You may be wondering what the devil we have been up to over the last month, silence is golden, no news is good news, out of sight….  Well, we are still anchored at Brewers Bay near the airport in St Thomas getting lots of maintenance jobs done whilst we have some good weather, good chandleries and good tool shops, we are regulars in Home Depot and our vast selection of tools has been expanded.  With the new watertight forepeak locker hatch in place, we decided to overhaul the hydraulics which have really suffered with the salt water.

Finished hatch, all except for a few more coats of varnish on the frame.

We stripped out all the hydraulic hoses and took them to Island Rigging and Hydraulics who did a great job replacing all the corroded end fittings and cleaned up those that were salvageable.  They had condemned our hydraulic control box to the scrapyard, farmer Jez wasn’t happy with the diagnosis so set about refurbishing it himself.

BEFORE – This is the control box for the hydraulics!

AFTER – Two days work and several paint layers later, the box is ready to reinstall.

The forepeak locker has also had a complete re-paint whilst we had everything out of it, it not only houses our two large chain lockers but it’s a great storage space for all our fenders and kayak.  We are now awaiting the return of our hydraulic motors for the two capstans, Island Rigging have been waiting for new seals to arrive to be fitted as they were leaking. They should arrive this week, then we can put everything back together again.  Can’t wait, Joy looks like a gypsy wagon, the deck is strewn with all the contents of the locker.

Oh, I nearly forgot. Here is the cling-on, our friendly Pelican likes to use our bow to hunt for fish, he is a little shy so we try and keep out of his way until he has had his supper.