Generally, one would expect that a five week sailing trip would involve a lot of sailing. Even considering that the boat has been used only a couple of times per year for the past three years and thus needed some serious maintenance (winches, water tanks, and the like which had not received appropriate attention during this time), four or five days should have covered this requirement. So arriving on 18 December with a planned departure for “the islands” of 27 December should have worked well.  Weather is usually an issue when sailing so a weather related delay to 28 December was not a major issue. However, while attending to more long delayed boat chores such as a thorough bilge cleaning, the discovery of large amounts of water was disconcerting. Particularly salt water!  So tracing the source to the classic leaking stuffing box should not have been a huge surprise and if it was a normal stuffing box, a simple adjustment (while standing on one’s head in the very confined space more or less under the fuel tank) would have allowed us to depart as planned on 29 December. But no, someone, perhaps Beneteau chose to install a Volvo Penta dripless stuffing box with a very nicely designed system for flowing water through the cutless bearing into the exhaust system. Sadly, over time the water exhaust fitting had cracked and was the source of the leak. Minor exploration of the hose clamps caused the whole thing to fall off resulting in the previously rapid drip to turn into a full flow.  An hour more of head standing, two hose clamps and some neoprene cut from a sheet, stopped the flow.  Now we wait for a PSS dripless stuffing box to make its way here from Seattle and followed by a couple of days in the boat yard.  Then we should be ready for at least a few days in the islands.