Wind generators

Our wing generator is an American model called an "Air Breeze ", up to now it has given sterling service and has kept our batteries topped up for the last year. However for the last few months it has been making an annoying clunking noise, it usually clunks when the unit brakes itself, this occurs either when the wind exceeds 35 knots or the batteries are fully charged. We can also manually brake it with a Stop/Run switch. This was more of a continuous clunk as if it was having trouble stopping the blades, this it normally achieves in a second to a full stop.

Yesterday however it stopped charging, seeming to be stuck in a start stop loop. I suspected the electronic charge controller circuit had died or become faulty.

I thought to try and alter the voltage threshold, this is done by means of a small screw on the body of the generator.

Stupidly I hadn't tied down the blades and as a sudden gust of wind came through it spun up and swung round one of the blades slicing my nose rather neatly lengthways, remenicent of Jack Nicholson in " Chinatown"..............

There was a lot of blood however it seemed to respond to being held together and a trip to casualty was avoided!

The wind generator is a bit of a problem now, we need to get it fixed or replaced as soon as possible. The weather is looking poor for the next few days anyway, more wind again. It is looking like we will be staying in Dale for a while........will know more on Monday, when the suppliers will get back to me with a plan of action after they have spoken to the manufacturers.

Of course if I stay out of the way on our pontoon in the bay I won't have to explain to everyone I meèt how stupid I can be sometimes!

The coldest winter

I ever spent was summer in San Francisco, so possibly or possibly not said Mark Twain. I'm beginning to understand what he meant. Ever since we left Newry we have been waiting for summer to arrive. As we have spent so long on shore power the fact that our paraffin heater wasn't working has slipped to the bottom of the to-do list. Big mistake! We are now in eco friendly mode and rely on paraffin for cooking and heating and battery power for everything else, so no fan heaters for us anymore.

It needed to be fixed, or replaced.....?

Like most essentially simple things it's actually quite complicated, it's gravity fed drip feed goes through a carburettor like valve, it even has a float chamber and needle valves, daunting....

I initially diagnosed carbon build up and tried cleaning the combustion chamber in Ireland, this didn't work. So today as Lynne was leaving the boat and pontoon for a shopping trip to Milford With Jimmy and Shari from Aquila,

Off to the shops......

 I decided to grab the nettle and strip it down. This proved just as daunting as I had imagined. I stripped cleaned and reassembled the parts starting from the fuel tank. If I had gone the other way from the fuel feed I might have saved myself three rebuilds!

Each time I reassembled and tried to light the heater it refused to burn properly until the last copper feed pipe from the fuel valve which I cleaned using a bike pump.

As it lit and began to burn cleanly my phone rang, it was Lynne obviously they needed me to dinghy over to carry three people and a mountain of supplies, what to do? Keep my eye on the heater or go to the shore? Luckily due to poor reception neither Lynne or me could actually connect so as I dithered, launched the dinghy and began to fill the outboard with fuel, all the time popping down below to check the heater was still lit I noticed that Aquilas dinghy had set off from the shore with three people aboard.

Just then the guy with the dog from the catamaran sharing the floating pontoon with us came past in his dinghy saying he had my shopping. Lovely bloke!

Aquila, Dark Tarn and the Cat........

By the time Lynne had come aboard and was beginning to put stuff away she suddenly noticed how warm the boat had suddenly become. I of course just shrugged as if the four hour struggle to get it working was nothing.

It's anything but, it is essential to have heating on a boat in Britain. It is difficult to overstate the boost to comfort and morale that simply being warm can be.

Our Thirty year old Dikinson Chesapeake working beautifully. As I sit in our comfortable saloon writing this I am smirking on the inside, and in my shirt sleeves. Outside its blowing a force 5, and it's a chill wind. Time to head south.

Fearsome Passages

There is a book by David Rainsbury called " Fearsome Passages" in which he describes some of the more challenging passages to be made around our shores. These are normally because of fierce tidal conditions. Ramsey sound and Jack Sound in Pembrokeshire are in the list.

We had planned to sail around the most western part of Wales to Dale to meet up with some friends on their boat Aquilla. This needed careful timing for the aforementioned passages.

We left Fishguard with time in hand in order to stem a foul tide around the north Coast from Stumble Head to St David's head the timing being to arrive at Ramsey Sound at High water slacks.

