We bought our inflatable lifejackets some years ago - in fact we are not exctly sure when. I though it best to rearm them with new CO2 cylinders. This was a good chance to test the inflating process. It is just as the instructions say - "jerk to inflate" and presto our jackets fully inflated very quickly. I was suprised by several things - the speed at which it happened, the fact that the jacket became very cold from the compressd gas and at how tightly the inflated vest fit (which it is supposed to). We feel that this was a very useful excercise and now know what to expect if we ever have to jerk the tab in anger.

We had some bad things happen today - we discovered the washdown pump is dead so we had to order a new one. This is quite distressing as the pump is only 2 years old and they are very expensive. Unfortunately, this pump did not get winterised (i.e. it was forgotten) so we have no recourse for warranty. Then we suffered a blockage in our holding tank vent hose and suffered is the correct word! I wont go into the gory details but suffice to say I'm glad this happened in our home port and not once we were on our way.

To counteract the bad - the good news is that we sold the car! We now have no wheels and so we will have to leave soon.

Actually, the planned departure date is one week today so all fingers must be crossed.