Timshel was lifted out of the water on Wednesday for the rudder bearings to be fixed.  They used the small travel hoist which seemed normal size to us, but they also have an absolutely humungus one (but strangely there do not seem to be any cradles to put boats into?).  Luckily she was only out of the water for a few hours and stayed in the slings until she was relaunched.  Steve took the opportunity to clean the hull a bit and change an anode, but in fact there was only a little slime on the hull, it was remarkably clean, so either the Coppercoat is doing its work or the fish in the marina have eaten off any fouling.  It was very disappointing to have to get more work done on the rudder, given that it had been done before we left the marina in Scotland, and we’d waited almost a month for the work to be done.  In retrospect it felt a bit stiff when we left, but we assumed this was just because the bearings were new, after all it had been fixed by the experts what did we know.  We spend so little time actually steering the boat we had not quite realised how stiff and immovable it had become.  Happily it is now much better and the new autopilot has been fitted to replace the one that had given up the struggle with the immoveable rudder and died.

We have been doing other jobs while waiting, a few more mods to the alternator and charging system to be completed then we shall be on our way again.  We consulted our Fishing book and bought some kit for setting up a strong ocean trolling line from one of the well stocked fishing shops in town.the book says that the size of the fish you catch is related to the size of the lure you use, so we restricted ourselves to some modest lures not wishing to catch any 50 lb monsters.  As well as the gaff hook in the picture, we bought some cheap vodka for pouring into the gills to subdue a lively fish on deck.