Hot Stuff

Please to remember the fifth of November. 'That was the day we launched Boffo for her first taste of the sea since May. She needed to be scrubbed and she needed a bit of inflation, but her motor started up beautifully. We'd disposed of all her old gas, giving it to a young workman in the marina who said he could use it. She had lovely new fuel, which she seemed to appreciate. We took her into the marina where one of the guys was more than happy to drive us in to run a few errands.

Almost as soon as we arrived in Grand Anse, the heavens opened. We darted in and out of the shops we needed. Then a thought occurred to WW. "We should have closed the hatches," he opined.

Visions of rain-soaked mattresses, pillows, blankets, clothing and sundries danced in our heads. It had cleared up by the time we got back. Reckoning that what was wet was wet, we kept to our plan to have lunch at De Big Fish, then headed back to Boffo. WW went to buy ice. I bailed.

Well, tropical rain is a wonderful thing. It can be remarkably local. This downpour had soaked everything around us, including the marina, but had spared the boats at anchor. The rain had all fallen on shore. Django was dry. It's nice of Mother Nature to have given us this head's up. We were last here in the dry season so never closed the hatches when we went ashore. Things will be a bit different for the next little while.

During the afternoon, I applied a first coat of varnish to the cockpit table, which I had scraped and sanded earlier. Then I went below, out of the sun, to read for a while.

WW decided to run the port engine to charge our batteries. Later on, I stepped out on deck. He was on the foredeck. Something didn't sound right to me. Our engines have wet exhausts. Sea water, which has cooled the engine, is pumped out with the exhaust. It didn't sound "splooshy" enough to me. I leaned over to look. Not only did it not seem to be putting out enough water, there was also white exhaust. I'd never actually seen Django's exhaust before. I called WW and pointed this out to him. He looked a bit sceptical. Then the engine's overheating alarm went off.

Sigh.

While you are sleeping, your boat is breaking.

Naturally, this meant lots of time for a kafeeyeh-clad WW to spend in with his dear engines. He read the manual, he poked things. He jumped in the water and tried to clear the water intake with a screwdriver. Finally, he pronounced that he believed the culprit to be the "impeller".

It was RP o'clock. Nothing further would be done by the tired captian and his crew. It was dinner and singing before retiring to our stateroom. The engine would still be there in the morning.