October 08
Oct 31st We kept the car for one more day and the kids & I went shopping again! More tins to catalogue and space to be found. We also managed to find a pet shop and bought a huge crate to transport Molly home in - it cost E245 and I didn't think we would be able to get it in the car. Now we have made the decidion that she can't do the crossing, I have spent the last week trying to sort out the logisitics of getting her home - no easy task! Her crate is so big it can only be flown back on a 757, so we are limited to what flights are available. The other problem is getting someone to collect her the other end. My parents & Marg & Dave are going to be with us in Gran Canaria so we have had to ask Ollie & Lisa who as usual have been great and offered to collect her and look after her until we get back.. the big question will then be do we fly her back with us after christmas or not? The family are completely split on this matter - I think she is not enjoying her life on the waves as much as we hoped she would, she is fine in marina's but she really does not like the crossings, also her tum has never recovered from our time in Morocco and the sight of Molly having her bum hosed down on the pontoon has become a fairly regular occurance. She can also be a tie if you want to go exploring. The kids won't even contemplate not having her with us - but then I guess I would have expected that, Dave is unsure, but most days I think he thinks she should stay with us and I am worrying about her too much. Its very hard, many people said to us that boats and dogs don't go well together ( and with the amount of hair I vacuum up each day - I can understand that point!) but we were determined to make it work, maybe we should just keep trying but at the end of the day you have to think of the dog. Our friends & family have been good enough to rehome/look after our other two but Molly is kind of special, she is very much our dog and pines when we are not there so I am unsure how she would settle with someone else. In addition she is exceptionally well behaved when we are there, we normally take her with us to restaurants etc, but she does get a little upset when left, she also does not like closed doors and can escape through the smallest gap if given the opportunity, so I worry that she might end up becoming destructive or simply too much for someone to handle. I guess th truth is at the moimmnet we just don't know and can't think about the alternatives so we are just taking it one step at a time and at the momment that means focussing on getting her back to the UK. October 29th Another school day for the kids and a winch bashing day for me. Finally got the whole thing back together only to find it does have a problem and is now squeaking like mad and getting rather hot around a collar!! So went to take it apart again and as I lifted it a crucial bearing cage fell out of the body of the winch, all I could do was stand and watch as it bounced off the boat onto the pontoon and then into the water, while I stood with several pounds of winch in my hands.......I was gutted. In the evening we went to the posh marina restaurant, this has the appearance of something colonial like you would find in New England. We had to eat indoors because uncharacteristically the weather was a bit chilly. It was indoors with all the windows open though, so not that chilly. The service was impeccable, the food extremely good. Richard and Ange were in fine form, it was good to have just adults for a change. We left the restaurant for brandy and coffee on Richard and Ange's boat. We didn't get any coffee but what we did get was a fun evening, with Ange getting indignant about me mentioning Becky's fat! This is normal conversation for Becky and I, she is determined to lose weight but the life style is not sympathetic to shedding pounds and of course in a warm climate you do not need many calories to survive. Anyway this harmless remark led to a raucous exhange when Ange pointed out I was no adonis, I was too short and a little overweight myself. All of this I know, the more she said it the more I referred to Becky's fat! Ange is also fiercely boat proud, so all glasses are placed on mats on the table etc, I did mention about ten times about the qualities of polyurethane. So a lot of gay repartee, that does not translate too well in the cold light of day. At the end Richard remarked dryly to Ange that 'her performance for the night was over!'. One final note Jordan has taken to Kayaking everywhere around the marina and over to the beach. This has now become a bit of an obsession and he and Indy now Kayak to the loo and back. They seem to have very regular bowels now, that require a lot of kayak visits to the loo! October 28th More of the same today, I spent the morning on schoolwork and catching up with paperwork and Dave spent the day swearing at the winch, sweating and generally making a real mess of the boat. He has now been trying to fix this thing for 2 days and the ceiling is hanging down over the sink, whilst the cooker is covered in iron filings from the bolts he is drilling through from above, I don't want to complain, really I don't but when the bloody posh Oyster next to you is having their chrome deck fittings scrubbed with a toothbrush you can't help feeling a little less than perfect! Not having a good time all round really, the new sun cream I found in the local super mart appears to have resurrected my teenage acne; my roots need doing and the fake tan on my legs from spending too much time down below teaching kids is looking more than a little blotchy! There are days when I really don't think I was cut out to be a