Bilge Soup

I spent an hour today cleaning a foul soup of diesel, engine oil, and rusty water out of the bilges. Between the diesel that went into the bilges at the end of last year, and the oil and diesel that went on on the way to Tollesbury I've ended up with about 10 litres of oily liquid in what used to be a water carrier. Luckily our local re-cyling centre in Stortford takes waste oil, so hopefully I can get rid of it there. Otherwise I don't know what I'll do with it!

I only had a couple of hours available, so spent the rest of the time bending on the mainsail. It's now shackled to the throat halyard, tied on to the gaff with robands, and lashed down to the boom. I tied it up and put the cover on after that, but had to warn Julian it was not ready to be hoisted. He knew that though; the gaff span is not fixed in place yet!

There's still a lot to do if we want to head out on Sunday. Fingers crossed we'll get it done!