St Barth's 2

Wandering Dream
Steve Litson
Fri 13 Feb 2015 19:24

Gustavia, St Barthelemy
Friday 13th February

A Screw Loose
Denis found a large screw on top of the upturned dinghy on deck. On further investigation we discovered that three of the four screws holding the spinnaker pole end in place had unscrewed and dropped out. Strange as we had used an adhesive designed to stop corrosion between the aluminium pole and the stainless steel screws. On the Atlantic crossing three of the screws had sheered off and we had to have them drilled out by Melvyn at Powerboats. No problem, we thought as we merrily trotted off the the chandlery. Not straight forward, Melvyn had used AF thread screws, only metric available here. I knew I had some metric thread cutting taps on board, luckily on checking we had M6 and could replace the screws. Stuck them with Loctite and Gaffa tape on top. Not pretty but it should keep them in. Fingers crossed!

Sinking Boat
No not us! But barely two hundred metres away they were working hard either to refloat or stop sinking a power boat. More food for my anxiety. Just relax, it is not us, I keep telling myself.

Wind Scoop
The trusty old wind scoop which we have repaired many times has now given up the ghost. It is a fabric scoops that fits on top of the hatch and scoops wind down into WD. Last night's fluttering has ripped a piece right out of the middle. It is now officially beyond repair. We have tried to find a replacement at each chandlery but the best we can do is a Breeze Booster. This fits the centre hatch, but poor Denis is sweltering forward of this. May be we can get one brought out from England?

Fresh Water
Knot Bill ( he really disliked it) amongst others, will be delighted to hear our water tanks taste as fresh as spring water now. In St Lucia, we emptied them yet again and refilled and low and behold the taste has gone. We have been plagued by strange tasting water since filling up in Rabat. We have treated the water several times with Aqua Clean a silver chloride based product which is supposed to make your water last for a year. Perseverance has paid off. Fortunately, we were not made ill by the water, but it didn't taste great and when it is hot, one consumes a lot. I have become a dab hand at making lemon squash to disguise the bad taste , for some reason squash or concentrate is not readily available here.