boatee! Anyway in the afternoon, the kids and I made our second trip to the supermarket this week; well I am trying to provision the boat for 6 people for 3 weeks! I have also written out a full list of everything I have bought so far and labelled every cupboard and hidey hole. I thought I had a good memory, but my main food cupboards are under the seats so it is hard to keep track on just how many tins of tomatoes and decaffeinated teabags are knocking around, especially when they are buried under dog biscuits, part baked bread and 3 tons of rice & pasta (the staple of cruising life!) I am going to keep the menus simple; well there is a limit to how extravagant you can be when the boat is rolling over 30% each side with the swell. Have I mentioned that the boat rocks before....? So I guess we have really started the countdown now to our BIG crossing in earnest, with just over 3 weeks to go I keep trying to tell myself it will be a piece of cake but I don’t think I am convincing anyone let alone myself. It is the main topic of pre dinner cocktail conversation with every cruiser you meet and I guess some might get a little bored with the relentless discussions on how to rig your preventer or whether to goose wing or pole out your spinnaker but I am absorbing it all and now feel I can talk yachtese with the best and in a strange way it is comforting to know that many other perfectly intelligent and sane people are embarking on a similar journey, we can’t all be mad can we...? Finally the day ended with another great liver destroying evening, Ange cooked spaghetti bolognaise, we finished Richard’s awful bottle of Spanish Brandy and then staggered back onto our boat sometime after 1am this morning. October 25th Today we met up with John and Ziggy, with Connor and Jenny, and Richard and Ange, with Oscar and Oli. The arrangement was for us all to meet in the car park at 10:30am and we would go to the national Park and the camel rides. I went to see Tony and Jill about their Bamar roller furling had a cup of tea, forgot the time, when I emerged from their boat at 11:00am Becky had gone through high octave voice ‘I’m annoyed’ to low octave ‘I’m annoyed’. If you have experienced this expression of anger, as the kids do on occasions, the only route is appeasement. I appeased for all I was worth! Actually one of the big differences between the kids is that Indy has learnt the appeasement trick, in fact she lays it on to the point that I think I am going to vomit in the bin (‘but I love you mummy’), Jordan (now nicknamed the fog horn because of the lack of control he has on volume for his breaking voice) has not learnt the appeasement trick and so meets it head on with the monosyllabic grace of a testosterone burdened teenager: ‘what!’, ‘I didn’t’, ‘not my fault’, ‘wasn’t me’ this only serves to inflame the situation. Thankfully we have had rather fewer incidents of this recently and a hint of appeasement is beginning to creep into Jordan’s emotional repertoire of late.....whoopee! So we made it to the car park and then off we went with Richard and Ange in the lead. This in itself was a recipe for stress in their family car. The recipe comprised: Richard, a fairly cautious driver who clearly likes to keep his eye on the road, Ange equipped with a tourist map and the roads, beautifully constructed but not always clear in their signposting. We did one or two 180 degree turns and then we reached a choice, the road forked into three. From our passive calm air conditioned vehicle we could see lots of gesticulation in the front and rear in Richard’s car as he took control of the map. We chose the low road, which was one those that lead into villages, are about a mile long and emerge 100metres down the middle road from where you started. The roads in Lanzarote are beautifully surfaced and well marked. They run through dramatic terrain of laval flows and miles of stone lined fields that range from smaller than the average garden to a medium sized English field. It is all dramatically dark igneous rock colours and the ‘fields’ are black! Driving is a one mistake sport, if you come off the road, often there is a small drop and you would launch yourself onto harsh jagged lava rock. Just as we talking about this we rounded a bend and there was a car some 10 metres off the road perched on the lava rock. Emergency vehicles were there and a small crane but it was difficult to see how they would get it off. After much merriment we reached a visitors centre, well worth the short stop, lots of explanation as to the origin of the Canaries which was as a result of passive tectonic plate deformation! Next to the camel rides. In the middle of nowhere there was a big car park and about 100 camels. Although busy there were lots of camel minders and we were soon ushered next to a row of seven kneeling camels. (To be precise about this they were dromedaries, as they only had one hump). The seating arrangement was one either side of the beasts back. A sort of well padded frame went over the animals back and a seat was suspended either side. There was much amusement as we mounted the animals in pairs while they were on their knees. The system for the couples was simple, husband on the left, wife on the right. On the right side of the camel line they had various sized bags full of grit. These were used to counterweight the extra weight of the man. Becky and Ange got their bags, but Ziggy whose husband is a big man got none.......this she saw as an insult and caused much amusement for the other two wives. Her self esteem was preserved however when the beast stood up and took the weight of their frame, it became ludicrously lopsided. Mr Camel