Little Bacolet Bay

We narrowed down the water maker problems to a combination of factors. The filters had got a little clogged. In the past, an indicator would suggest that the filters were in need of attention. In this case, I think we must have picked up some larger particles which had clogged up the 50 micron filter. The error message suggested I needed to pay attention to the strainer which I did but it was only when I washed out the filters did most of the problems go away. That still left us with a faulty salinity probe. Spectra are again sending one free of charge. We’re hoping this one will be more reliable than the last two. We were able to make water by bypassing the alarm so we now have full tanks for our haul out.

In the afternoon, once the sun had lowered, I focused on the windlass which requires a once a year clean up and greasing. It turned out to be quite difficult prising apart the clutch for manual operation. Once we had managed to break it down, clean it and grease it up it seemed to work far better than ever. When my parents were with us we had a nasty moment with the windlass when it failed and we could not get it to work manually. We now suspect that the last annual maintenance was not thorough enough as the clutch, once greased, behaved so much better nine months ago. Bit by bit we learn more.

The weather held so we took a dinghy trip round the corner to Little Bacolet Bay, just west of where we are anchored.

It was a pleasant little beach with dark sand an no one else around. Sadly it had the usual washed up plastics and other trash, particularly above the waterline.

We walked to each end of the beach to get some exercise. At one end there was a brick door/arch which was probably part of something larger. On our round island tour we learned there used to be a town round here which has since vanished. Perhaps this was once part of it.

Our twice delayed haul out is now planned for 9am this morning. Before then we need to take the outboard off the dinghy, empty it out and haul it aboard. We have a few things to get done (paint, seals, through hulls/prop cleaning/painting, inspection, hull cleaning, ….) once on land but we know work will be slow. The heat of day will preclude hard work for most of the day. Not really looking forward to this. Hopefully I’ll also learn today more about my replacement order for all the parts we need to complete our work for this work period. If we can get them down here soon enough we may stay on the hard for a bit to get some of the work done out of the water. If so, there will really be no rushing around at all. We can get on with some relaxing and reading.