The wind seemed favourable if rather strong being a force 4-5 North westerly however with just the main and two big rolls in the Genoa we were making good progress, the over falls off Strumble head proved interesting and the powerful tidal set around the headland needed a little engine power to overcome. As we moved slowly along the coast the wind became very fitful, the weather overcast, and a horrible cross sea left us rolling unpleasantly. The engine was again resorted to to keep our schedule and it was a very uncomfortable and noisy few hours before we arrived off St David's head.

Almost as if by magic the sun came out and the sky cleared. The sea also dropped off and became a lot calmer. As we rounded the headland our old holiday spot Whitesands Bay came into view.

This is an area we have spent some considerable time in for annual holidays, having camped and sea kayaked here since the early 80s. It is a lovely part of the world and it certainly lived up to expectations as we approached Ramsey sound. Our timing proved accurate almost to the minute as we entered.

Lynne again was wondering what all the fuss was about which usually means I have got my timings right!

As we left the sound and entered St Brides bay we had another 7 miles or so to  go to reach Jack Sound if we hurried the ebb tide would only have been running for an hour or so, the wind again fell light and I spent a few minutes rigging our Gennaker for a downwind run to Skomer and Skockholm.

Half way across St Brides the wind again became fitful and settled more or less in the NE so we gybed the Gennaker and continued on our way making over 5 knots on occasion.

We don't get much chance to play with this sail however this proved very successful, idyllic sailing on a calm blue sea, I even got my top off! For once we really were living the dream. We went through Jack Sound under sail and it was as tranquil as I have ever seen it we continued on to the entrance to Milford Have where we radioed port control for permission to enter the channel. We bagged our fantastic Gennaker and started the engine for the short hop around the corner to Dale. Where our friends were waiting to take our lines on the pontoon in the middle of the bay.

That was certainly a day of contrasts, the fabulous afternoon sailing past the beautiful Pembokeshire coastline more than made up for a miserable morning struggling around the North Coast.

As it was by now 8 o'clock in the evening we had a quick sandwich and retired to the pub for a convivial chat and catch up.

Fearsome passages? Not really, as long as you get the timing right...........

Cardigan Bay

For once the weather was seeming to cooperate with our plans and we arranged to leave Victoria Dock at 2 o'clock, this being the optimum time to exit the rather daunting southern entrance to the Menai, the Caernafon bar.

It quickly appeared that quite a few other boats had the same idea, which gave me confidence in my calculations if nothing else!

The weather was lovely and the wind for once seemed to be predominantly from the North West, thus as the marina sill was dropped a veritable fleet of yachts assembled and filed in convoy down towards Fort Belan and the narrow entrance channel. As we approached the fort I was surprised to see some mounted napoleonic era troops around the canons, obviously a re- enactment group of some description.

The convoy continued out towards the non existent fairway buoy about four miles distant ( the buoy is missing, there is a reward for anyone who discovers its present location.

The channel is fairly straightforward but it is very clearly evident that shallow banks hem you in on both sides.

At the fairway buoys approximate location the majority of yachts headed off towards Holyhead. We however were heading for Fishguard in Pembokeshire.

Thus we ate course down the Llynne peninsular towards Bardsey Island.

The weather although very pleasant was once again playing tricks with the wind direction and in order to round Bardsey before the change of tide necessitated us using the engine.

As we passed and changed direction towards the south we were able to lay a course very nearly towards Fishguard and we raised full sail.

Lynne was below making a brew when I heard a loud snort, the unmistakable exhalation of a cetacean, in this case a dolphin, I called to Lynne to come up and see, soon we saw more and then suddenly two almost left the water crossing in opposite directions in front of Allandale our tenders bow which we were towing behind.

Lynne went on deck to get a closer look and quickly the boat was surrounded by playful Dolphins.

I'm afraid my hurried photos are not very good, but it was a magical experience after ten minutes of playing under the bow and surfacing loudly almost within touching distance of our hull, they silently left astern.

As the sun set we settled in for a long night, the wind held relatively steady until just before the dawn when we had to resort to the engine again to lay our course.

We picked up a mooring in the old harbour at six o'clock in the morning. This was the setting for an old BBC dramatisation of Under Milk Wood. I was more concerned with whether we had enough water under our keel as it was dead on low water, we seemed to have about half a metre so I could relax. We were very tired after our nights adventures so after a quick coffee we retired to bed.