Man rushed across and applied the largest bag of grit to Ziggy’s side. Standing up was interesting as they raise their back legs first, tilting you right forward on your rope safety belt! Then off we went lumbering up the hill. After 100 metres I felt that I had had the experience and that was fine, especially after the camel in front farted directly at me! However the ride continued for about half a mile. There were a few ‘incidents’ on the way, Jordan and Connor’s camel decided it wanted to overtake the camel in front, as we were in a long train and each camel was tied to the next, he only partially succeeded and in doing so thrust Jordan’s knee up the bum of the camel in front. This is a very touristy thing to do, but a lot of fun, recommended and something that all of us will remember. The price at 10 euro per camel was not bad and a whole lot better value than the blind white albino crabs of a couple of days ago! After the camel ride we retraced our steps to the entrance of the National Park. We drove up through the laval flows to the centre perched on top of the one of the hills. Here you are loaded into coaches and taken through the park itself. The park is at the epicentre of the most recent eruptions in the 18th century. The scenery is a dramatic sculpture in igneous rock, with huge craters, overhangs of dripping rock and laval tunnels. Back at the centre there is a demonstration of how hot the rock still is in places: dried vegetation is thrust into a crevice and it explodes into flame, then they throw water down a small hole and it blows out steam like a geyser. In the restaurant you eat food cooked by the rock itself! After the national park we returned to the coast and the beach: Playa Blanca, for the kids to swim while we drank cold beer. Pen ultimately a quick visit to Marina Rubicon to see where Windancer IV was moored and also meet Jonny and Kate before returning to Puerto Calera for drinks on board Tony and Jill’s boat Nychea (Hylas). At marina Rubicon we said goodbye to John and Ziggy as they were off to Gran Canaria that night. October 24th Fabulous day yesterday, it started with the kids and presents in bed, breakfast, also in bed of course and then phone calls from Mum and Dad. At 10:15 we went to our VIP briefing for the Transpac 52ft racing. Richard and Ange, Sophistikat, had managed to get us the tickets. The day was bucks fizz and briefing by eminent local dignitaries and race organisers on Transpac 52s. These are carbon fibre boats with deep 4 ton bulb keels and large laminate sails have crews of 14. There were 14 boats competing from 11 different countries. They cost 2 million euros per year to run. UK is represented by Cristabella, they were lying 13th out of 14th, oh well never mind. They are the up and coming class for racing yachts, sort of like the MotoGP circuit that we used to follow on motorcycles. They are called transpac because the racing originated from the US: the circuit was San Diego to Hawaii! Now they do a Med circuit with about six venues. Anyway back to the day: after briefing we set off for the courtesy boat or ship, it was big. We boarded , more nibbles and champagne before we cruised out to the race circuit. It was a glorious day for sailing, sunny, fresh wind. The racing was exhilarating, two sixty minute races on an upwind downwind course. The way the teams worked together betrayed many hours of practice. Boat speeds and responsiveness were at a level we could only dream of. After the racing we were back to the courtesy tent: more extensive nibbles and more champagne. The day ended with brandy and coffee on Sophistikat . A great day and many thanks to Richard and Ange. October 23rd The morning started at 8:00am, a bit of a cruel awakening after the 1:30am finish of the night before. Off I went to the car park to meet the hire car guy, he whisked my jaded self back to the hotel which served as his base. I gave him the euros, he gave me the car, I struggled to find my back but I made it. By 10:00am Ziggy and John arrived with Connor and Jenny (Windancer IV) and we set off to explore Lanzarote. Windy, sunny day that occasionally turned squally. First stop was the ‘underground lake’, in reality a bit of a pond under a rock arch. It was famous for its white, blind albino crabs (which I think is tautology). These were little monsters at least the size of your thumb nail! The place was tranquil, even had water music playing in it, and beautifully presented but it was 24 euros to get in! The crabs were unique to the lake, Jordan led down on the rocks to flick one across the pond. The boy is a born conservationist! After the lake the gift shop, they had curious little figurines, the female had huge Pamela Andersons and the male was of porn star quality with enormous balls! Apparently the island custom goes like this. You send your male doll to your intended and if she approves she sends her female doll back to you. I guess there have been a lot of wedding nights on the island that have not lived up to the promise of the dolls: on both sides of the equation. After this cultural experience we had lunch. This was excellent, lots of chilly, and took 2 hours, which limited the time available for more cultural experience! As we ate we watched very fit looking surfers, apparently dicing with death as they surfed around black volcanic rocks. John and Ziggy treated us to lunch as my birthday present for tomorrow...............really nice of them. We took the kids to a beach where the four of them had tremendous fun playing in the surf. On the way back we called in at Arecif, where after circuiting the town hopefully, we did find the chandleries. One of them was