27th December

12 00 N
61 46 W

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

We are at that weird time of year now, those days between Christmas and New Year when everything is closed and there is nothing much to do and usually too much left-over turkey that no one wants to eat! We haven't got any more turkey sadly, I would have loved a turkey sandwich for lunch today, oh well there's always next year! As for nothing to do, who am I kidding? Gerry's first words to me when I got up this morning (after a late lay in) were - "are you feeling energetic? I want to take the wind generator blades off again" GROAN! So before we even had breakfast or maybe I should say brunch - it is Sunday after all, we had the wind generator blades off once more. It was the ideal time to do it as there wasn't so much as a breath of breeze and not a single ripple on the water either. So he fiddled some more with the blades, changed the mount back to the old original mount but put the new blades on it - time to try that variation. I don't think it's made much difference but I just don't know what the answer is - maybe remove the BBQ from the rail? So now it was time for brunch and Gerry occupied himself doing the cooking and made a good job of it too. On to the next job once the dishes had been washed up. A quick look at the water tank to check if the water was still coming out around the rim of the inspection holes, unfortunately there was still a leak and now that the sea was giving us a bit of swell we could see where it was slopping out of, time to get out the epoxy and seal around the edge once more. First he wanted to empty a bit of water out of the tank so instead of wasting the water I boiled up the dirty dish clothes and tea towels (anyone for dish water soup?), he then set about applying liberal amounts of epoxy and silicone sealer - that should do the trick! Meanwhile I had decided that it was about time we cleaned our stove top, it has a fabulous buildup of gunk and grease in all the places that no one ever manages to clean properly. I got Gerry to remove the bolts holding the top in place, put a protective cover down and coated the entire top with oven cleaner - the 2 hour wait for it to work was almost too much for Gerry to sit out and wait, he wanted to be at it as soon as he had finished watching whatever You tube video he was watching at the time, he even went out into the cockpit and had a scrub at the barnacles on the dinghy, all we need to do now is turn the dinghy around to do the port side, which is never as easy as the starboard side due to the way it hangs in the davits. I had to take a wire BBQ brush to get some of the gunk off of the stove top but it is looking better. Gerry was a bit peeved when I said that we now need to turn it over and do the other side but he did just as I asked - sometimes there is no stopping him! In the end it still needs a bit more TLC but it is looking a whole lot better than it was. I guess the next job on that front is to clean the inside of the oven so that it looks like it belongs with the top - maybe tomorrow!
By the time Gerry had the stove top back in place it was coming up to cocktail time and we were both quite happy to retire to the cockpit with drinks in hand and watch the very quiet harbor for a while. The sun set wasn't particularly spectacular but the sky was all sorts of gorgeous colours in quick succession, we managed to catch a couple of the colours but we weren't quick enough to get the really bright ones at the start. I cooked one of my favourite Christmas time dinners - bubble and squeak, which I'm pretty sure isn't a popular dinner these days except maybe amongst those of my generation, so now we have finished up everything that was "left over" from our Christmas meal, I'm going to have to dig into the freezer for inspiration tomorrow.