The festive season - and a slightly less festive maintenance catch up time

Xmas was a canine affair this year, looking after little Izzy whilst Anne went over to Norn Iron for a family get together. Izzy enjoyed the beach at Barrybados of course:

and as usual didn't want to bring the ball back; hers or one she had stolen from a slower dog (and 99% are slower than her so that happened quite regularly). Patrick was not left out in the festive fun stakes.  After his ransom note email to us whilst we were away, he seems to have made up with the other animals on board and greeted us with a proper little Xmas tableau:

Although we suspect that Steve the waterbus man had a hand in this. Luckily the other small penguins are made from chocolate so we can eat rather than feed and tend for Patrick's offspring this time. In Penarth town, one shop seems to have entered into the whole penguin thing with rather too much gusto:

During the Xmas break, we did the usual stuff (eat and drink too much, avoid the dodgy programs on television, walk the dog, try to avoid kids who are hyper on presents and chocolate, snooze, sleep). We even took out Bronwen, the waterbus spaniel for a wander and then hitched a ride back on the boat. Izzy was currying favour wherever she could find it:

Whereas Bron just looked sad when we left her on board again:

All in all, a good Xmas time.

Of course, all that fun and frolics stuff has to end. It did so when Anne returned from Norn Iron with a stinking cold, took away Izzy and left some of her cold for the crew to enjoy.

Maintenance news:

Yes, it is that time of year. What has occupied the captain?  Well, a genset oil change to complete the set was followed by a coolant change for the wing engine. If you don't swap it out, it tends to contaminate the temperature senders and you get all sorts of strange high temperature warnings (or shutdowns in the case of the genset) - so we are told by folks who know lots about this stuff.

The upper sight gauge on the fuel supply tank had developed a weep at the bottom fitting. Easy enough to avoid by keeping the level below this of course but it needed attending to.  The top of the tank looked strange with just the fittings in place:

The sight tube was stripped down and with the aid of new O rings and a little thread sealant just in case, rebuilt and refitted:

During the summer, we had managed to break the gearshift lever on our little eggwhisk outboard that we use on the roll-up Avon dinghy. Annoying as you could not move it any more so we had to leave the engine in gear and start it like that. The smaller HP rated Tohatsu engine has no clutch and so that is pretty normal but when it fires up on the choke, the dinghy does like to roar off  / rear up onto the bathing platform / try to throw you into the water. So, we stripped down an older and sickly Mercury version of the same base engine that we own and swap the gearchange lever over. We are more likely to stay dry when using the small dinghy now.

Of course, using the one step forward one step back rule, the 24v DC meter on our electrical panel decided to play up. It went dim and the reading was fluctuating. Having seen this kind of behaviour on another gauge, we removed the meter and found a very sick smoothing capacitor inside. However, this time soldering in a new one didn't fix things. It looks like other components have failed too so a new meter will be needed. Such is life afloat:

Next on the list is sorting out the raw water pump for the genset and valve gear adjustment for the wing engine. Fun times.