an Aladdins cave of bits and bobs. These are terrible places for those who own a boat. Inexorably they seem to draw the cash out of your pocket and into their tills. We made some strategic purchases! On our return to the marina we hooked up with Richard and Ange for a quick drink and then returned to last nights scene of crime at the Tapas bar with John and Ziggy. A good day on Lanzarote that so far has impressed Becky and I for its cleanliness and scenery. October 22nd Kids school work day today started early finished late. I also made lots of progress on: getting a ‘pole out’ for the cruising chute, the davits repaired and spinnaker pole pulley replaced. And I fixed the water maker, I rang Rod in Southampton, two or three sessions on the phone while I took things apart got it fixed. The port authority arrived to ask us to move: next to Sophistikate! As we moved across there was much talk about the cost of bribery to be next to them versus the cost of bribery to keep us away, all good banter! The move went well with lots of hands helping. In the evening we went for paella on Sophistikate, Richard and Ange, this was a fun night, with eight of us around the table. The talk went from Yachty stuff to more risqué things as the five bottle of wine disappeared. Suddenly it was 1:30am and time to go next door to our own boat. October 21st We left the anchorage in Graciosa and set off for Puerto Calera on Lanzarote. The wind was 5 to 10 knts so I got the main and the genoa up. The kids were working down below as was Becky. I was busying myself on deck fussing with ropes and letting out the ever hopeful fishing line when I heard a whistle, I look up from the stern and there a few feet from me are two irate men in a very small fishing boat......oh dear our closest near miss! It is amazing in miles of sea where there are only two boats how they always seems to be on a collision course: there must be some statistical explanation for this phenomenon. As we reached Costa Teguise I saw in the distance an array of very tall masts with laminate sails, by this time we had lost the little wind there was and were using the iron genoa. They on the other hand were zooming about with sails up racing. It turned out this was the international race series TP52s and I was about to go through the equivalent of a formula 1 race track! I opted for the outside, as luck would have it, they all headed in, I sneaked past. A few minutes later I looked behind to see 14 earnest masts with spinnakers etc headed in my direction. Through the binocs looking forward I could see the finishing line......more revs on the iron genoa and I won the race. In Puerto Calero we filled up with tax free diesel before heading for our berth, this happened to be next to another Oyster, Mike and Devala (Sea Rover), a brand new 46. I introduced myself as I had been in touch with the guys to repair our davits as they said they were working on Sea Rover. It looks like progress on repairs will be made here. Mike and Devala were very pleasant, knew Ange and Richard who we had arranged to meet here, they invited us for drinks. So the evening was drinks on their boat and tapas at the local restaurant, kid free! Mike had been a Panorama producer and Devala a Physio; they are also doing the ARC. Interesting evening! Another good day, but it is school tomorrow to catch up.
October 20th Woke up this morning to sunshine through the cabin skylight. After a cup of tea on the back of the boat, got my shampoo and soap dived into the sea, got out, lathered up, and dived back in again to rinse off! Great.
Popped Molly into the dinghy and took her ashore for a morning stroll. The beach was clean and fresh from the tide washing the sand off, Molly dashed around like a young pup. Just on the left of the beach is an old ramshackled remains of a stone hut. Molly went into explore and came out very fast chased by a dog! I guess somewhere lives there! This is too good to move on, guess we will stay another day.
October 19th Just helped Johnny and Kate in from Rabat, they had been doing two knts all night so that they did not arrive in the dark. Also heard from Vagabond, they set off a day later and now have no wind at all, sounds like an iron genoa job all the way.
We have decided to move around to the bay where we spent last night and anchor up. This will be our first night under anchor! We arrived at the bay and tried to pick our spot. The problem with anchoring is that it is easy to find your spot, then you drop the anchor where you want to be then you let out 30 metres of chain and then you end up thrity nmetres away from where you started and too near to other boats. So then you pull up your anchor and start all over again, it is , of course a great spectator sport so get it wrong first time and you have attracted an audience, get it wrong twice like what we did! The audeince doubles. Well we got there in the end.
The kids took off with Windancer IVs kids and are now bombing around the bay with the dinghy and an windsurfer board attached, all pretending to do the Hawaii Five O impression on the board as they surf along.
In the afternoon we walked up the volcano that we are anchored in front. Magnificent site from the top. Molly loved every minute running backwards and forwards between the party of eight, she must have done the mountain three times.
We had six for dinner tonight: Bill and Ziggy and Johnny and Kate: great night pasta and chilly and lots of laughter.
October 18th The boat is still rocking but only gently so although my tea has just spilt everywhere - I am at least able to sit upright without been thrown out of my seat - a distinct improvement on yesterday!
