Freeman's Bay, English Harbour, Antigua

Well we didn’t make it to Shirley Heights yesterday afternoon by the time we had finished our shopping and then a rain shower started, so we put that off for another day, perhaps Sunday when they have a barbecue and entertainment which has been highly recommended by several people. We decided as the boat was now rinsed from the few recent squalls that we would do some boat jobs. I was on metal polishing, rust removal, cleaning which even on a small boat like ours it took all day – though we do allow a generous lunch break as it is too hot to sit on deck polishing during the heat of the day. Kevin managed to fix the prop on our outboard engine, a job that had been needing doing for sometime. It seems that all outboard props are now connected with the shaft via a rubber bush which if you contact the bottom shears the rubber as we did going to Janti’s Happy Island (and every other boat visiting that night too). The old method I gather was a shear pin which would snap before your prop did and you could replace it, now if the rubber shears you have to buy a whole new prop for £150! Anyway, of three boats we discussed this with, all had managed to shear the rubber so obviously selling props is a good business to be in, except everyone found the cost so excessive that they have just drill bolts etc through the casing to stop it shearing. Kevin first tried Araldite which held for a while, but has now engineered three screws of exactly the right length that the dog ends only penetrate the inner casing and therefore it still has the ability to snap before the prop itself smashes which he was quite proud of. A trial run to the chandlery showed we can now get full revs without the prop slipping hurray!


View across to Fort Berkley from the back of the boat