After a great Easter weekend, the week has kicked off with a longer then expected list of things to fix – I guess this is probably the beginning of a long chapter called "The things they don’t tell you about sailing" – it’s definitely the standout bit of feedback from cruisers (people who live aboard their yacht for extended periods of time cruising from place to place) – you do a lot more maintenance and fixing then you ever imagined!

Back to the fun stuff – the weekend – My friend Amanda (whom many of you know!) and her friend Sophia flew down from new York for the  weekend for a ‘’spot of sailing". The girls had never sailed offhore and did a fantastic job of getting into the swing of things, helping out and soaking up the sun as we sailed!

We could not have scored better weather if we tried – 27 degrees and 15-20 knots easterly winds – I did a bit of research and set course for Key Biscayne – a low-lying subtropical island just south of Miami. As a bonus, we had to go past Stiltsvile.

We had a fantastic sail from Fort Lauderdale (about 4.5 hours) and got there just in time for an afternoon of relaxing, drinking, sunset cocktails and an early evening BBQ!!!!

The next day everyone had a good sleep in – testing out the new sheets and dooners on the boat. We kicked off the day with a swim, and followed it with a long breakfast thanks to our gourmet chef Sophia (whom I don’t have a photo of!!)

Before we knew it it was time to weigh anchor and set sail back to Fort Lauderdale!

Squander at anchor – Miami in the distance

I dropped the girls back at the airport and came back wondering what to attack first the next day – I decided that it was time to fix the generator!

The generator allows me to have creature comforts aboard – it basically generates 220V of electricity very efficiently, using very little fuel – Aside from running the battery charger it also creates electricity that can be used directly to run the toaster, the microwave, the watermaker, charge laptops, phones and heat water for a hot shower!

Since getting onboard, I’ve felt like the new guy at school and all of the various systems and appliances are the other kids – you have the quiet ones that you hardly notice, they’re there day in day out, doing their thing, you have the cool kids that cause no trouble and that you’re just stoked to have in your class (ie BBQ, new ipod stereo,  the simple toilet and a few others), you then have the smart kids that you have the utmost respect for, but whom you don’t really understand (Navigation systems, GPS, High Frequency Radio, main engine) and then you have the bullies – the guys that you have to somehow become friends with or they will make your life a living hell on earth – my bullies to date have been the generator and the second toilet – today bully number 1 and I shook hands for the first time!

After a long day of playing contortionist crawling into places that were not designed to be crawled into, scraping knuckles, elbows, knees and occasionally looking at my hammer and considering using it wisely – the problem of the generator that flashed seven orange lights at me has been resolved – for now!!!

— Exhausted but so happy to have it fixed —

The issue was a shredded water impeller inside the raw water pump (on the right in the pic below) – thank you Adrian for leaving all of the manuals onboard!! the cause of the shredding – I suspect was a blocked up raw water strainer.

A week ago this would have sounded like double Dutch to me but after today it all makes sense – Tomorrow it’s the toilet’s turn!

The wonderful green light of the Generator control panel glowing in it’s operational glory!