Off to Lady Musgrave again. This time the whole trip will be with first reef in to allow use of the still shredded mainsail. New one ordered and construction will start soon!
Unremarkable passage through the Sandy Straits ,other than it dawned that the freezer was not in fact freezing. We had arrived at marina , turned on freezer and loaded it. Usually I allow it to freeze down prior to loading but as this was a last minute decision based on weather pattern, time did no allow for that on this occasion. Hmmm, oh well ,luckily we are carnivores, certainly no need to waste our time trolling for those fish we never catch ,although of course sods law reigning as it does , we would probably actually catch one this time , but we have meat to consume instead.
Once in the lagoon we spent the next few days snorkelling as per usual. Now for a product plug….the shark guard works on sharks as well as Manta rays.
We were snorkelling around one of the bommies where unbeknown to us a small reef shark was resting/lurking under a plate coral.
We drifted along and the tail of the shark guard therefore hung fairly vertically .As Jo drifted over the plate coral the shark which had stayed quietly in place, unnoticed by me as I passed over it, obviously got a sensation and shot out from under the plate coral and disappeared pronto! Still not sure who was more surprised us or the reefy !
Every time I start an engine we check that water is being discharged appropriately. I had been thinking that the port engine was taking a little longer than normal this trip, so checked the raw water pump impeller was as it should be -ie in tact ,no vanes missing etc .All seemed ok with the impeller so I started checking the strainer basket was always primed and discovered it wasn’t ,so the hunt began for the reason. Found it! Hairline fracture in the plastic lid, thus no vacuum ,thus not always primed. Obviously I had screwed it down too tightly last time I replaced the strainer basket- don’t know my own strength apparently !
So learnt a couple more things this trip, always more to learn.
