8 March Bits and pieces

It's been a week of doing bits of chores and pieces of boat maintenance while we wait for fair winds to sail north to Barbuda and then south to Green island. We find it is far kinder wind angles, and not going against the prevailing west setting current, to reach Green Island anchorage on the east corner of Antigua to sail 30nm north to Barbuda and then south to the east side of Antigua.

While we wait for the weather there's been enough to keep us busy like renewing our cruising permit, victualling. Of course there always has to be a niggling problem. It is a boat. This weeks' challenge – watermaker not getting up to pressure. The chief engineer picked up his spanners, disappeared into the engine room and diagnosed the carbon brushes on the motor need to be replaced. Messy and labour intensive David removed the motor, dissembled it to find that the original brushes had been worn away. All he needed to do was make new ones from a selection of spare brushes stored onboard. This sounds simple; the reality was hours of precision work resizing and soldering new tabs on and lots of mess, but he fixed it. The Dessalator motor is back to full health and maintaining pressure but to be ensure future good health we'll order a set of correct brush holders. 

with new carbon brushes