Today lots of snow has melted as the temperature has been above freezing and we have large puddles and slushy snow all over the place. All the annual maintenance items are due this week according to our computer program called AMOS that is used on base to monitor stock and give us jobs to do everyday! As it is not possible to do all that in one week with snow shovelling, SAR exercises, earlies and training of the government officers it will have to spill over to the next few weeks. It just isn’t always possible to do work on the engines when the jet boats are outside and it is blowing 30 knots plus and snowing. Matt and I chipped away at some of them including the 12 monthly service which required us to clean the turbo’s on the engines.

The process results in lots of noise and smoke while Matt squirted cleaner in the air inlet then water and I was in charge of the revs. He also did the fuel and oil filter changes and checked zincs. When this is done we have a very specific part to service due to being in South Georgia. Penguin feathers make it through the fine seawater filters and into the coolers requiring removal with a welding rod!

I serviced the self righting cylinder and bag as you can see it is inflated on the aft deck. We leave it for a few hours to make sure it doesn’t deflate and holds pressure before repacking it.

Unfortunately the hypalon has got a case of teenage acne! The temperature is too low to fix this outside so we will have to wait until we slip the boat and have it inside in the warm and dry to repair.

Hope you have a great weekend. For us it will be one of doing some inside activities as we have a nasty low pressure system already over us that is meant to last through tuesday with lots of wind and precipitation. Saturday night will be a 70’s party in honour of Pat’s birthday at Carse House so everyone will be busy with fancy dress items tomorrow.