1st December

12 00 N
61 46 W

Weather; occasional showers, wind n/a, waves n/a

'TIS THE SEASON APPARENTLY!

We are now into the silly season, the Christmas trees are out in force at the shopping malls here in Grenada, people are hunting for ornaments to decorate their homes with and the grocery stores have begun stocking up with things that only appear on the shelves at this time of year - the madness isn't limited to your home country, its everywhere!
This year I'm taking on my mum's old mantle and being a bit of a Bah Humbug (but only for this year), I just can't get enthused about the season at all. We have no tree or decorations on board the boat (I know that you will be shocked to the core as I love Christmas decorations normally). We still don't have a clue where we will be spending Christmas day - it's probably the only thing that will come as a surprise to either of us! The good thing is that there is no obligation on us to rush out and buy presents that nobody wants or needs and we won't be opening the wrong sized, well intended things that tend to get given to anyone over the age of 60 - "oh socks and jocks, just what I wanted"!, I did put a budgie on my wish list this year but as my siblings aren't anywhere close to Grenada I'm safe in the knowledge that I won't receive the "in joke gift". As for the food and goodies that we indulge in far too much at this time of year - well that's under consideration, I won't make a decision until I check out the prices and availability of some stuff when we next go grocery shopping - probably on Friday this week.
I left you yesterday with the thought that we suspect our forward water tank has sprung a leak, today we have kept count of the time and run length of the bilge coming on and have checked the water level in the tank. Sure enough the bilge comes on about every hour and 50 mins and runs for about 2 mins - that's way too often and it happens even when there is no rain pouring from the heavens. The water tank level is down on the measurement from last night so it's official, we have a leak, thank goodness we have a second tank so it's not desperation street yet but we need to get this fixed ASAP. Gerry has changed the tanks over so that we are using the water out of the leaky one and emptying it so that we can find the leak and fix it. Unfortunately I don't think that Elmers glue, papier mache, sticky or duct tape will do the job and we have been discussing what our alternatives are - of course none of them are good and all involve BOAT (break out another thousand). Gerry astounds me by talking about angle grinding the top off the tank, finding the leak, welding it back up, fiber glassing then painting the inside of the tank with a certain rubber, waterproof paint; I suggest that this might be more effort and trouble than it's worth for a 30 year old tank and maybe we should just bite the bullet and get a new one put in - you will recall at this stage the messing around we have had with the 30 year old fridge and freezer which we had talked about replacing 7 years ago but kept sticking band aids on until a couple of weeks ago, we could save ourselves a lot of time, effort and hassle by JFDI-ing it now! I do appreciate the issue we face with having to get the old tank out and a new one in, after all I am sure that the tanks were put in place originally and the boat was then built around them - we might have to take off doors and cut the old tank in pieces if we can ever work out how it is fixed to the struts of the boat. I think our next move is to have a chat with the welder from the boat yard and see what he suggests - that will be the expensive option of course as it might mean we have to haul the boat out into the yard again to get the work done - oh well, it's only money and we can't take it with us when we die. So we have measured and noted the dimensions ready to speak with the font of knowledge tomorrow when we are due to collect our Propane bottle from the dock.
We did little else for the rest of the day apart from take photos of things to use in the Nicky advent boat photos.
Dale is now out of quarantine, having gotten a negative brain swab back this morning - I seriously wonder if he has any brain cells left for them to swab as he said it was the worst experience of swabbing to date - they are determined to see how many grey cells they can fit on the end of the swab! Their boat is still being worked on in the yard but progress is being made and hopefully they will be back in the water early next week.
Cocktail hour happened as always followed by dinner and some TV accompanied by the dulcet tones of the bilge pump cutting in and out!
So today's Advent photo is of our breeze boosters taken from both inside and outside of the cabin, they fit thought the port holes and are held in place by a Spanish windlass contraption which tightens them down and keeps them from collapsing. There is netting on one half to allow the breeze in(and keep the mozzies out) and parachute material on the other to direct it in towards the cabin - you have to ensure that you get them facing the right way or there is no breeze and as soon as it begins to rain you need to retrieve them as the rain will find the same route in that the breeze uses!