Sunday 10th December

Warderick Wells Cay.

24 24.10 N

76 38.30 W

Another day of the "hurry up and wait stuff". The winds have dropped marginally but are still a bit too gusty for us to want to take off as yet - maybe tomorrow.

We dinked into the ranger and paid our fees for yet another night and then headed back to the boat. Gerry had big plans for the day - attending to the generator. We had been having a few strange noises from it and had discovered that the casing which covers the electrical wiring vibrates and has begun to crack near one of the bolts which holds it on. Gerry had done a "quick fix" by cable tying around it - the time had come to do something more permenant. The outer casing came off the generator the all the tools that we possess were yanked from thier various storage spots and distributed to every surface in the salon. At this point if we had been tied up at a marina I would have headed off to the shops or laundry or movies or ANYWHERE! Bits began to come off the generator and eventually the electrical casing emerged from the hole, it was worse than we though (isn't it always?). it was infact broken around the bolt holes -not one but two. Gerry assured me that we didn't actually need the casing but that to do away with it he would have to relocate the oil and water pressure gauges to the outside casing. This called for a drill and the right hole bits - after a breath holding minute or so I managed to come up with the right size one - a miracle to be sure ,as we never have the right one and it usually requires a trip to the hardware store to acquire the right one. So 2 holes later, vacuum cleaner out to clean up the mess and we are then in business. I think I held my breath all afternoon as one thing progressed to another and I had to keep locating tools etc. for the master at work. In his defense he only swore a dozen times! The relocating of the gauges meant having to drain and then refill the water and the oil - that was fun! bowls, very narrow hose pipe (the size of oxygen hose), a very small funnel, the turkey baster (!!) a couple of containers, a heap of kitchen roll, pastic bags and a flashlight later and we had managed to do the task. It was then time to run the thing to see if it still worked, luckily it did though Gerry is still not completely happy with it. I think it will be the thing that has to be nursed all the way - that's something to look forward to. By the time we had finished messing about with the generator, packed every thing away again the day was just about over. It was tme for a very large rum and some dinner. Maybe tomorrow we will be able to leave here.