Wednesday 28 March

The boat is steadily coming back to life. 

Christian the rigger has been a couple of times today, he is incredibly busy as there is a succession of boats being relaunched, and most need to have their masts reinserted.  The weather has not been so helpful though today, it has been windy and very cold. The wind swirls around the buildings in the harbour making it unsafe to be dangling long tubes (the masts) from a crane.  As a result he was pleased to find a below decks job, and we worked together to reconnect all the electrical cables that run up the mast.  There were a couple of worrying moments but then all of the lights and the masthead instruments were operational.  We then went back to the two items that were the most troublesome last year, namely the PC and the depth sounder.  Both did not choose to play straight away, but after a little reconsideration, and us turning on all of the necessary switches,  they both worked.  Hooray!

Later Christian returned and remade the furling loop for the mainsail. He was not satisfied with the version that he did yesterday, as it did not run smoothly through all of the blocks and jammers.  I was somewhat relieved that even he,as a professional rigger, was having to check the instructions for an end to end splice.  He says he only has to do it 2 or 3 times in a year.

We have been checking over all of the safety equipment, making sure that the life jackets are working and everything else is in date and ready to go.

One of the sheds where the boats are stored, this yard alone cares for about 1000 boats over the winter

Given the cold, we have also been testing all of the heating methods on board, and gradually the temperature on the boat is creeping upwards.  Adding to the sense of well-being, we will be eating on board tonight for the first time on this trip, and the smell of cooking is wafting through the boat.

We walked a couple of kilometers into town to do some more shopping and get more cash.  Credit cards are not used to anything like the same extent here. Several of the cafes and the harbour master will only take cash , so we have to ensure that we have enough.

Distance covered today - 0 nautical miles

Total distance covered - 0 nautical miles

Steve (and Tricia)