28th June

12 02 N
61 45 W

Weather; sunny, wind n/a, waves n/a

DAY 12 IN CHINA JAIL.

WELCOME TO MY NEWEST GREAT NIECE, EVIE - RAE ON YOUR EARLY ARRIVAL CONGRATULATIONS TO PROUD PARENTS JESS AND BILLY

I was so overwhelmed with the weather yesterday that I forgot tell you a few things that happened. I spent part of yesterday afternoon reinforcing / repairing the canvas awning that goes over our V berth hatch. Yesterday's howler managed to rip the middle grommet clean out of the canvas leaving a large tear, luckily the other 7 grommets held fast so we didn't lose the awning to Davey Janes locker! I also didn't mention that I had a major wardrobe malfunction during the storm - I was wearing just an old sarong when it hit, it got very wet and then with the moving around and getting the dinghy into the water so that Gerry could search for our dodger cover, I knelt on the darn thing and the fabric across the arse ripped from one side to the other, leaving my butt hanging out but everything else covered! It's a good job that no one could see into our cockpit or I would have been on someone's blog page with a description similar to the one of my naked fat French guy a few days ago - YEW! Then there was the cruisers quiz - this happens on a Monday, Wednesday and Saturday for about an hour to try and keep us from going totally insane, it obviously doesn't help with the memory problem though! This was the first time that we had remembered in time to listen in, we didn't register, just joined in to see how dumb we have become whilst captive in China Jail. There were 30 points in total up for grabs with some 22 questions in total. The first five were songs and singers, unfortunately you had to have the link to a you tube video which we did not have (you needed to register to get the link) or the song snippets were played in the background as the host spoke - we didn't do too badly on this section but we totally flunked out on the next section - bible questions x 3 all needing the ages at death of Abraham, Moses and Noah - we didn't have a clue! And I challenge all of you to answer that without referring to anywhere - be honest now! the rest were a mixture of film, literature, geography and general knowledge, we did alright on the first 2 categories, half flunked the geography and general knowledge (so what are the 5 ingredients in a Smoking Bishop Cocktail?) Again, no cheating and looking it up first. We didn't totally disgrace ourselves as we scored more than half correctly, it was good fun and we will have to try and remember to tune into Monday night's quiz which might have a different flare as there is a different quiz master then.
Gerry has been outside this morning doing tidying up stuff, putting things away to save us having to do it tomorrow, making water and generally keeping away from the aft head!
He has scrubbed the cap rail with salt water to get the grim off and cleaned the starboard stantions. Then this afternoon he jumped in the water and scrubbed along the side of the boat which was surprisingly cleaner than he expected. When he got out of the water and showered in the cockpit he found himself another job - the shower head has a push on/off button to stop you using too much fresh water. This button got stuck and wouldn't work so out came an assortment of tools to pry it loose and find out what caused it to stick. 2 small bits of plastic which actuate the valve had broken off, there really wasn't any fixing this apart from trying to glue them back in place - it is only a temporary fix and we are going to have to buy a new shower head once we get out of China Jail. Already he has checked out the local chandlery and found that they have a couple of heads which should fit our hose so it should all be OK. In case you are wondering the aft head has worked just fine today! We had a BBQ to celebrate our last day of being forced to stay in the quarantine harbor, tomorrow we will probably stay here and then make our way in to the marina on Tuesday morning to avoid the rush - also that way we can pull the dinghy up onto the foredeck rather than putting it into the davits, we need to do this so that we can tie up at the dock stern in, which is the way they want us to tie up, and our least preferred way!
That was our lot for the day, tomorrow we should be allowed out on parole for good behavior or something - will be coming to you all as free agents once again!
Sorry no photos today as there was nothing to take one of but do have a comparison of the Harbor entrance to St George/ Fort ruins and yesterday's photo of the same spot to get an idea of how heavy the rain was!