The next few days are pretty routine – I’m up early and head over first to start grinding/sanding. Also work on the starter motor. We have a spare (sort of) – it’s the one I replaced two years ago when we got stuck in Woburn Bay. James said it was no good but I always kinda doubted it because our non-starting problem turned out to be a bad wire TO the starter.

But, stupid me, I don’t test the starter before installing it, just put it in and hope James was wrong.

James wasn’t wrong.

Can’t remember exactly when we tried it but Milu didn’t start and on Monday I will remove it and test it. Solenoid works but starter motor not. Sigh. I send an email to Palm Tree Marine, they are the local Yanmar experts over at Clarke’s Court, asking if they have a starter but I won’t here back from them until Tuesday (Monday is a holiday).

Our neighbours in the boat yard are Lane and Kaye who we have been talking to a fair bit all week. They are very interesting – he is 78, she is 75 I think. They left New Zealand 8 years ago aboard their beautiful Mai Tai boat, sailed up through Indonesia, to the Seychelles, then to Africa and eventually into the Med through the Suez Canal. We are meeting them for dinner at One Love tonight.

But during the day, we sand we grind. We break at noon, shower, then return, sand and grind, break and shower #2.

Dinner at One Love is great, we have a very nice time, turns out we are all non-drinkers. I think that is pretty common the older you get. I think Lane knows enough to stay away from politics with us. When we first met him we were walking to Cool Runnings where they are also staying and when he found out we were Canadians he started talking about how great Carney is for standing up to Trump. We set him straight – I hope.