Tidying Up and Visit from Victor

This morning Joel and I mounted the instruments on the panel, although we did not connect them up. Our attention then turned to wiring up the buzzer and we spent 30 minutes trying to figure out how to do it.  We decided to wait until I could consult with Mark in Port Townsend..

We looked at the PSS dripless packing.  Mark had seen a photograph of it and notified me that the flexible boot was much too compressed.  The PSS had been installed quite properly but well before the shaft had been connected to the engine.  I suspect that mating the couplings had resulted in movement of the shaft to the stern causing the compression.  Joel made the necessary adjustment.

Then Victor the electrical consultant arrived.  I showed him the layout and explained what I knew and he went away with the documentation on the Next Step regulator and BEP monitor, which he will look at during the weekend.  He will return to the boat on Monday and hopefully we can complete the electrical work during that visit because we are hoping to start up the engine for the first time on Monday. 

During his visit Victor had a look at our instrument connection task.  We both found the Volvo documentation pretty confusing, partly because it attempts to cover all options.  However, at the end of our discussion I figured that I knew how to hook things up but I had a couple of questions that Mark would hopefully answer after the weekend.

I had had enough of the boat so I took the afternoon off to walk into town with Brenda to do some shopping and get a haircut.  I prepared for the haircut by writing down in Spanish what I wanted, e.g. "A medium haircut please", "Trim my eyebrows and moustache", "Raise my sideburns".  After reading out the requests the barber asked me to put the list on the table and she referred to it several times during her work.  I got a great haircut.  Writing down requirements in Spanish will be a technique that I expect to use a lot in the future.

Brenda's footpath challenge of the day is a certain plant. It grows on vacant lots. The leaves which often straggle over the path, look light and feathery. Both of us learned the hard way that these plants are well armed with long razor sharp spines which tear the skin if you try to brush them aside. You have to go round.