Testing testing!

The shaggy green beard on Zofia's bow got rustled yesterday when we took her out of the marina. The beard and our log book said it all - pen bound since the June long week-end! All our energy and time in the intervening weeks spent preparing for our new episode. Well that's not totally true because we did pop over to Brizvegas for a 30th birthday and grandchild immersion AND there was  Le Tour De France that needed a good looking at! Anyway the end result was a shaggy bum and rusty skills.
On test this week are the new solar panels now doubling the capacity of the old one, more power management systems for the fridge and Engels, the new drogue, anchor buoy plus metal gizmo that will ensure that the anchor snubber does not drop off the chain. Too early to trial the wind catcher seeing as the breeze is piping though from the south west as I write. No need to fiddle with the docking sticks yet either. Listing all this prompts me that this amounts to a lot of shopping and a lot of installing! No wonder the bloke has been busy.
In any event it was great to get out on the ocean and pop up to Becher Pt. Just when I commented how strange not to have seen any dolphins, the Comet Bay mob arrived and escorted us into Warnbro Sound. There were about 8 well fed adults plus a juvenile that played; twisting and lunging through the bow wave for around 30 mins. Fun time was over in an instant however when it was time to jibe and head for the anchorage. The old 'use it or lose it' horror emerged when the port side jib winch was stuck. Manly force saved the day but the winch maintenance, so long muttered about, now emerges as a necessity rather than a nicety! Good to get this sorted when the chandlery is only a short walk away.
Initial fears on arrival from the bloke that the solar panels were not working were followed but much activity down the man cave lazerette. Oh, and did I mention muttering and moaning? It turned out to be an overnight success. 8-9 amps were being fed in by morning making it possible to return all the manuals, which were lying open all over the saloon, to be stored away for the next 'excitement'. No modifications were in fact needed except for the passage of the sun.
A decent sized swell that was making the anchorage rather rolly promoted the bloke to trial the drogue's capacity as a roll arrester (Seabrake). The bloke has given it the thumbs up. Now that it is calming off it does look very handsome being dried dangling from the storms'l halyard. I' m less keen to need to use it in a following sea but reassuring to know its simple to deploy and highly likely to deliver a good outcome.
Verdict on the anchor buoy is positive although my deployment will need fine tuning. The bloke thinks it helpful to know where the anchor is and we were floating right over the top of it this morning in windless conditions. Our location confirmed by the boing, boing of the hull tapping the buoy. Good morning- rise and shine! Some schoolboys in a dinghy thought it warranted some inspection. They were probably hopeful to be able to poach some crabs or similar. Zofia would have been too big a prize to smuggle home!
The metal gizmo that secures the anchor snubber is a winner. Attached easily and has not worked itself loose, unlike its hook predecessor.