The weather pins Egret to Ushuaia
Day 185: Stuck at the dock
Position: 54° 48.80S 68° 18.36W
Ushuaia, Argentina
Scott and Mary Flanders left Gibraltar on 16 September, and we’ll be following their journey every step of the way, thanks to this unique online “blog”. For the first installment of their diary, click here.
Well, Egret just can’t leave the dock. We came in for water and haven’t left. The Antarctic boats keep pouring in with tales of wild ice and pictures. Two are rafted to Egret’s port side. We can cruise later. This is too good to pass up. We have just had four days of glorious sun and warm weather. Tee shirt weather.
The pictures are Egret getting fueled from drums arranged by Roxy, the local ‘get everything’ agent and Egret being invaded by a just unmasked super hero. This is a boat kid living on Valhalla, berthed behind Egret, who was ‘saving’ all of the boats on the dock. He speaks Spanish, French (mother) and English (dad). Four year Antarctic veteran.
We had two single handers (sans crew for the first time) over last night for dinner. One, a British foreign service diplomat, primarily in Russia, on an aluminium sailboat who has sailed high latitudes everywhere. The other, an American who has been ‘out’ eight years finishing a circumnavigation on a 1960’s vintage motor sailor (38 years old). Both just came back from Antarctica. The ice got thicker and the waves bigger as the wine flowed. The American’s pictures are spectacular.
We did have some good news from the home front. Scott Jr emailed and said our wayward camera lens is in. Great. Mary can pick that up on her trip to Ft Lauderdale. Better pictures for you.
On the local front, not so good news. Our wing engine has been giving us fits. It won’t play. Bled the injector pump, injectors, got fuel, fuel injection shut off lever is properly adjusted. Tomorrow it gets a shot of WD40 in the air intake. If that doesn’t work it’s the bonfire. Grrrrrrr. Life isn’t always all-you-can-eat Fueguen lamb (Tierra del Fuego) roasted over a wood fire. x#@%&^* !
On the happy front again we found a way to get even more performance out of our diesel heater. We shortened the tailpipe above the boat deck by one extension. It burns even hotter and cleaner. Soooo, life is good again for the Egret crew.
