28th February

10 24.394 N
75 32.692 W

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

Sunday has arrived, it's a day of rest! We have come to a bit of a stand still at the moment, mostly due to the fact that all of the urgent jobs have been done and now we are down to the things that no one wants to do. Gerry's first job of the day required a trip up the mast, the port side spreader had once again travelled upwards slightly and Gerry was determined to bash it back down into place. Once more the bosun's chair, head sets, winchrite and sledge hammer came out and I was forced into action to help haul him up the mast. The trip up there was fairly quick, we have this down to a fine art these days, and shortly afterwards Gerry was bashing (or tapping as he likes to call it) the spreader back down so that it is in line with the starboard one. The difference is nine tenths of F all but Gerry is a bit anal retentive about it so it has to be done. With that job out of the way it was time to get busy with washing down the deck. I got ready to do it but Gerry decided that he wanted to scrub down the cap rail first needing the hose and scrubbing brush and leaving me with nothing to do - who am I kidding here. I watched as he got started and thought about what I could be doing in the meantime, it was looking like time to make a start on the enclosure Isinglass - not a job I relish. I put it off as long as I possibly could by getting out the cleaning rags and sorting them into 3 piles - one to keep, one to use and one to throw away (some of them were pretty disgusting as Gerry just puts back every cloth after using them regardless of how dirty, stiff with salt, oil or the like they might be). Having sorted the rag bag out I really couldn't think of another reason to put off starting on the cleaning. I began with the dodger windows spraying, cleaning and polishing each one on the outside, which is the easiest to do and replaced the cover after I had finished the outside. The sad thing was that it was very apparent that the inside of the windows needed doing as well, there was as much grim salt and finger marks on the inside as there was on the outside. I really hate doing the inside as it requires me to do boat yoga to be able to reach them, wrapping myself around the winches and having half my butt on top of the rope clutches and the lines going through them but I got busy and managed to do all of the inside of the dodger. I haven't taken the cover off from the outside to make sure that they are crystal clear - there is plenty of time to do that before we take off again besides which they can't be any worse than they were before I started! Meanwhile Gerry had been making his way down the starboard cap rail scrubbing it and the deck on that side as he went - including the cleaning off of my blood from my foot cutting incident, at least I wasn't going to have to do the deck now! So it was now time for me to start on the side windows, I closed up one side and began the ritual of spraying, wiping clean, spraying and polishing the insides of each window and once I had finished one side I repeated the process on the other side. I didn't get the stern ones done as it was now well past lunch time and by now Gerry had finished scrubbing the cap rails on both sides and had cleaned off the deck as well - it was time to go below and sit in the air conditioned comfort for a while. The outsides of the windows and the stern ones were going to have to wait until I can get up the enthusiasm to finish the job and once we have washed all the salt spray off of the enclosure top as it will run down the outsides of the windows and I can't see the point in cleaning them before this bit of the wash down is done. After lunch Gerry took himself back into the shops once more, leaving me behind as my foot is still painful to walk on, it's getting better but the slice of skin that I too off is right on the edge and makes me walk with an awkward gate which in turn is making my ankle feel like it's sprained so for the time being I'm trying not to put any pressure on it. The trip to the supermarket ended up with him buying some essential supplies - beer, diet coke and chocolate of course. He did discover that they don't sell sim cards this time around so that is something he would have to try and find a place for in the next couple of days.
Once he returned we did nothing for the rest of the day, it was too hot outside and we were pooped from being out there all morning. We had a light dinner on board of quiche and salad and began watching House of Cards on Netflix from the beginning - it's more a documentary of current politics than we would like to admit to but we are hooked! An early night is in the making for both of us.