So busy of late - difficult to keep 'blog' up-to-date!
"Nereida" now has her newly-serviced sails back up along with new mainsheet, pole topping lift and furling line, all other sheets, lines etc looking (& feeling) good after their recent cleaning.
Aft cabin is actually looking neat & tidy with the mattress finally back! Watermaker was checked over today & pronounced fit & healthy - good news to offset yesterday's bad news- on trying to compensate compass, was told 'needle sticking' - new compass needed....! Decided that, with max recorded deviation of 3-5 degrees (mostly far less), I could live with that for a while. Will keep an eye on compass over coming months to see how things go - have two handbearing compasses to use as backup, in case of lightning taking out electronic instruments & hence GPS input for COG! Need to remove log impeller & clean - 0.0 speed reading since I returned in January - I must calibrate speed/log display and also autopilot before moving.
Have bought replacement clutches for reefing lines - phoned Najad in Sweden tonight (on Skype) to find out if any reinforcement present where clutches fixed - had a problem seeing how to get access to behind cockpit /coachroof area where they are - but phonecall seems to have given me the missing info I needed - I can now see where they are fixed on stb'd side, but must investigate more (in daylight) on port side.. More work to do...!
Sent Navtex display off to Nasa Marine for testing - they will return it 'down the road' with new aerial, old one seeming to be faulty (possibly shorted out when coax cable got damaged sometime in the past).
Phoned Ensenada (Mexico) about berth for early next week - Baja Naval full but Cruiseport Marina have slip space for Mon/Tues on, so will do my Mexico clearance from there. That's assuming I get away then - have to wait for Musto parcel to arrive - was told today it had been sent to here (SDYC), hoping to arrive Fri, but more likely Sun or Mon - we'll see. I need to get moving south... & need to clear out (US Immigration etc) before I do so. Then there's shopping to get done, in between clearing rest of boat and stowing things (no mean task!) ... and still some wiring to finish and testing of laptop inputs to Nobeltec from GPS and AIS. (Standalone AIS is working fine using 'smart splitter' from VHF aerial.)
Lots to do but feel I'm not far from being ready to move on - so long as boat is in good/safe 'sailing' mode, other things can be done as I go. Feeling excited at thought of finally moving, although I will be sad to say goodbye to all the people who have been so very friendly and helpful during my stay here in San Diego.