Dark Tarn is just off the point

Menai straights

A sea-kayakers quick calculation gave our departure from Beaumaris @ 12 noon, this allowed us a long sleep as we were both beginning to feel very weary. I suppose that not only are we unaccustomed to hard work but we are not getting any younger! The evening before listening to yet another poor forecast had raised the possibility of a few days rest in Cearnafon Marina. It's a town we both enjoy so the decision was pretty much made. It's a journey of a few hours through the straights but it has some notable hazards all of which can be avoided by precise timing. The most notable of these are the Swellies between Menai bridge and Britannia bridge, they are an assortment of rocks ledges and shallows that the tide can run through at up to 8 knots, in full flow it can resemble a river rapid.

The trick is to time your passage for slack water, this is a bit of a movable feast and involves timing with a bit of a guesstimate, for example strong south westerly winds can mean slack water being 10-20 mins early, a north easterly can have the reverse effect.

I calculated the we needed to be under Menai bridge at 1 o'clock.

The weather was typical Welsh drizzle and low cloud as we left Beaumaris and dropped the mooring buoy we had ' borrowed' the night before. We motored down towards Bangor and were admiring the many large houses that line the banks. If I ever win the lottery.........,As we approached Menai bridge I asked Lynne the time, " minute past one", close enough.......

We negotiated the Swellies easily ( it's all in the timing ) and Lynne still doesn't know what all the fuss is about, in fact she was more interested in the fact that Lord Nelson seemed to have been removed from his column and dropped by the riverbank.

Apparently you are supposed to salute him as you go by ( thanks to my mate Len for that bit of local knowledge )

We continued on past Port Dinorwic and Plas Menai, the Welsh national sailing centre and before long it was time to call up the Marina on the VHF, the marina is guarded by a sill so entry is limited to certain states of tide, sometimes as short as 30 mins.

It also has a very quick current flowing past at 90 degrees so it can be a tricky entrance to come in and  maintain your ' sang froid ' Mark in the control room initially said he would be wIling to help with our lines but later changed his mind because it was raining! He also directed us to a completely different berth. As it turned out it was a very easy berth to get into even though it needed us to do a 180 degree turn in the marina.

 Another day another castle..........if only all marina berths were as easy to manoeuvre into.

Here is our AIS track, don't  know what happened approaching Menai Bridge, well I do obviously I just can't explain the fact that Dark Tarn seemed to travel overground for a short while.

Short answer.........LOST SIGNAL.

Wind wind and more wind

Although Dark Tarn is a sailing boat and normally we welcome a little wind, force 4 is ideal, we don't particularly like it when the wind is from the direction we wish to go in. This would normally involve us tacking or zig zagging to windward. For the last week winds have been very unfriendly, today we decided to do a quick dash to Beaumaris and as usual the forcast was for force 5 occasionally 6 SW.

It hasn't changed much for days!

We had a lot to do before leaving, we filled the diesel tanks then our two 20 litre spare jerrycans. Paid our bill at the harbourmasters ( they let us pay £11 a night rather than £14 as we were travelling ) we also topped up the water tanks checked the engine over emptied the cockpit locker so we could dismantle and restow our leg after rinsing it in fresh water, while we were at it we swilled the decks and put the anchor chain we had been using as weight back down into the chain locker. Last but not least we had to retrieve Allandale from the quay car park were she had been put rather than bang against us constantly in the fierce tides. 

As we motored against the last of the flood out into the channel it became apparent that it was very windy our instruments indicated force 6 and I was already in trouble with Lynne! However it was sunny and the views were stunning, it was a little rough for photography so I include our AIS track.

It indicates quite nicely the tortuous channel going in and out of Conwy, it also shows the entrance to the Menai straights going behind Puffin Island and entering through the gap known as Trwn du, this is to avoid shallow sandbanks which in this part of the world are the norm. After  6 hours of slogging into large waves and occasionally getting drenched in the cockpit we picked up a mooring buoy off Gallows point to settle for the night and wait for a favourable tide tomorrow to go through the straights to Caernafon.

The other side

Forecast continues to be less than ideal however the bottom refurb goes on apace, slightly limited by tidal considerations, after a quick turn around the other side was exposed, we decided to continue with a scotch brite scrubby and with the occasional use of the hosepipe the job went along swimmingly. The change of side brought a new view of the historic castle.

Not a bad spot for lunch.

Lynne had borrowed a short plank from the " Nobby Men", Nobby being a Lancashire traditional boat. Helps you to get up close and personal with the foul smelling mud, whoever said that yachting was glamorous?

