The sad but busy end to the cruising season

Once you arrive in your winter spot, there seems to be plenty to do to take your mind off the "what, no more proper sea voyages" feeling. In our case that meant removing the bimini cover, flybridge seating, anchor snubber and tiedowns, treating the covers that remain outside during the winter with Boracol, ditto for the teak, laying up the little Tohatsu outboard, washing off the salt from the trip, polishing the hull etc etc. One of the less enjoyable "etc" jobs was digging out the window washing pole and cleaning the accumulated grot off the domes. The captain has to stand downwind and almost directly under them for some of the job which means a good soaking. Luckily the weather was kind!

Some statistics for you:

This summer, we have clocked up another 323 hours on our main engine. The boat has also just passed the 25,000 nautical miles travelled mark. The genset had a relatively quiet year - only 92 hours run. Too much time in marinas.  We are not sure how much fuel we burned on passages as we didn't reset the murphy gauge info before we headed off.  Right now we still have just under half tanks left from our Guernsey fill up. Not bad at all considering how much travelling around in Scotland that we did with our visitors.

Our major piece of maintenance was the replacement of the two inverters - not planned stuff! Apart from that and a pesky thermostat cover job on the genset, things were not too taxing. The new Furuno navigation gear and FLIR have been a great success. Expensive but a great success. The other major repair work was to the captain's cracked tooth. Way more complex and also eye-wateringly expensive.

Since arriving in our winter home, we have been a bit busy. A trip to Hythe (now known as Toddlerville) was busy. Back afloat, the propane regulator and pigtails that connect to the cylinders got replaced:

only to discover that the "Seaflow" unit supplied by the usually excellent marine parts folks ASAP supplies came with a leaflet saying "not for use in motorhomes or boats". So, another regulator is coming. Most unimpressed with the branding (SEAflow that cannot go to Sea?) and the lack of information about that on their website.

Anyway, the regulator was well past the normal replacement date as were the pigtails. It needed doing for safety. The pipework through the boat to the hob will be a challenge next winter.

We also took some time off to walk the 2 Ps - Pip and Poppy. We managed to tire them out rather well:

but Pip managed to rouse himself enough to deliver a thank you lick:

Nice to be appreciated .