Another day dawned, filled with promise and grand ideas. Oddly enough the AIS unit worked perfectly (well there’s no harm in trying), until it didn’t, so with hopes up, then dashed again, we started work on plan B.
We could raise the antenna if only we had a bit of threaded rod, some plastic pipe and a bit of chewing gum, and with a large hardware store just a few kilometres away, raising the antenna should be a lot easier than raising say, the Titanic.
For reasons that are hard to explain we decided to walk rather than get the bikes out, which in retrospect, given the state of the knees of one of us after another round of knees versus cobbles yesterday, might not have been the smartest decision we’ve made. None the less we walked there, and hobbled happily back with our bags full of promise.
"Pleasant" describes whiling away the afternoon with bits of home made Meccano, fiddling and fussing until we found a solution with indifferent results, but which might make a workable compromise.
Then Franky arrived as arranged, to finish the work on Mr Perkins and all seemed well with the world.
As things turned out, Mr P was not in the mood for being finished with. To Franky’s great disappointment and in some ways to our tragic amusement, a tiny part in the fuel system, with a hidden, dodgy repair made decades ago would turn his slumber into something more akin to a coma from which there was no awakening. It’s not the end, not by a long chalk, but between him sitting in his little black hole immovable until the tiny part arrives next week, and our AIS not yet proven, perhaps Antwerp can wait a few more days.
For the first time in a very long time, we sit, unable to move even if we wanted to, by no means discouraged, thankful that none of this came to light on one of the tidal races, or when manoeuvring in close quarters with a container ship. We're waiting lazily for the weekend to pass, ready to perhaps make plans to move.
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