and the very last bits of preparation whilst the gales were blowing.....

"There was more to do?" we hear you cry. Oh yes, there always is.

This time it was seeing if the main engine air filter needed to be replaced. No vacuum gauge on these so you use the technical method - take it off and look through it. Luckily it was OK despite the bits of dust you can see on the intake, so no need for a (relatively expensive) replacement yet - will pop a new one on during the summer:

The genset water pump impeller was due for replacement so it was treated to one ready for, hopefully, plenty of use whilst anchored up in lovely bays on sunny summer days. Call us optimists if you will. Lucky that we did so as the old one was starting to decompose nicely although it wasn't past it's normal replacement time:

Fishing the bits out of the end of the cooler was fun. The pump end plate is worn but not too badly. Perhaps another year of use and then we will get it skimmed. Actually, thinking about things we will probably replace it with the old one from the wing engine (we put a new pump on there last year) which has over 1000 hours less use. This one might then hit the bin:

The forecast promised a force 10 storm / whole gale. We removed the bimini cover again as a precaution - since it is a nice new cover we didn't want it out there with the stitching having a hard time and the spreader bars taking lots of pressure. So, the boat went topless again, it felt like preparing for the winter, although in parallel we were looking at courses and possible departure times for a trip to Falmouth.

At least some of the evening views from the aft cockpit were good, with a nice red setting sun:

The forecasts show a nice weather window on Sunday / Monday now so having made sure that we were not going to be evicted, that is the plan. The Penarth marina folks are really good - think we said that a few times before though. No stress with us staying a bit longer despite the expected influx of Easter visitors. They also have delivered heavy boxes that were dropped off in the office by carriers down to the boat for us in their workboat. Great service (especially as some of the boxes contained wine and arrived on board unopened!)

Fingers crossed the next post should be from Falmouth (if we can get an EE signal up river that is).