Getting ready to sail and the batteries have died.
We decided to leave and cross the Atlantic to the Caribbean, then of course things happen to derail your plans.
First I broke my wrist, one of those stupid accidents, Mike had gone to fetch gas and was in a hurry to go and do something else so dumped the bottle in the cockpit, close to where we climb in through the awning, I of course did not see it, stepped onto it and as they are very badly designed as a step, I fell breaking my wrist.
Needless to say Mike’s ancestry was described as I sobbed with pain, good thing he was not there, he had gone for a bicycle ride and I did not know when he would be back.
I managed to get up and unlock the boat and phone our friend Eric Oostuizen from Gateway Nautica, he has a business in the marina fixing boats.
I phoned him as I knew he would help, has a car and speaks Spanish much better than me. He dropped everything and took me to the hospital in La Linea.
They were brilliant, and some of the other patients told the doctor to take me first as I was in a LOT of pain and they could see my wrist was not as good as it should have been. Two hours to be x-rayed, doctored and plastered.
That put a cap on my computer typing skills and of course our departure date.
Then the batteries have died…..they will not hold a charge but as we have had them for 5 and three-quarter years and they were a year old when we got them, at a special price, we cannot complain, they have done us proud.
Of course they died just before the holiday weekend…I do not know how equipment always manages to die at the most inopportune time.
Mike is now seeing if we can get new ones, a serious dent in our freedom chips, but the thought of being without an autopilot crossing the ocean is a thought too horrible to contemplate, that tyranny of the tiller is torture.