Before I write about today, I just wanted to thank DR Ware for his research and blog comment regarding the lightning strike that just missed my brother, Don. I wrote about this incident in yesterday’s blog. DR Ware has been following our blog since the start of our cruising days and has been kind enough to post a number of great comments. The one he posted yesterday is the best one yet, at least as far as I am concerned. In his comment he included a web address which reported the lightning strike. In that article it was reported that the lady who was struck is in stable condition. She survived the strike after all. Yea!

Today was Monday and it was time to go around to the various contractors here who have been working on Leu Cat while we were in the States. We had our genset and engines maintained, the genset reseated after being pulled out by its anchor bolts due to the pounding we took coming down the South African coast, our anchor chain re-galvanized, some woodwork repaired, the hulls cleaned twice and a daily inspection of our boat and the docking lines were conducted.

Everything went well and the quality of the work appears to be very good. We were left with one surprise though. The shipwright that we hired to do the woodwork repairs sold his business and is now up in the Azores. While he did do some of the outside work we wanted done, we were hoping that he would be working with us starting now to do some additional work inside Leu Cat. Due to the pounding we took last year some of our wood panels creak a bit in heavy seas. This is because our fiberglass hulls flex more than the wood does and as a result, some of the wooden joints have become slightly looser, resulting in rubbing against each other when we are in heavy seas. I am a stickler for keeping on top of things so this creaking noise rubs me the wrong way (if you will forgive the bad pun).

With the shipwright now long gone, we have turned to another fellow who works on boats and is a carpenter. His name is Franz and will start his inspection this coming Monday.