27th January, 2014

St Lucia

 

Lots of jobs to do over the next few days with a little playtime thrown in.

 

Unfortunately John had to pop back to Toronto for a few days (pesky real life keeps getting in the way of playtime!). Almost as soon as we had landed and had checked in with immigration John was surfing the internet for flights back to Toronto for the next day.   ..leaving Les, Cathy, Bob and Bob to play in the sun and explore St Lucia.

By mid- morning of the 24th John was leaving for the airport.

 

This of course left the rest of the guys to help sort out the myriad of little jobs that needed to be looked – no time to play yet!

We needed to sort out..

- The loud hailer halfway up the mast that had come free from it’s mounting half way across the Atlantic and temporarily lassoed with halyards. 

- The shackle on the spinnaker uplift halyard that had failed twice!

- Repair the vertical baton that had broken in the mail sail.

- Fix the genoa furling with the loose screw that had stopped the genoa from unfurling.

- Fix the pin on the jib forestay that kept trying to work loose and cut the split pin in two.

- Fix the gooseneck for the pole which kept stressing the split pins from being assembled incorrectly.

- Figure out why the watermaker didn’t start FIRST TIME every time.

- Wash the boat down.

- Polish the boat.

- Arrange to lift the boat and check the prop that didn’t seem to be opening smoothly.

- Arrange for new anodes to be fitted.

- Laundry, washing and cleaning of the internal parts of the boat.

...plus few more things that I can’t remember at the time of writing!

 

hmmm... be a while before the crew can go out to play!

 

But play time did arrive.

Most of the jobs have now been sorted and the guys explored the island, the rain forest and a few bars and restaurants.

 

By Monday morning it was time to pack for more flights back to Canada and leave Les on her own for some well deserved downtime for a few days before John gets back to the boat.