Dark Tarn now has a clean and freshly anti fouled bottom, good for passage times and an excellent test of our homemade legs, although from the photos they may look a bit spindly they are each capable of supporting Dark Tarns 10+ tons on their own ( thanks to Paul Fay for the math ) faymarine.com 

Later we went to the North Wales Cruising Club and had a pleasant and relaxing drink or two finished up in the Liverpool Arms watching the tide come in to float Dark Tarn once again, we sat in the cockpit and admired the floodlit castle.

So tomorrow we leave for the Menai straights .

Mud glorious mud

The forecast really made the decision for us, it was force 7 for the next couple of days with high pressure building towards the end of the week and winds decreasing. Unfortunately that also meant a bit of rain about but you can't have everything!

The first night saw me staying up until 3 in the morning tending lines along with Ian our temporary next door neighbour ( we seem to have an endless supply of them, it's great ) I also helped to look after his lines when he felt the need for a comfort break in the 24 hr Tescos over the bridge. The forcast winds did indeed blow quite strongly overnight and in combination with the strong tidal flow it made for a bit of a noisy night for Lynne trying to sleep below. However it really is remarkable how quickly it goes still and quiet by the time we " touch down". Then it was straight to bed for me until morning.

So it was up to the top of the wall for lunch and then back down again for three in the afternoon, we rigged our magic hosepipe and washed the saltwater from the hull prior to putting on a coat of anti fouling paint. We had scrubbed and prepped the hull yesterday so this was a fairly simple job.

Luckily the rain held off, it had been very much off then on all day, but then again we are in Snowdonia!

The bottom of the harbour beneath Dark Tarns keel is composed of a mix of broken mussel shells and mud and is fairly solid, however if you wander to far away the bottom is very treacherous, in fact only the day before a local boat owner was forced to call out the lifeboat men as he had become firmly stuck in the harbour mud. Best not to wander too far!

Therefore Lynne had to learn to negotiate quite tall and slippery ladders in order to avoid the glutinous mud and keep her wellies clean.

We managed to complete the port side and will now wait until tomorrow to turn the boat around to do the starboard side, another late night/early morning so I grabbed a bit of sleep after dinner.

It has been an interesting few days and we have learned a new and valuable set of skills which should come in handy in the future.

Up against the wall

Conway Marina for 3 nights charged us £85, so as the forcast was still for quite a lot of wind mostly SW ( the direction we wanted to head in ) we thought rather than wait around to pay Conway Marina yet more money we would go up river into the town and dry out along the quay. First job was to find some paint rollers for the anti fouling paint, the chandlers in the marina was charging £12.70 for a roller and tray so Lynne and I walked over the bridge to Tescos and bought three for the same money.

High water was around 11.30 so as usual the wind and weather cooperated to make our departure as difficult as possible so we lined the boat across our berth ( basically pulled it upwind as we were being blown on to a pontoon ) it all went quite well.

We arrived at the quay just on high water and Ian from Silvery Sea waved at us from the pontoon in the river, he was also coming over to the quay to dry out.

We arranged our lines and also put our reserve fuel cans on the wall side, we also rigged the main halliard to a handy lamppost and deployed our leg. All to make Dark Tarn lean against the wall. We then waited nervously for the water to disappear! 

The tide is surprisingly fierce and there was a considerable current running in the opposite direction to the tidal flow, slightly confusing but then I am used to eddy currents. Within a couple of hours we had dropped 4 Mtrs and were solidly aground.

Ian very kindly let us use the powerful jet wash first to clean our bottom, which was surprisingly clean after a year in the water. I think if anything I had been a little over cautious with our angle of lean but between you and me I have never done this before, so it was all a little experimental. However it all went surprisingly well and after a really good scrub we let the boat rest and retired with Ian to the pub for a strategy meeting.

We were in a rather pretty situation however the decision now has to be do we stay for a couple of days and anti foul the boats bottom which will need us to adjust to a very tidal rhythm of managing the lines on every falling tide or do we postpone the anti foul and stick to the original plan of drying out in the Fal river in Cornwall?

Only the weather can decide. We will certainly stay overnight which means line handling until 2.30 in the morning.

We depart!

