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01/04/16 Fri. Happy Birthday Ana! We both had a day off work and did very little all day, then went over to the Kraken Bar and Grill for evening meal.
02/04/16 Sat. Another day of idleness, just too hot to do anything - with the sun shining into the cockpit at 7.30am the temp shown was 42oC but as the sun went higher and thermometer was in the shade, it dropped to 40oC. OK, the cheap thermometer reads a little high, but all the same it was too damn hot!!
03/04/16 Sun. Made good progress today with the cable runs, most are now in place and awaiting the hardware to be fitted and hooked up.
04/04/16 Mon. One step forwards and two steps back........things are going wrong again, water in the bilge and unable to find the source today! At least the NMEA problem with the old chart table instrument has been resolved and wiring restored.
05/04/16 Tues. Woken by heavy rain at 4.20am which got even heavier by six o'clock and continued until mid-morning. All cable connector boxes and junction boxes now in place along with the NMEA converter (0183 to 2000).
05/04/16 Weds. A day off from instrumentation, we went into the Financial Park and the town for various shopping items and a haircut for me. No hardwood available in town, I shall have to broaden the search for suitable pieces to make new conduits and instrument head console.
07/04/16 Thurs. Late evening and we discovered the bilge under the saloon full of water (the second time in a week or so), pumped it out and there was maybe 400 litres of fresh water discharged overboard. Decided to fill the tank again and switch off the pump - see what happens overnight.
08/04/16 Fri. The water tank was still full this morning which indicated the pressurised part of the water system has a leak. It took us about 30 minutes to discover water running down the outside of one of the water hoses under the forward cabin. This is the hose leading from the shower to the galley. Further investigation showed the 't' piece to be hidden under the floor of a cupboard in the heads, so......empty the entire cupboard, take up the floor which was glued and screwed and follow the hoses. The 't' piece was fractured and squirting water onto the cupboard base the whole time the pump was switched on. It took us all day (until 7.45pm) to replace the two 't' pieces with brass ones and restore water pressure.
10/04/16 Sun. Traced and repaired the fault in the stereo system, removed one cockpit instrument and marked out the bigger hole required for the new instrument - not been feeling too good since Friday morning.......Delhi Belly!
11/04/16 Mon. Into town again, shopping for sanding discs needed for new instrument apertures, paid marina fees for the month and relaxed for remainder of the day. We are currently re-watching all 50 episodes of Game of Thrones in anticipation of season six release date.
12/04/16 Tues. Rain for most of the day preventing me from sanding and cutting in the cockpit but at least it brought the temperature down to a chilly 28oC!
13/04/16 Weds. More rain........until midday. I cut the new holes for two instruments and fitted them, tested.....all working fine. Now just need to blank off the remaining one old instrument and build a new rear box plus cable conduit. Ran out of cooking gas during the evening!
14/04/16 Thurs. Raining again this morning (and most of the night), heavy until 11am. When it stopped, I took the empty gas bottle into town and exchanged it for a full one - and welcomed Bob back to Dulce.........so good to see him up and about, fighting the battle with cancer and back on the boat!!
15/04/16 Fri. This morning I took off the exhaust elbow which was showing signs of leakage around the welded seams, then I rented a car for 24hrs and took the elbow to Ramsey Engineering to be repaired (and possibly another made as spare). We then spent a few hours searching for hardwood before eventually finishing up at the first wood yard we started at......and ordering the wood needed for a new instrument back box. During the evening, Ana, myself, Lyda and Bob went to Frattini's for dinner - the best steak I have had in a long time!
16/04/16 Sat. Drove up to Ken's Enterprises (wood yard) and picked up the ordered wood - not the best of quality but it will do for what I need. We then took advantage of the remaining hours of car rental and visited a few out of the way supermarkets and collected heavy items. Spent the evening on Dulce in the company of Alex and Jen, Peter and Dana, Lyda, Ana, Ann and her sister and one or two other yotties.
18/04/16 Mon. Today's problem is a blocked cockpit drain - there are four in the cockpit, two connected on the stbd side and two on the port, and the stbd ones were blocked. Rodding them showed them to be clear, leaving only the 't' piece to sea so a trip under the boat was needed to poke a screwdriver into the outlet and clear all the barnacles out - once that was done, all was good again.
23/04/16 Sat. The box at the rear of the instruments is finally finished - just got to varnish it now! My England flag is flying for St. George's Day........
24/04/16 Sun. Refitted the exhaust elbow to the engine and tested this morning before the sun got too hot - even sheltering below with the fan on full is exhausting with temperatures in the mid thirties (almost 100oF).
25/04/16 Mon. Up very early this morning.....Ana, myself, Lyda, Bob, Alistair, John and Anna met in the car park just before 5am to attend the ANZAC Day dawn service at the War Memorial. From there we went to the Tiara Hotel for breakfast before returning to the boats.
28/04/16 Thurs. All wiring now boxed in! The heatwave continues making it very uncomfortable in both cockpit and saloon. Went out to the "yacht club" in the evening for dinner with Paul, Alison, Alistair, Juanita and Ana.
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