Well it's 2am on Sat morning and I have just come on watch. A much better evening tonight - Thank God - I must admit I was really quite concerned about how I was going to cope with 18 nights at sea after last night but tonight so far has been fine. Yesterday was a little cloudier than the day before and everyone was a little more sluggish - trying to get the kids to work, while we are underway, is not easy, I'm sure everyone copes with it differently but we all tend to behave a little like Molly and go into a form of hibernation! You don't eat much, drink much or do much, you tend to cat nap on and off, even reading can seem like too much effort - sitting watching the waves & sky, checking the course and adjusting the sails is about as good as it gets, hours can pass like this literally! All the jobs you think you're going to catch up on are left for another day. It's really quite odd, especially for someone like me who never usually sits still!
We decided to go into a place on Graciosa, Caleto del Sebo, for a couple of nights - it is tiny township on a tiny island off the tip of Lanzarote and we cut our journey time by about 6hrs. Several of the other boats from Rabat were headed in there for a couple of cheap nights at anchor or in the little marina - we headed for the marina, this was fine and we got a space no problem – but there was no electricity or water despite all the right fittings being there! We walked round to the little harbour beach and had a well earned drink! As we sat drinking the customs lady, truncheon at her side walked past, when she was past us it suddenly occurred to Dave that she might be coming to visit us! We radioed the kids to say that if she did come to us we were looking for her!!! She arrived at our boat, couldn't speak a word of English, she was no match for a garrulous Indy and a Brummie Jordan, she retired hurt saying they though it didn't matter if we were not staying long! We ran round to meet her on the way back papers in hand, she was very pleasant and not concerned, having seen the boat, I guess they are not looking for family boats when they visit!
Later in the evening we took the dinghy round the bay to a beach 'party', met several people we had met in Rabat on the beach who had left the day before us. The anchorage looks really good and we will probably move round tomorrow sometime. Really good evening on the beach, the kids got the surf board off Ziggy and John's boat and towed each other around the bay with one of the dinghies, a lot of fun for them. Then back to Windancer IV. She is a cat 44ft and wow what a lot of space on board. Catamarans certainly have their advantages, the other is where we went rolly poly through the night they surfed over the waves, sounds good to me. I guess the only penalty is they do not go to windward very well and they are big when you want to get into a marina.
Left the kids on Windancer IV, Becky felt really guilty, in the end we sneaked off to a restaurant back in Caleto del Sebo. A grand name for a very small town with no tarmac roads, it is brilliant.
Food was simple good and cheap, then back to Chilli Oyster, what a great day. Oct 17th Well we survived the second night fine but I have to confess it was 12 hrs of purgatory! The seas were really lumpy and the boat just swung from side to side continually! I just didn't sleep at all. We left the cruising chute up until about 9pm last night when the winds started to pick up, and I'm afraid we had the same problem we did when Oli & Lisa were with us - we couldn't get it down - we are not sure what the problem is - sometimes it drops like a dream other times it won't budge and you do the same thing, Dave thinks it is just the strength of the wind - if the wind has picked up then it is more difficult to pull it down but I think we are going to have to get it looked at before we do any more big trips as we are finding it is the best sail for us if the winds are less than 15knts. In the end I came up with the idea (somewhat brilliant I thought) of using the electric anchor windlass to pull down the sock or large condom which snuffs the sail - this worked fine but it was another adrenaline rush we could do without! After that we sailed all night with just the front Genoa out, but the wind was directly behind us so we had to sail slightly off course to stop the wind backing into the sail from the other side, we ran the engines for an hour or so first thing this morning to recharge the batteries so we have made up some of the ground. Dave is really chuffed that we are last getting in some proper sailing and not spending a fortune on fuel! The other really good news is that Molly finally did a wee on board!!! The bad news was we didn't know until this morning when I noticed her water bowl was full of a yellow liquid - she had basically peed on Jordan's bedding in the cockpit and it had run down onto the floor and into the bowl! As we are still rocking - doing any real washing is a little limited - so I rinsed off the bed spread and hung over the rail to dry off in the early sun - but a wave just came over the side and soaked it! Jordan is not impressed! Anyway - our hour of excitement today was not being able to turn the engine off! After putting the engine on for a few hours this morning it literally wouldn't turn off. We got the floor boards up and Dave said he could manually override the stop switch - I pleaded with him not to turn it off in case it was the starter motor again and we couldn’t get it back on - I knew the wind was dying down today and I didn't fancy being stuck 200 miles from land with no engine! Anyway - he had to fiddle didn't he and he stopped the engine - and sure enough - it wouldn't start again¬! After a short huff, we looked at it logically and realised there was an electrics problem - on inspection of the main switches in Dave’s tool cupboard, we found the engine switch had been turned off - a simple remedy - all sorted - but when we turned it on again - it still wouldn’t turn off - Dave thinks we need a new solenoid. I didn't want to mess anymore given our vulnerable position so we agreed to leave engine on and just get to land as quickly as we could so we can once again get the problem looked at! After that we sat on the floor once again asking ourselves if we had bought the right boat - so much has and continues to go wrong - having bought an old Jag when we were first together which was always going wrong, he always said he'd never buy an old boat - but we did!