28th December

12 02 N
61 46 W

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

You really didn't expect that Gerry would take a day off of being busy did you? Once he was up and at them he dropped the dinghy back into the water, turned it around and hoisted it back up into the davits so that it was facing in the opposite direction to normal. He now had the starboard side closest to the stern of our boat and was able to reach the underside to clean the barnacles and slime off of this side. It apparently came off easier than the port side had - probably because it had had extra time to dry out and loose its grip! Anyway my point here is that he managed to do the maneuvering without any help from me, making me redundant and unlikely to offer to help at any point in the future! I got up and we had breakfast then not to hold a good worker back I watched as Gerry took the floorboards up yet again, to inspect his handy work from yesterday and make sure that the rims around the water tank inspection ports were completely sealed, of course they weren't, well that's not strictly true - Gerry just wanted to add more sealer to the screw holes to be sure, to be sure! Out came the screwdriver and silicone yet again and he began to remove the screws, only dropping one into the water tank, I handed him the torch without being asked and he fished it out, I handed him paper towels so he could clean is mess up as he went and he began to squirt silicone into the screw holes, I only saw one blob of silicone hit the water and he managed to scoop it out so I don't think we will have silicone lined stomachs when we use this tank. The screws were replaced and tightened down and hopefully that is the last time we will need to look at the tank, but I'm not taking any bets! Next job on his list was to take the laundry in to be service washed (if the place was open today), followed by a trip to the trash disposal place, a visit to the mini mart to get some bread and of course a browse around Budget Marine as you can't walk past it without checking it out! I bagged up the laundry and helped him to launch the dinghy and outboard then load up the dinghy ready to go. First stop, Gypsy Palace, to see if they needed anything and to see if Dale wanted to go ashore with him, next stop laundry, big tick as the place was open we will have clean clothes by the end of the day, then back to Gypsy Palace to pick up Dale and off to the dock to do the remainder of the trip together. Meanwhile I'd cleaned up the breakfast dishes and done a couple of bits of hand washing and hung it out in the sun to dry, then caught up with posting yesterday's blog. The pair of them arrived back, it wasn't a particularly successful trip, the mini mart was open but they didn't have any bread - good job we have the means to make our own! Budget Marine had some stove replacement parts - new knobs and ring covers which Gerry thought would be good to replace our well worn ones, it was a good thought but unfortunately the ring covers aren't quite the same as
the ones we have even though it is supposed to be the same model! The knobs sort of fit but it's not an exact matchup. I guess the "same Model" has had some changes made since ours was installed! Dale also failed to find the eggs that he was after, never mind at least they had a short time off the boats. We invited Dale and Lorie over for dinner tonight and I spent the afternoon prepping vegetables, marinating pork fillet and generally getting stuff ready for dinner. Gerry did the trip back to the laundry to collect our now clean belongings and once back on board it was all stashed away and the bed remade. As Dale and Lorie tend to eat earlier than we normally do, it seemed like just after lunch that I was putting the oven on and cooking up everything ready for a 5.30 dinner. Lorie supplied the salad and dessert of Christmas red velvet cake and we had a very good dinner sitting out in the cockpit watching the sun vanish and admiring the almost full moon. All too soon it was time for them to return to their boat and we finished the evening doing dishes and watching the last 2 episodes of Breaking Bad - I'm glad we can move on to something else at last but I did enjoy the series.