The weather forecast was not perfect predicting force 5 occasionally 6 SW winds veering NW later. The marina at Preston was bathed in sunshine and was enjoying a flat calm, the VHF was buzzing with yachts waiting for the first lockout of the day. The lock leeper in the pyramid wasn't answering so I phoned them up. They were setting the bridge and would be good to go in ten minutes. I tried to call Śandbanks on the radio but he wasn't answering either ( sandbanks gained his nickname because of his propensity to go aground )

As the bell sounded to indicate the bridge swinging and the lock opening three other boats accompanied us to the lock, as we took up our place on the unfashionable port side Chris the yard owner came over for a chat with us, he wished us well and we thanked him for all his help.

As the lock gates opened we headed out into the river in a convoy of three, Sandbanks leading followed by Criss Cross, these two both turned of at the junction with the river Douglas as they were doing a very small trip to Hesketh Bank, the final boat remained in the lock obviously being craned out into the boatyard.

Three hours or so saw us out at Gut buoy,

 and raising sail, we could just lay a course for Anglesey close hauled an port tack. We continued for a glorious few hours under full sail doing 4-5 knots in the light winds. Lynne made egg and bacon butties for lunch and a

L was well with the world we were on schedule for tea time in the Menai straights. However it was not to be.

Around three o'clock as we approached the traffic separation scheme near the Hamilton gas field a very dark cloud was gathering on the horizon, I said to Lynne that looks like a lot of wind, and within minutes the wind had increased considerably and was now coming from directly ahead, we rolled away the Genoa and this was quickly followed by the mainsail as it was just flogging uselessly.

We started the engine and almost immediately the sea began to get very rough, this is a characteristic  of the Irish Sea and is very unpleasant!

Our speed was being reduced as the wind increased and we were reduced to barely three knots as a large container ship appeared on the horizon, our AIS was indicating a CPA ( closest point of approach) of a half mile so I asked Lyne to call him up on the VHF and advise, he said that he could see us under engine and to maintain our course and speed. This we did and not for the first time I was thankful for that marvellous box of tricks the AIS transceiver.

However this wasn't the end of our problems as we seemingly crawled past the Hamilton wind farms the tide had turned against us killing our speed geven more and I had to increase the engine revs to 2000 to get back to 3 knots over the ground, our indicated water speed was nearer 6 knots. Time was now against us it was simply taking too long against the increasing wind and tide so I began to consider alternatives, that didn't take long we didn't have any, Liverpool was a possibility or even a  ten hour run to the Isle of Man but there were no other ports of refuge on the North Wales coast. The nearest was Conway which at our present speed would take us 5 or 6 hours to reach. So  I decided to stick to our course and head for Conway at the first opportunity.

The wind now increased to force 7 and was refusing to veer to the north west which would have allowed us to raise a small amount of sail and make better progress. Sailing yachts carry engines as auxiliary propulsion and they are not really supposed to push the yacht to windward in a gale let alone against the tide as well however Dark Tarn was making very slow progress I raised the revs to the maximum And hoped the engine wouldn't overheat or sieze. It slogged on for hour after hour, the autopilot couldn't cope with the conditions so I took over the helm, at least I could try and anticipate the by now huge waves which were crashing the length of the boats deck and back to the cockpit soaking me through, I had put on my oilskin jacket but not the trousers. The wind increased again as we approached Great Orme it was now gusting force 8 and our speed was dropping below 1 knot at times as the waves slammed into us and killed all our forward progress, we still had a couple of knots of tide against us and the general situation was grim. Lynne also reported that the forehatch was leaking and everything in the force in was getting wet. That problem was going to have to wIt but Lynne did her best to sort things out and salvage stuff from the cascade of drips from the leaky seal. Amazingly she also managed to keep me supplied with hot coffee. As it got dark after nine o'clock we managed to crawl past the Orme and had about 5 miles to go to the Fairway buoy marking the entrance to the narrow channel to Conway. I couldn't see it anywhere, Lynne thought she could see it as we got closer but I think she was mistaking headlights in the coast road tunnels for the blinking white light.

We have a plotter that I can swing out and lock in the companionway so with Lynne below looking out of the windows of the doghouse I could manoeuvre the boat so as to close on the buoy marked on the chart. As the icon marking the boat and the buoy closed together I turned sharply to port and the Bouy  flew past on our port side, it was not lit however I could spot the port and starboard channel markers of the channel and with the wind now behind us we flew at great speed towards the flickering lights. I reduced the revs on the engine to attempt to slow our speed, no point running full tilt into a hard sandbank at this stage! The channel wasn't particularly well marked and as I have never gone into Conway let alone on a pitch black night in a rising gale. There seemed to be a few markers missing but Lynne was talking to the Marina on the VHF and the end seemed to be in sight. I now realised just how cold and tired I was, I had been constantly on the helm for 9 hours. As the marina came into sight, ( the entrance is very difficult to make out ) we carefully crept in and discovered fairly quickly the berth we had been allocated wouldn't fit our dinghy let alone us and as we reversed back out towards the entrance there is a current that was forcing us onto the breakwater, this night had become the stuff of nightmares!