¬ After that we did the only sensible thing - banned the kids to the cockpit and sat on the bow with a bottle of white wine and some nuts! After an hour of peace - we allowed the kids to come up and we dangled our legs over the side in the water and wrote notes to put in the empty wine bottle which we corked and ceremoniously launched into the sea - not particularly environmentally friendly but the kids enjoyed it. Mid afternoon India presented us with a flying fish that had landed on the deck. So we have dragged lures now for much more than a thousand miles and the only fish we have caught has surrendered itself by jumping on the boat! So not looking forward to tonight although the watches are also easy as there is not a soul in sight, we haven't managed to make radio contact with either of the other boats since yesterday morning. The first night as we came off the coast we had to be really vigilant with all the little fishing boats that are out at night - but I don't think we have seen anyone now since about 10pm last night. Oct 16th Well the sun has just come up over the horizon and we have survived another night at sea, Indy has yet to emerge from her cabin having been snugly tucked up in bed either sound asleep or watching DVD's since about 7pm last night! She decided to come and keep me company on watch around 8.30 (given our position & time zone - it goes pitch black around 6.30 so our watches start around then) anyway her idea of keeping me company consisted of her wriggling around under a blanket next to me and talking incessantly about nothing - so I kindly declined her offer and sent her back to watch “Zohan” - probably completely inappropriate for her age - but I was past caring such was my need for a little peace & quiet! Jordan does his usual Koala routine - hoody goes over his head and he sleeps in the cockpit somewhere, anywhere he can stretch out in fact so we generally spend the night treading on him as we lean over to check for boats, adjust sails etc Dave has now gone back to bed for an hour so Jordan is supposed to be keeping an eye out, but I doubt if the one eye he has got open can see more than the moon which is now going down as he is still lay on his back! We have been sailing all night with 2 other boats, which were visible to us until about 2am this morning Newtsville and Windancer IV (Ziggy & John, Canadian ARC boat 2 kids, check out their blog on www.sailblogs.com/member/windancer ) We made radio contact with them throughout the night - checking positions - seeing whose got the most wind etc! The sun has been out all day today – not a cloud in the sky and the magical moment of the day happened around mid morning when we were joined by a huge pod of really big dolphins, there must have been at least 30 of them and they played in the bow wave for at least 15mins - we took loads of pics and videos. These were the big grey variety, there was a mixture of big adults and some youngsters, they criss-crossed in front of the boat and then seemed to take it in turns to jump into the bow wave. We were doing 7knts, they could accelerate away from us, turn round, come back at an angle and jump back into the bow wave. As they came to the surface you could see the stream of expelled air, then as they surfaced their ‘blow hole’ would open and audibly pop shut as they went back down. We sat with our legs dangling over the bow spell bound . In terms of Moroccan malaise - Molly is almost back to normal though she was sick last night, I am beginning to wonder if it is fair to carry on sailing with her - she had enjoyed the short hops - but increasingly they are going to get bigger, and she hates rolly seas where the boat swings from one side to another (which it did most of the night) As for me - I have only run to the loo twice whilst writing this - so am gradually improving! Also I’ve been marina bound for too long so lost my sea legs and it usually takes me a day to feel completely normal when we haven't sailed continuously for awhile so even had no alcohol yesterday -definitely not up to par! Dave seems better but opted for cereal not Chilli for breakfast so perhaps not quite his old self yet either! Oct 15th Time to leave Morocco and chase the sun down to the Canaries. Dave went up to clear customs and settle our enormous bill (645 dirham’s for 9 nights - £4.70 per night!!) and found he could only pay in the local currency so we decided to walk into town to go to the bank and pick up a few last minute souvenirs. We left the kids studying and returned an hour later with teapot and glasses, a wooden camel, bread, a plunger and some mini pliers & snips for Jordan’s fishing gear. Then the kids did the round of goodbyes and they all came to let our ropes go with promises of meeting up again somewhere further south soon. In the confusion of so many helpers, one bow line that came right back to the pontoon was missed. Dave kept shouting ‘what about that one’ the reply came back ‘yes they are all off’. The trouble was the small crowd were all stood next to the boat and the line went behind them. The ‘minor detail’, as Bill the Aussie described it, was put right after Dave insisted that there was another one and just like the pantomime it was a case of ‘its behind you!’