New Highfield is found swimming in petrol

Friday 22 Nov, HHN day 42: Dinghy issues, last shopping, hire car return and farewells before departure tomorrow.

A rainy day, and we spot the next window leak: cockpit wind screen this time. Well, it leaked last season, so not really a discovery. Will have to work out how to install a new seal.

Before breakfast I pop out to lower the aft end of the dinghy to let the rain water out. And to my shock and dismay, out comes pure petrol (“gas” to our American friends). WTF! How can that be? Quickly the leak is traced to the tank in the bow locker where everything is soaked in fuel. It appears I had not fully connected the fuel pipe to the outlet on the tank, and somehow this had allowed 1/2 the tank to siphon itself into the dinghy. So it’s out with the hose and dawn washing liquid to clean up. Oh how I hate things being covered in petrol or oil or grease… horrible. And this in our NEW, as yet unused, dinghy. Damn it!

Off for our final outing in the hire car. We pick up the broken laptop, which is finally put back together again, and try to decide what to do with it. Ebay tells us its pretty worthless. Then the last round of shopping, fresh fruit & veg and lots of long life milk. Enough milk, according to Oana’s calculation, to get us to Panama!

Finally, after 6 weeks the hire car goes back to Enterprise, where we get a bit of a shock. When booking, we had understood $220 per week. What they didn’t mention was $2/day for whatever plus 12% tax. So it ended up at over $30 per day. By European standards, that is expensive, especially for a long term rental. Oh well, it was a very useful and necessary work horse, even if just to take us to the showers on those very cold evenings.

Back in HHN, without car, we actually walk for once, to Free State Yachts where we bid farewell to Liz who has been the receiver of all our various online purchases. (thank you for all your help, Liz). We are really going to miss our friends in this marina area.
Then we maximise our time on the WiFi while we have it. Oana uploading blogs and me downloading multiple Sailrite videos. We are going to need those when we bring out the new sewing machine for the first time.

Before dark, we have one last fill of the water tanks. And while at it, like it didn’t rain enough, I give the decks a good wash too, cleaning up all the bird poop so we can have a clean departure! With the cockpit clean of last bits and pieces we are externally ready to go.

We have another delicious farewell dinner with Ray in the Dockside restaurant. Really great wholesome food there. We discuss our last weeks in the yard and marina and plan when we are next going to meet Ray. He is going to sail with us from Jamaica to Panama. Good, if the pirates get us, Ray will surely know what to do 😊

Back onboard we stow away today’s shopping, and we don’t want to hear about supermarkets for a while. Well, till we need fresh fruits & veg. Then, taking advantage of the shore power (which we are not going to have for a good while) Oana bakes a lemon cake to have as a treat with our teas and coffees while sailing tomorrow. And while it bakes, filling the boat with a lovely smell, we have one last frenzy on the marina WiFi. Oana to post the long pending blog articles, and I looking up weather, tides, potential anchorages and so forth. I also order new charts from Navionics, for Panama to Galapagos and the Pacific crossing. Hm, I guess we start feeling like we are in cruising mode.

It will be our last night in Herrington Harbour North. This concludes six solid weeks of hard work: most planned jobs are ticked, some unplanned ones too, some very frustrating but all very rewarding. Overall, we are very please with what we achieved.
We close another chapter. Tomorrow morning we resume sailing, let the new adventures begin. And no more boat maintenance for a while, please!
We roll into bed passed 1am, with alarm set for 6am.