Steve has arrived, I'm not sure how happy he is to have flown over the world to sleep in a boat parked in a yard! Luckily there are mangroves all around so fishing is possible even here.
It's been ten days on land now. Getting the propeller shaft out was quite a job, ended up with a friend of Marcel, Laurent, spending about 5 hours sitting in the engine room, like a contortionist folded over himself sitting on the motor, and gradually easing the seized coupling from the shaft. I went looking for a new support bearing and was getting a little frightened but the shipyard lady phoned to RAM, the bearing shop near the airport, looked sad, asked for the manager then looked happy. So we rented a car and drove to RAM. The bearing they brought out had the same number but a different diameter! More sweating…. but the chef de atelier brought out a lot of excellent books then came up with the perfect bearing, even better than the original and only 23 euros. We spent the rest of the day driving around the capital, Fort de France, and the interior of the island. Traffic is thick, people are very friendly. We tried to buy a babadine fruit, and Mirala who was buying one for herself insisted on paying for ours too. We are also drinking juice of 'Prune de Cythere'. No idea if there are english names for these, but they are great.
Work on the boat has gone slowly but well. Prop shaft went back in this morning, rudder is all connected back but not sealed… at least probably not. I did a shonky silicone job in the end. Getting it all out was just looking too hard. Steve did a sterling job of painting and made the whole bottom nice new blue while I managed to squeeze two bits of packing into the stern gland….. then he had a sleep while I did the third bit of packing. We should have been back in the water today, but they forgot about us, so we are first in the morning.
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