Leaving the plush surroundings of the Premier Inn, via the less plush and (compared to Spain and Portugal) the wildly expensive Costa nearby for coffee / breakfast, we headed to Toddlerville. A few bits and bobs done, we both had a dentist trip. The Captain's included preparing a tooth that had recently been through a root - canal job for a crown to protect it. All done, we headed back to the neglected boat.
Amazingly, it was not as green and grubby as we expected. Grubby yes but not a total disgrace. We still had a big washing off job to do. First thing was a trip to the dealer to do a car swap. Whilst away we had taken advantage of one of those "quarter end fire sale" events to agree a deal to do a change. Quite an enjoyable day, taking in a grubby car that had covered several miles abroad and had collected more than a few insects for one that was pristine. The most expensive valet job ever?
Back in our "home" surroundings, we met up with Simon and Nikki for lunch at our favourite local pub, the Pilot. Nikki was spoiled by the French chef who told her that they were putting Rum Baba on the menu that evening and that she could have one at lunchtime. It was delivered properly flaming to the table:
The rest of us stuck to their rather wonderful Tarte Tatin offering. Such a great place, just bad for the waistline.
We managed some boat maintenance (see below), some bike trips and general preparation for departure. The dentist called to say that fitting the crown would be two days later then planned thanks to the laboratory closing totally over Easter. So be it. We'd already planned a drive back to Hythe and to drop off the brand new car into store which we did. Annoyingly we had pre-booked a return train ticket which was now no use as the tooth would not be ready. Then another call happened to say "sorry but the courier has lost the parcel with your crown in it...... We returned to Penarth and waited. Once it was found and checked, we came back to Hythe yet again, had it glued on and then took the wildly uncomfortable Southampton to Cardiff train once more (full price ticket, ouch).
Maintenance news:
Preparing for the rather delayed departure, the 9 fuel filters were changed and all the levels etc re-checked. The hull was polished as the weather was being kind too. Typing it is so much faster than doing it you know.
We reported on the misbehaving crane last year and our workaround. Well, now was the time to try and fix it properly. We disconnected the wireless receiver box and returned the cabling to the original setup, when only the wired pendant was fitted:
Removing the temporary feed to the hydraulic power pack and allowing the pendant to send the "on" signal was a happy moment. It worked just as it should, proving that the wireless setup was the problem. The wireless receiver aerial had seen better days:
but the real problem was inside the epoxy potted circuitry. Something on the power supply side had blown in a big way:
Annoying as it just isn't easily repairable and a new receiver is far from cheap. We checked with the manufacturer (Kar Tech) to ensure that our old transmitter would work with a new receiver and then sat on the replacement decision. The wireless setup is so much easier to use when launching/recovering the RIB but the cost to replace it was silly.
When we bought the boat, many many years ago, we were told that the original owner had specified better memory foam mattresses to replace the standard factory offerings. We had been amazed at how comfortable they were and how well they had lasted but the time to replace one had arrived. Duly ordered from the excellent Marine Bedding folks in Ringwood, we prepared to cut up the old mattress to dispose of it. Only the knife hit metal, not foam. Yes, the mattress was pocket sprung and had to be cut into small sections to be dumped in the general marina waste. We could not take it whole to a recycling centre as you have to have a local address to do this and book in. No wonder people are tempted to fly tip....
Cutting the little metal links between the springs after cutting back the covering was a less than fun job and took hours:
We were so happy to remove the last chunk of it and rest our aching hands.
Less than happy was finding some sooty marks under the exhaust fitting from the heating boiler. The section of the exhaust hose that is clamped onto the boiler itself gets pretty hot and tends to fail after a while. It runs to the silencer, in the same small space. We'd already removed this once and cut off the failing section so this time, there was not enough spare hose to do it again.
It looks like the longer run of hose that goes from the other end of the silencer, into the hollow area of the transom, up in a big swan neck and then down to the skin fitting was also getting unhappy. Replacing that will be a job from hell. We know from the last time how tricky it is. We are monitoring the hose to see if there are any signs of leakage. By the way, we have a carbon monoxide sensor next to it and happily, it had not alarmed when the exhaust had started to leak a little. The boiler must be burning nice and cleanly.
