Glorious day sail down to Cape Kiti

18 nautical miles

Yes, it was cold, but not freezing cold, but it was an absolutely glorious day sail. The wind was perfect for a sail down the coast and then a sail backup.

Weird weather

The forecast said winds of 37 knots at 3am tomorrow. Today at 4pm the sun was shining, the water still as a mirror and deep dark cloud above. This meant the water in the marina went inky black and reflected the masts. Very strange and quite beautiful.

Finished reefing lines

Final part of the new sails fixed - added eyes for the reefing lines, so that the reefing lines run along the boom and don't get caught on anything.

Sailing with no wind!

12 nautical miles

Last day sailing with Dan and Becky, sadly, they are back to the UK on Monday. 

There was almost no wind today: In the morning it was 4-5 knots and in the afternoon it was 8-10 knots. Still it was a very enjoyable sail, broad reaching out with the asymmetric towards Cape Kiti, lunch of our traditional halloumi, bread, tomatoes and lettuce followed by fruit. 

Then we turned back and motored round to the anchoring point north of the port where we rigged the reefing lines for the new main sail. While we were doing this the wind came up to a blistering 8 knots so we decided to go off for a small sail.

Sanding, sanding and more sanding

I'm trying to restore the for'ard cabin, so most of the week was spend sanding down teak or carefully sanding down teak veneered marine ply. The high point was to discover that the shelves in the peak came out to make sanding them easier. One more week and I hope to have finished.

Water tank guage

My intention had been to remove and clean the water tanks and fit a new depth gauge. So I removed all the nuts and tried lifting the cover.

No way on earth was this going to move - the bolts had nicely corroded themselves to the metal panel. Hence it would require manufacturing a new panel to remove it.

Taking photos inside the tank showed that the tank was actually amazingly clean, so other than a small amount of cleaning I left it as it is, and will check water purity some time in the future.

The depth gauge mounted easily and works well. Shows up how we need to repaint the bilges with bilge paint sometime.

Reefing lines

A very pleasant morning was spent fixing cheek blocks, clutches and rope tie offs to the main and mizzen booms. We finished the reefing for the mizzen, but still have to run the lines for the main.