Commodore
April 6, 2020

Engine troubles

We got up fractionally earlier this morning to get a good long walk in after our Sunday morning lie in. We walked all the way to the end of the road to a large private marina. It has the most ostentatious pink building, typical American style. The word is that the big place next door which isn’t pink, was built by ‘Prince’ and has a purple road up to the house. We couldn’t stay and explore as we were at the limit of our curfew, and we can’t take any chances as the police patrol the road – maybe they are still looking for the refugee we inadvertently helped.

After breakfast Rowan decided to start the engines and check they were ok. Well lucky he did as we have the same problem we had at Calabash Bay with the one engine not starting. This time however a lot of wd40 and jiggling has not worked. There is a Canadian couple who have a boat here that hit coral and needed big repairs so they moved into a flat for the 6 week repair job, they now have the boat back in the marina but can’t move because of the lockdown. So they opted to keep staying in the flat, but come to their boat most days. Rowan discovered he is a charter yacht mechanic, so we asked him if he could help. He and his partner Brandy were here for hours as he and Rowan tinkered with the engine and pulled pieces apart that I found rather nerve wracking. Sadly after many hours they were defeated, and we have to rely on the next step which is to get a Volvo mechanic out, which of course is not going to happen anytime soon.

The day went by in a flash and sort of put a mild dampener on things, but has kept Rowan hugely occupied! On the plus side it was very social, Brandy is full of stories.

We had a very welcome swim which has turned into a bit of a social gathering of the couple from Beccles and the German lady. The Americans don’t really swim and may have heard a lot of anti Trump talk, so pretty much keep to themselves. What was funny was that Regina (German lady) had googled Rowan, and had loads of questions. She is a lawyer who I’m guessing has done very well in that profession. Chris and Lorraine had googled Mettingham Castle when we established we lived 6 miles apart! They had then obviously googled Rowan too. So no more anonymity here!