurant not far from the boats.  Once again we picked their brains about the Caribbean and the ICW - they are a wonderful source of information and advice, as well as really nice folk, and we had a very enjoyable evening.  It did not end late though, as they had done a night passage the previous night and there was some polite but frequent yawning going on!
 
L-R Michelle, Jackson, Rico, Steve. Jim
 
We had planned to leave here tomorrow, but as we haven't had a chance to visit Granada and the Alhambra Palace (because of hanging around the boat for workers to turn up), we have decided to put it off for a day and are going for a trip inland tomorrow instead.  We will leave for Gibraltar on Sunday.