We weren’t very hungry after a big lunch so decided on a light supper.  Bob, being very original and entirely consistent, asked for his favourite Waldorf Slaw salad which I duly chopped and assembled with my eyes closed.  We spent a peaceful evening listening to Bob’s eclectic music mix and reading Kindles.  I followed The Goldfinch,  by Donna Tart, to its long winded and unconvincing conclusion, glad to have got it out of the way.

This morning we arose eagerly to reclaim the auto steering parts from Cay Electronics, met Matt and Simeon at the dock and drove to Nanny Cay (observing once again just how many spaces they had in their full up marina).  The nice girl Lisa greeted us warmly in a curious dress that would have been better suited to an autumn day in London, meanwhile one of the curmudgeonly old men skulked by being very careful to not meet our eyes. At Bob’s insistence, the engineer came to explain that both linear drives clutch gears had failed because they were made of plastic, using a tone of voice that implied that Bob had foolishly made this choice himself.  They are now made of brass apparently and both had been replaced with such.  Why this was Bob’s fault and not the manufacturer’s, Raymarine, was not clear.  The engineer had not bothered to test the computer because of the clearly obvious, you could fell the exasperated sigh, diagnosis of the fault in the linear drives and would we bugger off.  Actually, he didn’t say the last bit, but body language and eyes can be very expressive.  Bob was then required to hand over an extraordinarily extortionate sum of money.  What is it with these people?

Our shell shocked band then delivered Bob to the boat to install the apparently gold plated objects while Matt and I carried on into town with Simeon to run errands: a visit to the ATM to replenish the dollars, to the English shop (where I could buy branston pickle, proper cheese and sliced bread for night watch sandwiches), and the supermarket (the same one as before rather than the one I wanted to go to because Simeon insisted that it was cheaper) where I was able to get Matt to choose the things he liked, after all not everyone likes to live off Waldorf Slaw salad.  The dinghy nearly sank under the weight of our goodies but Matt got us back to WIndy, rather gingerly having had experienced the same difficulties that Francesca had had in Montserrat on his single handed return (but without disappearing under a catamaran).  We were met by a very sweaty Bob who had just finished his installation, which he had undertaken in his birthday suit because he got so very, very hot, fortunately by now decently clad.  The boxes of stores were stowed, we feasted on smoked salmon (from the English shop) salad for lunch and started to get to know Matt.  He hails from Hermanus outside Cape Town and is a super keen surfer, obviously rather good because he has sponsors (and is ripped), and a graduate in Marketing from Cape Town University.

Matt and Bob then returned ashore to check out, usual routine of one million forms to fill in and the seemingly obligatory friendly customs officer and the slow and difficult one, and to drop off Matt to gather his belongings and say his farewells.  We will meet up with him again at The Pub at 7pm this evening.  Meanwhile back on the boat, I cooked a local chicken, just one of the myriad that we see wandering around absolutely everywhere, and whipped up a cottage pie in advance of our overnight trip, inspired by my visit to the English shop.  We are prepared and ready to go.