I wake up as usual with my back as stiff as a board, and after my cup of tea, get out of bed in my new found toddler fashion. Mike services new generator for the first time and it goes smoothly. He phones Darren, the Volvo dealer and orders a fixing kit for his old propeller. He is going to fit the old propellers back on as he now has no faith in the feathering ones that we had fitted in Grenada last year. We chat about it for a while and decide, bugger it, we’ll have a new propeller as well – in for a penny, in for a pound as they say – at least we’ll have a matching pair. He rings and changes the order. I can’t bear to think of the money we are spending of Jeannius but it’s just going on and on.
After lunch we prepare to beach Jeannius again, half an hour later than yesterday due to the tide. She goes in with a more sudden stop and harder bump than before and rocks around for a while before settling down.
We have to wait longer for tide to go out which unfortunately gives Mike has less time to change the sail drive oil seal, something which he hasn’t done before. He’s concerned about doing it because he knows that if he gets the old one out and can’t get the new one in before the tide returns, he will be left with a 4-inch hole in the boat leading to a very expensive piece of equipment which sea water would wreck.
While we are waiting, I scrape off barnacles from one of the old propellers that we are going to re-use. They are tough little buggers and I have to attack them with a screwdriver. Being dead and having been attached and dried out for some time, this is a tedious and long winded process and after an hour my back is sore from bending over. Already in a bad mood because of the money we are spending and the fact that we now might not make it to Bali, Mike happens to say the wrong thing to me and I explode in a hissy fit and go to bed, where I stay for the rest of the afternoon, once again leaving Mike to the crocodiles.
Sensibly he leaves me to it and deals with the sail drive. From my bed I can hear banging and crashing as he attempts to knock the old one out without damaging anything and I drift in and out of sleep. Eventually after about two hours he comes down to offer me tea and describe his success. I am out of my strop by now and quite happy to hear all about it. It was very difficult to remove at first until he found he had a wooden bung of exactly the right size to place against the oil seals and hit with a hammer.
Sitting with our cups of tea, we watch the skies darken as the sun sets.
Photo: Evening sky over Fannie Bay
We have a light dinner and watch some TV while we wait for the tide to come in. Again, is half an hour later than yesterday, nearly 10 pm before we start to feel Jeannius rocking gently, but she’s not prepared to move just yet.
For over half an hour, we wait, rocking backwards and forwards and then wobbling from side to side. Of course, we are not helped by still only having one engine. Then we start to turn in circles, pivoting on one keel, the other one stuck in the sand. Mike is just beginning to think that he will have to get in the dinghy and push us off when Jeannius suddenly lurches and we are away. We motor back out to the bay and put the anchor down. Mike then allows himself a dark and stormy (and I take drugs for my back), we both have cold showers (of course the engine that doesn’t work at the moment is the one which heats the water) and head for bed, agreeing that we will do NO work on the boat tomorrow.
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