We both wake up early wondering when we’ll hear news of our generator parts. At 7.30 am Mike gets an e-mail saying that the parts have left Durban and will be with the engineers during the morning. When Mike phones the engineers they promise to be with us around noon.
Presuming that we will be on our way tomorrow, we galvanise ourselves into action and prepare the boat for leaving. I do another load of laundry and Mike does the paperwork and organises the re-fuelling.
Of course, sod’s law dictates that immediately we start to re-fuel, the engineers will arrive and that almost happens, but the other way around. As I go to empty the rubbish I spot a truck pull up with a bright red unit in the back. Yippee!! Let’s hope it’s the right part!!
Two guys carry it carefully to Jeannius and set it down in the cockpit. To eliminate any problems, Westerbeke have sent the whole generator end of the genset, and the guys start the complex operation of removing the old one down in a very small hole. Thank God the weather is better than yesterday’s.
The guys then turn up to re-fuel us with jerry cans (the hose from the truck can’t reach to our position at the end of the pontoon) so it’s quite a long process.
Photo: Emptying 300 litres of diesel from jerry cans into the tank
We carefully move our generator away from this process! It takes about three hours to remove the old generator.
Photo: The new generator end of the genset
Photo: Comparing old with new – and noting the differences!
Mike and I go up to the marina office, file our ‘flight plan’ and pay our very small bill. At 5.20 pm it’s the moment of truth. They start the genset and it just turns over but won’t catch. I can’t believe it.
I go over to Chessie, After all the waiting, I can’t bear to watch. Half an hour later, Mike comes over too. It’s not working and the guys have no idea why. It’s pointless staying here. Mike will contact the SA agent and get someone to look at it in somewhere else en route. For now we will struggle on without a genset. At least we have the part. Tomorrow we will head out early in the morning as planned.
We go to Porkey’s for a meal with Chessie and Brown Eyed Girl to try to cheer ourselves up.
Photo: The mob at Porkey’s
Photo: Mike and I
Photo: Eline and Jutta
Photo: Judy and me
We can’t eat all our food and end up with a doggie bag. That’s lunch sorted out for tomorrow! We go to bed rather dejected. After all the excitement of the part actually arriving, we can’t believe it’s still not working.
We set the alarm for 4.45 am. Ugh. That’s just adding insult to injury.
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