River Spui - a tangle then a dip

Sunday 19th June

A grand total of 5.4 nautical miles today but more trouble in that brief voyage than 300+ miles so far put together.

Q: What do you get when a loop of your shore power cable (not connected up) drops into the engine (in full swing)?
A: Destruction of the power cable and of the fan belt.

We left Hellevoetsluis  around 6pm after a lazy day in the sunshine and motored slowly to the mouth of the River Spui. It was just as we were eyeing up the mooring buoys there and deciding which to pick up that there was an almighty clunking and banging from the engine. Over before it began, we almost thought perhaps we had run over something, but lights came on on the engine panel and Howard soon identified the problem. Within about 3 minutes he had replaced the fan belt and the vessel was back under command - good idea to keep spare belts and tools so handy.

It seems we'll have to find another storage solution for our shore power cable, convenient though it was to keep it where we could reach it from the cockpit. Careless stowage (sack the crew!) had left a loop of the power cable dangling too close to moving parts. The result could have been far worse than this - no damage done to the engine thankfully.

Once over this and safely swinging from a mooring buoy we both plunged in to the refreshing water of the river to cool off. Bonus: it's not salty. Fresh water from the Rhine here.

Midges aplenty in this spot but they don't seem to bite. We haven't seen many mosquitoes but it only takes one in the boat to spoil a night's sleep. We will sleep better for having hatches open and air circulating below whilst unwanted visitors are excluded, so for the first time we rig up a series of nets. This netting was bought in Australia years ago when we were under siege in a camper van - very glad to put it to good use again having had it on board for so long.

Mozzie defence 1

Mozzie defence 2 - part 3 can't be photographed as of course we're inside the boat to rig it up

It's almost midsummer so the sunset is late - no other boats here tonight


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