The Big Cold Front

Alan

We have been riding out a cold front in Hope Town for the last couple of days. You know it is coming when the wind comes from the south. Over the following hours and even days it clocks to the west then it hits from the north. This one has been a particularly long one with gusts up to 40 miles an hour.

Voila likes to sail at its anchor and we have been crossing tacks with a motorboat. He  tacks even faster than us. We bumped into his dinghy once. Fortunately the owner pulled it up on the swim platform. We still watch each other nervously.

Normally we need to charge the batteries with the engine every other day. The wind generator has easily kept up with the demand. We have not started the engine for a couple of days. Unfortunately this means we have no hot water as the engine heats the water in the hot water tank.

I changed the hand pump for the fuel tank. This is a small pump to sample and remove fuel from the bottom of the fuel tank. I filled a 1/2 gallon milk jug to see the condition of the fuel. The fuel is in excellent condition. A nice red colour. I put the lid on to prevent spillage. I wanted to examine it more closely a little later on. I could not find it. I looked everywhere. I asked Felicity where it was. She did not know but she said that she put a 1/2 gallon grape juice in the fridge. So there it was in the fridge. It is very clean fuel!