28th March

18 21 N
64 44 W

Weather; sunny until the evening then rain, wind n/a, waves n/a

After spending the last 2 days scrubbing the bottoms of boats it was time for the guys to relax and do nothing - as if they could keep still for more than 5 mins! Gerry checked the small leak that had been bugging him on the auto pilot. The first thing he did was to tighten up the hose as he thought he could see where it was leaking, having done that he topped up the oil to the correct level again and finally re-pressurized the system to check for any further leaks. For the moment it was looking good but he is going to check it once more when we have been running the auto pilot tomorrow. Meanwhile I got my act together and made some hummus for our sundowner get together this evening on Texas Crewed. The morning was gone in a heartbeat with nothing else on the agenda we read emails, played computer games and read our books for a while. After a very hasty lunch of left over zucchini slice I decided the time had come to get out the sewing machine and attempt to put together a new seat cover for the dinghy bag that I had ripped apart yesterday. Gerry made himself scarce in the cockpit, just in case I asked him to do something! He says he cleaned the water maker filter but I think most of the time was spent with his nose in his book or looking at internet drivel! I sewed and unpicked then resewed the seat cover until I was reasonably happy with the result. I did have to get Gerry to come and help guide the bag under the machine as there was too little space for me to be able to manipulate it by myself. Once I had finished, Gerry took the bag complete with new seat cover and returned it to the dinghy along with about half the stuff that was originally stored inside the bag. The new seat cover is off white, I'm sure it will be VERY off white after a short time in the dinghy but at least it looks good for the moment. After packing away the sewing machine and sewing bits and bobs I made up a platter of nibbles to take along with the hummus for everyone to share. At 5 o'clock the heavens opened and we did a quick closing of all the hatches - of course it was going to rain we were going to another boat for cocktails! We picked up Dale and Lorie from their boat as they hadn't got their dinghy in the water and besides we were all going to the same place. Gene and Renee welcomed us to their boat and as on the previous 2 nights we had plenty of food and drink to leave us all quite sated. We watched the sun disappear between rain showers rather than set and sat chatting and putting the world to rights until about 8pm when we took our leave and dropped Dale and Lorie back to their boat on the way to ours. Although we hadn't done anything strenuous for the day we were both tired and ready for an early night once we had run the generator for an hour. Tomorrow we are going to be returning to St Thomas as Dale has batteries on order which are supposed to arrive on Monday and he will need help to move them onto his boat. Gene and Renee aren't coming with us, they are planning on a move to Waterlemon Bay, just around the corner from Frances Bay, we should catch up with them again in about 3 days' time as long as everything goes to plan!