August 2011
Coping with the heat.
Well, my "Engineer Challenge" was won by Pieman and Mark. It's all remarkably simple once you allow yourself to think it through logically. However, in the mild panic I often find myself in when faced with engineering challenges, thinking straight is not always easy.
The blockage was in the white-painted "L-Shape" spiggot, and in the exit to the main chamber inside the actual elbow.
Suffice to say, that our generator is now running sweetly once more, and no more overheating or white smoke. What a relief!
At the end of July, Penny went back to England for a wedding. She was away for 6 days, and I had dreams of being the cool cruising Daddy, turning up on a dock with just my little girl in the sort of way which has been the topic for at least two Hollywood movies. What actually happened, was that we stayed at anchor outside Gouvia Marina and made extensive use of their pool and showers. Every morning I got up, threw some spanners around the engine room until Libby could no longer sit quietly, then we'd take the dinghy into the marina, set up camp by the pool, open a book and order a beer. Now what could be better than that? In the mean time I met a nice chap called Jim anchored nearby on his yacht "Ariel". Also, towards the end of the time some very good friends turned up; Pete - an old Sunsail mate now twisting spanners on a very large yacht, and his wife Christine with daughter Maliyah who had taken a hotel nearby to see Pete in between charters. We didn't have as much time together as we would have liked, but it's been years since we saw eachother, so it was a real treat anyway. Libby played happily with Maliyah too.
It's astonishing how insistent a 4-year-old girl can be about what she wears. It's true she watches a fair number of "Barbie" films and the like whilst we're on passage, but we get the feeling that much of it is her own idea. Not used the cameras much this month so far, so here are some more pictures of The Girl.....
