Ready get set go!

After all the excitement of being back on Askari and afloat again we drew up a jobs list......

Our boat yard home for 2018

The Oxford Boat Yard had completed some cosmetic epoxy work on the keel, to finally remove all traces of Mustique.  We also had them undertake a rigging survey, take off all the old antifouling paint, apply 3 fresh coats, and polish the topsides. We have never been really happy with the finish of the small amount of non-skid paint on the deck so we had them update that with a lovely two pack awl-grip and paint the boom where a shackle had scratched off some of the coating - we now have a soft shackle. They were not the cheapest yard but gosh the attention to detail in their work was amazing, a real quality job. 

Now it was our turn and a box of goodies was waiting for us that had been shipped in from Oyster. The secondary alternator was actually the only really important thing that wasn't working , so when we found out that the pulley on the new one was wrong - that set us back. Master volt have been great at supporting their product but this is now our third alternator - the last one failed as the keyway disintegrated. We finally got the correct pulley fabricated in the UK and shipped out a week later - only a quick job to install that (with only a little swearing......)

We had been through our maintenance schedule and one task we hadn't been looking forward to was to check the exhuast mixing elbow for wear and tear. It looked all nice and snug neatly wrapped up in the side of the engine - unwrapping it felt like we were exposing it bare. As it turned out it was easy to remove and had little corrosion inside, so Andrew cleaned it up, replaced the gasket and wrapped it all up again nicely for another year or two - phew!

Custom mixing elbow - exposed

Just a little carbon build up - he was happy

The Boat yard alerted us to the fact that the end caps on our jib sheet cars had crumbled away due to the UV. We set about replacing them at a local chandlers but found out the small bits of plastic were over $40 each - wow! After locating a technician at Lewmar in the US he had replacements shipped to us that day free of charge - another fairly easy job was ticked off by Andrew.

Meanwhile there were other important jobs to be done - cushions!! Yes I am a little obsessed with cushions, bedding and soft furnishings in general. I grabbed some new covers when we were in Darwin but needed the accent colour block cushions to go with them - I found them on Esty but the shipping nearly delayed our departure. A famous cruising sailor (Beth) wrote there's no place for silk on a cruising boat - I totally disagree. You need things around you that make you happy and make a boat feel like home when you live aboard full time.

I'm pretty happy with our new look saloon

A few days into our work, there was a totally calm day so we set about putting the sails back on. Racers make a sail change in a few minutes, how come it took us nearly a whole day. We had run all our halyards on mouse-lines to protect them over the summer and the cars were at the top of the mast so a few trips up the mast were necessary but the main problem is that they are just really big and slippery suckers. We got the main on and it looked great but then we got the genoa half up and we just looked at it and them each other - WTF.......

What on earth is that???

Seriously...... I could have cried (she did a bit)

We quickly dropped the sail again for closer inspection and couldn't believe what we saw. We had left our sails with a sail loft in Annapolis for a service and storage. We had been invoiced for a small amount of stitching but there was no mention of this. To be fair to them when I called them and sent pictures they immediately refunded us. We called Dolphin Sails in the UK for advice and then confirmed the sail was fine and we just needed a small repair to our UV strip. I then spent a day carefully removing the white patch. Then we met Matt who worked from home and he repaired the UV perfectly in a day. He charged us so little them we actually demanded to pay 50% more and wrote him a great review.

That's better - you can't even see it installed - Matt lined up the stitching and got the same material

Some grotty and complicated jobs were next - rebuilding the guest heads and the manual bilge pump which was in the most inconvenient place. Andrew took both on with only a bit of grumpiness - ha ha! I was the packer and unpacker plus tool fetcher. 

Our lovely Kate at Oyster yachts had shipped everything we needed and left an English plug socket on her desk - oops! This has been a totally frustrating failure - the switch on the socket for our washing machine failed and try buying a socket for a foreign country is impossible, a thing that is about GBP5 meant we couldn't run the washing machine without half dissembling the boat and running a cable to another socket for the last 6 months. So when this simple thing was missing - noooo! We got it a week later and washing has resumed on Askari with ease - yay for solutions to first world problems!

We also had to provision - as well as a lot of wine, a trip to the Amish Market for organic meat I also needed new  glasses. Andrew was at Walmart and I challenged him to get me a cheap pair....

New glasses - $10 good job honey!

We thought we were about done and got ready to set sail. Andrew was doing some final checks, we got invited to the Boat Yard Halloween party, but the port nav light wasn't working...... Again a few calls to Europe and a new Lopolight LED was shipped under warranty- hurrah we can make the party as we have to wait a few more days!

Replacing the Nav light - no job on a boat is easy

It wasn't all work though as we were in the cute village of Oxford, I'd take morning runs, we learned the local pub had an English chef and his deserts are to die for. Michael a friend we last met in Charleston last year drove over to join us for dinner one night with our dock friend Dave too. Russ, Tina and Tim were also board their boat in Annapolis one weekend so we met for a cosy dinner half way one night. Sadly the Halloween party at the boat yard got cancelled due to bad weather and we set sail the next day.

It's along time since I had sticky toffee pudding

Out and about in Oxford - just some shots of this perfect Maryland village.

Our last job was to sell Jordy Jeep - we called in to the local car dealers and agreed a price - the deal we got meant we were way ahead of what it would have cost to hire a car. We just had a bit of admin to do and we were fancy free again. We took a day trip to Lewes, Delaware where we caught up with Richard and Kate and took a long walk on the beach,  and then finally we took Jordy on the ferry to St Michaels before we collected the cash.

Car sold now we are free again

28th October we finally left the boat yard and started out journey south - woo hoooo!