30/6/08  09:00

Last night after diner there was suddenly a terrible smell of burning.  We thought it was the freezer water cooling pump which had seized previously but which Steve managed to get going again.  It turned out to be the voltage regulator which means both the fridge and freezer regulators have blown up in the last couple of weeks.  The lead time for replacements is 7 weeks, so we’ll have to improvise.

Both helm positions have a remote control for the anchor.  This control has an internal battery which had failed on one and nearly failed on the other.  The manual cautions saying the units must be returned to the factory for changing the battery.  This is of course impractical so I bought two new units at no small cost.  Of course examining the failed units out of curiosity it became obvious that anyone could change the battery, so now we have two unexpected spares.

11:00

We had another visit to town.  The wind has reduced considerably and the pass wasn’t nearly as lively as yesterday.  While we were gone Steve connected both the Fridge and the Freezer to the same water cooling pump which is running at the full 12 volts rather than 5 the regulator uses, but seems happy.

Yesterday Demetri did some test shots with our new underwater wide angle lens and filter with some bizarre results.  We have a Nikon CoolPix 5000 in a special housing which cost more than the camera.  Later today he’s going to have a go with our underwater video set-up.