BBQ night was again fun. For NZ$10 we got a decent meal, good company and were entered into a prize draw. The draw was set up so that almost every boat won something and some boats more than once. We did pretty good by winning an handheld VHF worth US$300. Not bad for a night out.
On Sunday we met Phil from “Cars for Cruisers” to test drive one of the vehicles he had. He was keen for us to try a few cars out so that with our feedback he’d know what to look for for us. In the end we only needed to drive one car. From this we were able to narrow down our needs. By the end of the day he’d drummed up a few possibilities and after a bit of googling we’d placed a deposit on a Toyota Will VA 1.8 VVT-i. A nippy little thing that will get us around and about and be fun to drive.
Helen spent a lot of day cleaning and sorting the interior making the forward starboard berth ready for Sam’s visit.
My main project of the day was to fix our shower sump. On the way down here it developed a fault such that once the drain pump came on, it wouldn’t stop. My early diagnosis was a control box problem. This was an easy fix as all I had to do was swap it with the one for the forward starboard shower which we currently use for storage. Once swapped the problem didn’t go away. After some more testing it appears the resistance on the water level reed switch when open has fallen so that it’s not enough to trigger the pump circuit but then fools the circuit to think there is still water there when there’s not. This turned out to be a much harder fix as I now had to open up both shower floors to get the sumps out and swap in the one from the starboard side. This necessitated my messing up the starboard shower/berth which Helen had made up so nicely. We now have a working shower but have left the task of finding a replacement float switch.
After two days of overcast skies the day finally brightened yesterday giving us brilliant blue skies. This was accompanied by some strong wind causing three boats in the anchorage to drag their anchors and forcing us to borrow a dinghy to put a line out to one of the pilings to prevent Dignity from banging into the dock.
Finally, Ben did make the national news in regards to the man overboard situation on “Wild Goose”. I don’t know how long this will be available but for now you can see us walking the dock and a snippet from the interview on this link.
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