On Monday morning, although we had a few more rain showers to contend with, it was all action onboard with Roy running the generator, which we’re pleased to report hasn’t spluttered again, running the watermaker, running all the air-conditioners to ensure they’re all still in working order, repairing the top edge of the rubber trim on the starboard transom and modifying the breather pipe to the starboard fuel tank to ensure this wasn’t the source of the little bit of water we found in the tank. We’d modified the port side a while back, given that the port engine compartment kept getting water inside it with all the torrential rain and concluded the design of the breather pipe lent itself to a leak. We had no idea it could possibly leak into the fuel tank, though. We think this may have occurred primarily due to the direction from which the weather constantly approaches. Nonetheless, we weren’t taking any chances and made the modifications regardless. Just a very bad design!
Elaine kept herself busy with her daily chores, although the skies here are a constant source of interest to her; the cloud formations and colours are so unique, but sadly any photographs just don’t do it justice.
Yesterday we woke to the very disturbing news of two new “Variants of Interest”; one in South Africa and one in the UK, the latter originating in Cornwall and traced to an immunocompromised individual after 50,000 people attended a concert with no social distancing or mask mandate. Based on the multiple mutations of one of these variants, specifically the one detected in South Africa, it could render all the current vaccines completely ineffective. It was only a matter of time before this occurred, something the WHO (World Health Organisation) has warned about repeatedly and simply ignored by all those countries stockpiling the vaccines instead of being used to vaccinate the world as quickly as possible; now these vaccines could be completely useless!
Trying to set that news aside, given the potential impacts it could have on our plans to set sail in January, Roy went ashore to drop off the garbage, collect a few more parcels that had been delivered to the marina office and, while there, enjoyed a morning coffee with Derek, the marina manager. On his return he cleaned Paw Paw’s bottom and hence the second occurrence of bad news for the day. Given the state of the saildrives and propellers, we have no choice but to haul Paw Paw out of the water again. Clearly what we paid for was not applied or not applied correctly, even with Roy popping over to the boatyard regularly to check on things. This was the first time we didn’t do the bottom ourselves, now we have to redo it ourselves anyway! So infuriating, not to mention, costly!
Setting that problem aside for another day, this afternoon Roy updated the firmware of our inverter, given that he’d received the necessary electronics to do so; another task required for our lithium battery solution.
Elaine spent her day trying to get the passage planning completed, but correlating all the information from the various sources is definitely time-consuming, although necessary. By late afternoon her right arm and shoulder were killing her, so she called it a day.
Today we had another early morning flurry of activity as Roy decided to bake baguettes, then Elaine decided we’d better put our overripe bananas to good use and baked a banana loaf, followed by getting the laundry done. We thought we’d picked the best day possibly for the latter, but, although slightly breezy, rain showers and thunderstorms kept interrupting play.
By early evening, after passing a rainy afternoon by enjoying an afternoon matinee, we received more bad news, this time out of Ireland; Elaine’s mom had been in and out of the Critical Care Unit over the past few days after being bitten by something on her ear, which then moved to her neck and has caused blood poisoning. Our thoughts are with her and wish her a speedy recovery. We sincerely hope this is the last of the bad news for awhile!
