Wednesday 11th October 2023 – Berkeley River - The Amphitheatre

When I woke up the river was completely glassed out and looked magnificent, so I went out in the dinghy and took some amazing photos. There were hundreds of large jellyfish swimming in the current, they surrounded the boat and were interesting to watch as they swam past us.

After messing about with a few boat jobs in the morning, I put the water maker on and while the generator was running, I decided to switch on the battery charger to charge the house battery. Before filling the water tanks, I washed all the salt off the windows, saloon roof and deck. As this was a noisy process, we headed off to the nearby waterfall for a swim.

I drove the bow of the dinghy under the waterfall and we both took turns underneath it until the dinghy was full of water and needed to be bailed out. It was so nice. I then tied the dinghy to the rocks, and we climbed up the rock wall and walked upriver to the lily ponds and went for a lovely swim in the clear cool water for a couple of hours.

We had a great time there, but when we got back to the boat, I discovered the power plug had shaken loose and fallen out of the generator while we were away, so we had made very little water and the battery charger had further discharged the house battery. Bugger !!

When I started the water maker again, it was surging and not producing much water. I checked the intake filter, and it was very dirty and needed replacing. With a nice new filter, it was once again producing about 180 litres/h.

After dinner I had a relaxing time drinking red wine while lying on the tramp looking at all the stars, seeing the odd satellite or meteorite.

Track Sirocco’s progress

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Sirocco