East Head Spit anchorage

The dropping anchor part was not exemplary, and the anchor has to be pulled up by hand every time it's dropped in the wrong place, which was twice.

Drying out at East Head Spit

Anyway, once we got ourselves sorted  J spent time going through all the lockers and cupboards to discover dozens of spanners, boxes of spares (some of them in original 70's packaging) assorted screws, coils of ropes of different thicknesses....

I unraveled the mystery of the stuck compass. Not stuck, in fact, massively deviated by the magnetic force exerted on it by the music system speakers.
The previous owner's priorities are becoming clearer.
Taking away the speaker still results in about 17 degrees of deviation, this is surely too much.

Sorting out the compass is now added to the list of jobs to do:

• fix the oil leak
• replace or repair  the log
• service the outboard engine
• a new clock

I must get J to contribute to the blog as Chief Engineer, he has already begun to get intimate with the engine.

One problem solved to my great satisfaction is how to recharge devices away from shore power. we are relying on phones and downloaded tide timetables for knowing tidal heights etc, so it's important to keep the phones and ipod charged. I have bought something called a Power Monkey Extreme. it stores enough charge for all the gadgets to be replenished, and can be reloaded with juice by solar panels tied onto the boom on a sunny day.

It will also recharge the hand held VHF, and if we decide we want one, a hand held GPS. 

Although maybe the smart phone can stand in for that? I am currently researching how useful the phone can be. I have just installed an app called Navionics, which is practically a chart plotter, and is highly rated by many on the Yachting and Boating World Forum.