We were allocated a new berth by VHF and had now to find " Foxtrot 17" this proved again quite difficult Conway Marina was very tight and obviously the wind wasn't helping. I found the F row and manoeuvred Dark Tarn into the first free berth I could find which turned out to be " Foxtrot 10"

Sorry Marina guy, sue me!

Lynne and I tidied up and I quickly got out of my wet clothes and into my berth, I wiped my eyes and jumped up in pain as I had just rubbed salt in my eyes, Lynne very sensibly made me rinse my face and we both slept like dead people.

The following morning it was still a bit windy but clear.

Our fantastic boat had brought us to safety yet again.

Allandale our little dinghy had also survived the horrendous conditions and was tucked in under our stern. That evening we met up with old friend Len Hartley and new friend Sandra, we had a chat on board then had a lovely walk along the river to the Liverpool Arms. We were supposed to meet in Caernafon but it didn't seem to make any difference where we were, it was a lovely evening.

Looking along the quay at the harbour wall also gave me an idea, and the forecast for continuing wind meant that Lynne was not keen to leave just yet so maybe we should try our legs out?

Iridium Go!

That's the Satphone finally fitted and working. Lynne very sensibly took herself off shopping in Preston and left me to curse and puzzle out the three dimensional jigsaw puzzle of leading the very heavy cable from the new external antenna to the Iridium Go! Thingy at the chart table.

The  antenna is the long lozenge shaped one, we are running out of space for them!

Luckily after completely emptying the cockpit locker ( this is big enough to smuggle a whole family of refugees ) the cable cooperated right up until about 2 feet from the target, foiled by an impossible drilling angle in a locker. Peter Manning again came through with a solution with the loan of a right angled drill chuck head, what a useful piece of kit!

So that's the job done, what this little thing does is to create a satellite ' hotspot', it's a network router if you will so all our phones and tablet, as well as laptops can access the Iridium system.

So we can make calls, send and receive email ( no big attachments please ), download GRIB files for weather forecasts and we can send and receive SMS texts, and importantly friends and family can text us at no cost.

Details below.

Our Satphone number is 881622403801 voice calls are possible but can be quite expensive, 

Our email for the Iridium system is darktarn@myiridium.net

To send us an SMS text message go to http://messaging.iridium.com and enter our Satphone number

Alternatively and easier send SMS as e-mail to 881622403801@msg.iridium.com

Remember you are limited to 160 characters in the body of the message but you can send as many as you like, neither of these methods involve a cost to you to send apart from whatever your provider charges for texts and emails ( normally free these days )

Feel free to test the system by sending us a text or email and we will reply to confirm it has worked. SMS messages remain on the Iridium system for 24 hours so if we haven't picked them up in that time just send them again.

Hopefully we will be heading down river on Friday after sitting out gale force winds for the last couple of days.

Visits

Lovely couple of weeks visiting family and friends. Highlight was a visit to uncle Ken and Aunt Mary at their magnificent house in the Lake District. We now have an appointment in Cape Town in the future!

Now there's a plan.......

Our son Alex also cycled down to see us and stayed over a couple of weekends which was lovely. We also had visits from  my sister and family and Lynnes brother and family. Just a non stop social whirl really............

Work on the legs continues, the above photo shows Lynne looking very interested in yet another stuck drill bit. We had to drill quite a few holes.

We also fashioned some spacer pieces from Acetile Nylon, these are designed to hold the leg tubes away from the hull.

A welcome break was a visit to the local boat jumble at Garstang.

Surprised to find this rather nice Chinese lady hiding in the farmyard.

A very enjoyable morning where we got a few bargains, some non slip deck paint and a new cockpit cushion, and the all important last eyebolts to complete the legs which were finished that afternoon.

One of our neighbours in a large catamaran called Hocus Pocus is leaving for a trip around the world at the end of the month, we will try and keep in touch with Dave and his wife as our agendas are very similar. 

Just now we are waiting for a rather windy bit of weather to blow through before we head off ourselves.