Monday in Bermuda

Still no word on when Goiot is going to ship the part to us. We have found the part in question on a website in Europe that sells Jeanneau parts, and it appears from the drawing that the entire quadrant with its “clamp” is considered one part. The key is a separate part, which we don’t need, either. We just have to wait, but it is clear that we are not alone in waiting, because the entire ARC fleet is also waiting. Next Monday is “Bermuda Day”, so we will likely be here to help them celebrate.

The winds they are blowing again, and a trip to town in the dinghy today was a wet event. The forecast is for more of the same, getting even windier on Wed and Thurs. We think our anchor is well and truly dug in, and we don’t plan to put out a second one. The boat rides quite well to this one, with two snubbers sharing the load. We watched one other boat take down a jib today, in the middle of this high wind, and we wondered why they decided to do it now. They put it up later in the afternoon, so we can only conjecture that they needed to do a simple repair.

We ran the watermaker to make water, and the genset to make the water hot for showers, but the windmill is putting out enough power to keep everything else on board well-powered. Dinner last nite was whole-wheat pasta with garlic and olive oil, with a touch of hot pepper and shavings of parmesean on top. We started with a very nice salad compose and overall, it was quite good. Lunch today was rice salad, and we figured out a way to provide anchovies for those who prefer them, while not sullying the plates of those who disdain them, and everyone was happy.

We also finally fixed the anchor windlass control connector, which had gotten doused with salt water and the contacts corroded. It turned out to be relatively easy to remove the existing connector from the anchor locker by disconnecting the interior connections, so that the new connector could be soldered on in the comfort of the interior cabin, instead of on-deck.

We have heard several visitors comment that more photos would be appreciated, so this evening we will try to load a bunch of photos. This may be delayed because our latest internet connection is a bit slow, however. Photos of cats and the Bahamas will be moved to the “Moving South” folder on Flickr, while the transatlantic folder will be limited to photos of this trip. If any of you have any photos of us shoving off from Stuart, please send them along so that they can be posted on the website (we know who you are).

Enjoy the new photos.