A glorious weekend on the River Crouch at last. After all the cold weather in March and early April it was a delight to have warmth and sunshine and even the Easterly breeze (again) was welcome for it's gently cooling
It's been work, work and more work this past week or two on customers boats.
After I'd finished work on Friday I set about making the aft cabin habitable again. The crated kit that had come off Erbas was distributed into lockers with the exception of one crate which went into storage (mostly books because we don't have a bookcase for them yet)
That proved useful as Tony arrived at the moorings mid-evening and didn't take too much persuading to abandon his plan to row down to Pleinair against the flood tide and go up the pub instead! So after a few beers he crashed in the aft cabin for the night
Saturday continued the work trend with a trip up a customers mast in the
morning and planning the next stage of an ongoing project in the
afternoon. Not that I'm complaining. Tony brought Pleinair up alongside the pontoon and gave me a hand with the mast climbing rig (which I've now sorted out to my satisfaction) then the good ship Laurin arrived and we played musical boats to get them alongside
Saturday evening we entertained the crew of Laurin aboard Erbas with a fine beef stew, beer or wine and song. It was a pleasure to be able to return the hospitality we've often enjoyed aboard Laurin now that we have a big(ish!) boat!
Sunday was a bit of a make and mend day. Jane decided the cooker and surrounding area needed a more thorough clean than I'd given it and then set about rearranging the cutlery drawer and cabin stores to her satisfaction
Meanwhile, I removed the end stops from the tracks and removed the main companionway hatch. It's been very sticky to the extent that Jane especially has been struggling to open and close it. At some point the tracks have been lubricated with silicon grease which would have been fine initially but the stuff inevitably goes sticky after a while.
Copious quantities of WD40 and lots of rags later, I'd removed as much of the grease as I could get at and then I lubed the tracks and slides with silicon spray which doesn't dry out. With the hatch back in, opening and closing it is now a one finger operation
My next mission was to repair the broken power plug on the coolbox I had been planning to use in the van. It's now in use on board in place of the completely defunct built in fridge. The fan noise is a bit annoying but it'll have to do for now
Sorting the fridge is no.1 on the to-do list. The decision has been taken to refurbish the original coolbox under the galley counter with a new compressor and plate, extra insulation if possible and a new lid. Long term, we may then re-purpose the insulated box under the port berth as a freezer but that's way way in the future!
Fixing and fettling ceased when we were invited up the pub for a drink by the crew of Artemis late afternoon and then it was back on board to cook up a meal and watch a bit of telly before retiring
It's back to work today with a busy week or two ahead and more to follow.
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