We had a bit of weather last night. First it rained and Bud got up and shut the hatches before things got too wet. Then later there was a short time with a LOT of wind; Bud thought it went up over 30 knots. He went out on deck and made sure nothing blew away. I slept through all of that. I got up just after the rain for Fuzzy patrol, Fuzzy and I walked out on the foredeck. That was only about 11 PM. Then I slept out in the salon with Fuzzy for the rest of the night. Slept right through Bud going up during the wind. Fuzzy slept through until about 6 AM, then I took him on deck again.

This morning we wanted to do two things. We wanted to see about adjusting the stuffing box around the rudderpost, to see if the bolts would move and to see if it would have any effect on the leaking. We also wanted to defrost the freezer. We moved all the food from the refrigerator into buckets, put ice on top and covered them with towels under the dinette table (about the coolest spot on the boat). We then moved all the food from the freezer into the refrigerator and turned the fridge on and the freezer off. We put a pan of heated salt water (don't want to waste fresh water) in the freezer and let it defrost.

Meanwhile, I stacked all the bedding up on one side of the bed and opened the panel above the rudderpost. Bud crawled up there and took a look. He was able to turn the bolts. He turned them and dried things up and then waited to see if it helped. He also put WD-40 on the upper bearing while I turned the wheel. Later, when he inspected it again, he used a mirror to really take a look at things. He found nuts on the bottom of the bolts, so his first attempt hadn't tightened anything, he'd just turned the nuts along with the bolts. So he tried again. Happily he was able to tighten the bolts. It did slow the drip to a tiny ooze. He didn't want to over tighten them and risk stripping or braking them because then we would have a serious leak that would require taking the boat about 20 miles from here to the only marina in this part of the Bahamas that can pull a boat. It's Stella Maris, the one we went and looked at, and we have to go in their four-mile long channel at high tide. We think we're okay now, but like so many things on the boat, we're not sure. We plan to take the boat out, probably Thursday, when the wind drops a bit, but not too much, and sail around and check it under sail.

We did get the freezer done and both the freezer and refrigerator cleaned and repacked. We're still trying to get the freezer back to temperature, it's a good thing the wind is blowing and the wind generator is making power or we'd have to run the generator for sure.

We've been trying to spend a bit of time with Fuzzy on the beach. He won't walk far, but we do try to get him to walk some. He likes going to the beach, but he doesn't want to go far or stay long. I took a picture of Bud waiting with the dinghy while I give Fuzzy some beach time. Bud walks with us a bit, because that encourages Fuzzy to walk, but while Fuzzy should walk, Bud shouldn't, so it's a compromise.

I've posted this and the photos for the recent entries using wifi accessed with our antenna. It's not the best, so I'm not trying to update the gallery. Tomorrow Long Island Breeze is open so we plan to eat dinner there and I'll take the computer and do some put all the pictures from the Jumentoes and Raggeds into the gallery.