March 2021
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March has been a bit quiet just working on a few things around the boat.
Testing the generator we discovered that the battery was dead and needed replacing. The reason for this was that the maintenance gismo had blown it’s fuse so it wasn’t being charged. With the battery replaced everything works ok.
A bigger issue was the discovery of a leak in the immersion tank with a poor seal on the immersion element. It was an intermittent leak which explained why it has not been spotted before but definitely explained some water in the bilge. The tank was drained and the element resealed and for good measure the bilge was repainted.
We also added some ventilation fans for the aft bilge.
Some new storage was created for the bow locker which has made everything a lot more accessible.
It took a while to realise it but it looks like we have lost four fenders from the bow locker. Maybe I ought to learn to lock it when we are not around. Two replacements sourced from the local chandlery.
Last task before we get our cruising started again has been to revarnish the outside table. Definitely looking a lot smarter.
We ordered up a Marrekite flag to give us access to the parks and lakes in Friesland this year. Just 20 euros to cover mooring there and getting your rubbish collected.
We started our summer cruise on Monday 29th March.
Interestingly our first lock, Blauwe Dromer, was the smallest we’ve been through, 5m wide and 20m long.
We are 4.2 * 19.
We had to shuffle forward and back to clear the closing and opening gates. It did feel tight.
Once clear of the lock we found ourselves a lovely remote and quiet location to spend the rest of the day and night.
The next day we headed off to Ketelhaven for a couple of nights. Somewhere we have stayed at before.