. Several boats left yesterday and two more were leaving at roughly the same time. Jonny & Kate, from Newtsville (check out their website – its well worth a look -www.freewebs.com/jksailing ) followed us out. As we turned out of the marina – the pilot boat appeared as if by magic and escorted us all the way down the river, as on the way in our pilot boat guide was on his mobile all the way! It really has been a great marina stay in Rabat, recommended to anyone who might come this way and feel wary of both the pilot guides erroneous description and/or Morocco in general. So far the trip has been mostly uneventful-, we did have a bit of excitement when we first left the mouth of the river. We put up both sails, didn't get enough wind to move us so dropped the Genoa and put up the cruising chute, we then tried to furl the main in as it was stopping the wind filling the cruising chute properly but the in-mast furling mechanism which winds the sail back into the mast had come partially out of it's groove inside the mast, as it wound sail around itself where it entered and left the mast it jammed up completely - so we had to go head to wind (drive the boat directly into the wind so there is no wind to fill the sails from either side) for about an hour in the wrong direction and drop the main manually onto the deck. So we now had yards of sail cloth all over the deck, the question was what to do next, as we pulled the sail out of the furling mechanism the assembly popped back inside the mast, wow! So now we put the sail back on winding it up the mast, this time we made sure the main halyard was very tight, this seemed to keep the furling assembly well and truly inside the mast. Throughout this whole procedure Becky helmed her head to wind. So another lesson learned and we now know how to drop the main and refurl the furling - we felt quite proud of ourselves - as we were just in the entrance to the river I’m sure 6 months ago we would have run back into the marina to fix it - but you've got to learn to do these things on the go.
October 14th Already to set off for the Canaries this morning but Becky's tummy was not up to it! This she declared after I had winched her up in the bosun's chair, 3/4 of the way up the mast, to fix back on the radar reflector. If she had been caught short up there it would not have been a pretty sight. No pictures were taken as she thought her bum looked big in the chair! The radar reflector is now 'plastic ties' tied on so it should hold until we can get a more permanant job done. In case I am thought ungentlemanly, I did go up first, but it was declared I was too heavy to winch up again! In the end we used the windlass to get Becky up there. After the false alarm re-set off, we gathered the kids back in, they were playing with what now seems to be quite a tribe with various nations represented. This was not popular but got quite a lot of school work done. Unfortunately India, who was seemingly prodigious in her maths output, did not seem to perform as well 'live' as it were in front of me. I think she has discovered the answers page.....an extra 45min teaching for her was the result. The tribe descended upon us for dinner, like a load of savages they devoured everything they could lay their hands on and then off, no doubt to forage on other boats! Tonight it is early to bed and off to Graciosa tomorrow in the Canaries. Some photos via this link of the last few days: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/ChilliOyster/FunInMorocco October 13th Chill day today both Becky and I are nursing our tummies and taking the immodium in large doses! Lots of chores like washing and school work and returning the car. Also getting gas for the boat at 11dirham per bottle (75p a refill cf Dartmouth at £15!). It doesn't help that the loos here do not usually have toilet paper, I guess you need to apply the principle of left hand **** and right hand for eating food! Molly continues to recover and poo bags are again a feasible proposition, however she is staying on her diet of rice and egg for a while. Putting some Bisto on it seems to do the trick. Met with more people who are doing the ARC: Colin and Ziggy from Canada, they have children too, seem a very nice couple. October 12th Today we went up to Mehdya Plage, a large hotel, past its best but overlooking a huge mostly empty perfect sandy beach with wonderful rolling breaking waves. It was all set in a National Park. We swam in the surf, diving into the breakers and had lunch on the sun drenched terrace overlooking the sea. We had lunch, which turned out to be the Morrocan version of the Sunday roast. It cost us a princely £15 for a family of four with drinks, this time as it was a hotel I had two beers! Spent the evening with Tony and Jill, we met them in Gibraltar. Really nice couple who lost out big time with the Icelandic Bank crash as they are from Guernsey. They were good company and we had a jolly evening. A good relaxing day. October 11th Great day driving back through the mountains. The good news is Molly seems to have returned to her usual regular self, the bad news is Becky and I have now both got a dose of Molly's complaint, so we are both losing weight! and popping immodium tablets. Having showered her off in the