27th November

12 00 N
61 46 W

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

Gerry didn't sleep very well, I suspect it's because he is worry warting about the fridge and freezer maintaining temperature and also overthinking how much battery power is going to be drained by them switching on and off during the night when there is no sun and variable wind to recharge them. He was up and fiddling with the controls as soon as it was light and having fiddled he then decided on a job for the day - he wanted to line the inside of the freezer with insulation board, why ? because he can and it might help to keep the freezer temperature better regulated. So after we had breakfast, the first cooked one in ages and after throwing out the first 5 eggs as they didn't look too good - not bad and off, but certainly not quite right either, it was time to "find" the insulation board. Yes, it was in a safe place - under a seat and on top of one of the air conditioning units. For anyone who doesn't know the board I'm talking about is a sheet of about an inch thick polystyrene covered on both sides with silver foil and is used to reduce sound or to insulate against temperature changes. Out came the measuring tape, marker pen, ruler, box cutter and silver tape - all deposited on our salon table. Knowing this was going to be messy I sat quietly cleaning the corners of the wooden louvers in our salon with ear buds (what a crap job that is) and pretending I didn't know what was happening as Gerry emptied out the freezer once more into the insulated bag and proceeded to measure the walls and base of the freezer. He then looked at the piece of board he had and decided to start cutting bits to fit beginning with the base. Immediately it became obvious that there was not going to be enough board to do the entire freezer but he was not going to give up. The box cutter was used to hack his way through the board on his predetermined lines, which was all very well as it sliced through the silver foil but as soon as it reached the polystyrene it produced a flurry of snow - if you have ever had a bean bag split open or a parcel protected by "popcorn" you'll understand perfectly where I'm coming from here - it was going everywhere and then some! I did my best to ignore it, knowing that it was going to get worse before it got better. The base was fitted into the freezer and he began to line the sides, using the silver tape to join the pieces together and create a seamless finish. Of course the board ran out long before he finished the first side, oh wait, he knew where he had some more insulating board, having previously lined the overhead panels of our master state room with the stuff to keep the heat down. He vanished into our master berth with a screwdriver in hand, climbed onto our bed and began to unscrew the overhead beading holding the panels that line the berth in place. I then saw him gently pries the insulation board out of the space. Of course the piece wasn't very big as the panels are quite small and it was cut to fit the panels! 3 more panels were unscrewed and the insulation board from behind them removed before the panels and beading were screwed back into place. We now have a warmer bedroom but hopefully we will have a fully insulated freezer! The state room now took on the effect of Santa's grotto as the board had shed polystyrene all over the bed, bookshelves, linen and was stuck (as only polystyrene can) to the wooden walls, hatch cover and was blowing around the floor thanks to the air conditioner and fan that Gerry had turned on as he was hot! Back out in the salon he continued to measure, mark and cut the board to fit the gaps and sealed them with silver tape, eventually declaring the job done (apart from clearing up the mess!) the shelf was refitted to the freezer and I was asked to admire his handiwork - and take a photo. Everything then got returned to the freezer, hopefully that will be the last time we need to empty it completely. I then set about trying to vacuum up the snow in the master berth, I had to strip the bed off to get it all and even when I thought I had it all there was more appeared out of nowhere later! The dust buster vacuum ran out of puff and had to go back in the charging cradle so at that point Gerry got rid of the excess tiny offcuts and put away the tools. Out came the wet and dry vacuum cleaner - greater capacity but it needed to be plugged in to the power. I began methodically working my way around the mess in the salon, it seemed to take forever to get it all but finally I was fairly satisfied that it was no longer Santa's playground. I did a quick second go around the master berth before switching off the vacuum and declaring it done, I'm pretty certain that we will be finding the odd flurry of polystyrene for a while to come.
So that was another small job that took most of the day. I set about cooking up some of the meat that needed to be used up from the freezer and made a cake whilst Gerry took the rubbish that he had produced in to the dumpster. On his return we took ourselves out to the cockpit with drinks in hand to watch the comings and goings of the harbor until sunset. The clouds began to gather and we thought we were going to be hit by a big storm so we closed the hatches and continued to watch as the sky turned black but it skirted around us and went out to sea luckily for us.