We decided that as the weather was so good at the moment, we would make full use of having the boat so close to home and spend the weekend on her. My daughter Storm and I ended up on board on Friday evening as my wife decided that she was too tired to sleep on the boat and stayed home alone. We went down to the boat about 18h00 and I decided to get the charcoal braai (bar b que) going as early as possible as the evenings are getting darker now that Autumn is upon us. Stiorm was comfortable below as she was watching some of her DVD's on my laptop and was soon in her pyjamas. I stayed in the cockpit managed the fire and a few beers in the fading light. It was a stunning evening, almost hot and we tucked into our grub. Storm settled into her bunk and was cumfy early on so I played some music and it wasnt long before she was fast asleep. I also nodded off listening to my MP3's and woke to my surprize to have Storm pointing a torch into my face looking for a drink of water. I had nodded off in the saloon on the long bed but then decided as I was awake to go to my proper bed. A mini storm blew up in the middle of the night which woke us both up with gale force winds, and a spectacular lightening show. two foreigh boats in the marina were heading off early the next morning, sort of dark o'clock time and in the tail of the wind were noisy and with flapping sails they headed off to Cape town. As we got up the next morning all traces of the wind was gone and it was a calm flat morning. Beautiful and windless. The wind came up a bit later on in the afternoon and blew badly bad enought to suspend the clubs racing.
Niki decided to grace us on Saturday evening and the three of us braaied on the boat (better grub when the wife comes along and even salad) It was ac alm night but Niki couldnt get comfortable and tossed and turned the whole night long, So bad a night that she had resulted in her going home early on Sunday morning to sleep. Storm and I are made of sterner stuff and carried on with cleaning the boat on Sunday. I brough down my kayak and found it a better platform to clean the sides of the boat of old residual marks. I spend most of the morning cleaning scrubbing and lightly sandpapering the hull to get rid of the marks. It certainly looks far healthier now that when I first bought her. Also has my mate Steve's opinion on the water leak at the stern tube/stuffing box area and after cleaning away a large amount of crude tried the old pratleys putty to stem the flow. Not as sucessful as we hoped and I think in fact the leak is worse that it was to start with. I am planning to have the yacht slipped this week but on the advice of experts, we are trying to understand the water leak before hauling it out. Hopefully my experts will manage to assertain the problem early this week and I can still get her on the hard for Easter as I want to have a go at polishing up the hull. Other work planned at this stage include a new blue stripe, attaching her new name. probably also have to sand right down the transom as its looking pretty tacky. Need to consider if I need to remove the self steering gear which is bolted there. Its a Sailomat (early model) which I understand is a great unit but I have a chap who is interested in it.