lovely marble bath that Becky never got to use! We decided to check out in the morning and head for the hills. In the morning we reversed the process that had got us into the Riad, a man with cart to take the luggage back through the alleyways to the car, only this time we put Molly in the cart as well, so she had no opportunity for nother episode. I gave the man who had been guarding the car overnight 10 dhiram (66p, less than an NCP) and for that I got a complete wipe over of all the windows as well!. Out of town we let Molly out of the car but by this time she was on empty so no performance but she remained frisky and wanted to play with the kids, so we were not too worried. In a way she had done us a favour, we were on the old road and the countryside was spectacularly large, in places very barren and in others incredibly fertile, in the distance were the Atlas mountains with snow on their summits. I think all in all I am more impressed with natural beauty that man made 'beauty'. En route we saw lots of goat herders wandering across the desert, camels by the road side and lots of irrigated potatofields! On the way we stopped and ate at a local cafe: we had tajine (their stew in a pot) and chicken. The whole meal with drinks (non-alcoholic of course) came to 110 dhiram (about £8 for the four of us).On the way back we passed through the valley that the Morrocan government had dammed. The dam was huge and the hydroelectrics provide 25% of electricty for Morroco.By the time we were back at the boat we had covered about 400km, so I guess we have done Morroco. October 10th Well off we went to Marrakech, only we went by road not the Marrakech Express. The road was impressive, we did the 250km in about 2.5h. It was when we got to Marrakech that it all went a bit tits up! Becky was certain that the gate to the Medina that we needed would have a car park sign by it. Why I don't know, I think she was expecting some kind of illuminated sign like Redditch where they tell you how many spaces are left. In the end after driving amlmost the whole circumfernece of the Medina walls I stopped in desperation to ask someone. The response was he told his helper to jump in our car and go with us. It cost us 15dhiram , about a £1 but it was well invested. When we arrived at this bomb site there was an arab with five dogs guarding cars on what looked like something Mr Wimpey would have been proud of as a brown field site partially cleared! We got out of the car to be greeted by the Riad owner, who was puzzled as to where we had been for the last 30min or so. The dogs took an instant liking to Molly: I think the dogs thought 'fancy stuff' wouldn't mind getting hold of that and the bitches looked upon her as easy meat! The owner, car park attendant, responded to this unwanted attention of our dog by throwing a big stick at his dogs, which sturck two of them on their back, lots of yelping and they ran off. A boy with a cart appeared and we loaded our luggage and followed through the gate of the Medina, into a small street with lots of people milling about and staring at us. We followed down one squallid , pathway and then the next, this was not looking good. There was a knock on an unpromising door, which opened and we were in the Riad. The Riad was beautifully presented, a tree in the centre courtyard , small peaceful and idyllic, what a contrast from the street scene outside. In the evening we ventured out. The central medina is hugely crowded and full of hustlers. A young arab woman grabbed India's hands and started putting henna on it. A lot of peole have henna dye 'tattoos' that last about two to three months. India wanted one but this was an enforced application! Becky started telling her to stop but she continued until she had finished and then demanded 600 dhiram (about £40), Becky offered her 10 dhiram (about 75p) and then a dispute took place. I watched in admiration as this aggressive Arab and Becky shouted and pushed and jostled each other, after this handbags at forty paces, we left the scene having parted with 15 dhiram and an annoyed arab woman still demanding money. India had a very elaborate pattern that ran all up her forearm. It was said by the Arab woman to be the best henna ever, in the shower later, it all washed off apart from a faint orange tinge! Earlier we had had a meal in the central square, this was rowdy alot of fun but the food was nothing special. Around the centre were story tellers, monkeys chained to their owners and lathargic looking snakes that had long gone past being charmed. By the time we got back to the Riad (hotel) we had all had enough. Molly was there, fine and waiting, but a bit agitated we took her out but she didn't perform but then wouldn't settle during the night. It was very difficult as there are no open spaces in the medina, so everywhere is someones spot and everywhere there are people. At 4:30am Molly disgraced herself in the marble lobby of the Riad (little hotel) by squitting over the central tree, vegetation, in front of a couple who were having breakfast before catching the early morning plane at 4.30 in the morning. Later when Becky tried to get her out into the street, she performed in front of a stall, the man was a tad upset at the sight of the blood/poo deposit and yelled at Becky! The kids gathered round shouting and laughing as Becky tried to get her back to the Riad and she tried to leave more deposits on the way. This was not a happy time for Molly or Becky. We resolved to leave the next day!!
October 9th Today we set about hiring a car for the trip to Marrakech. I have been driving Becky mad playing the Crosby Stills and Nash song 'The Marrakech Express'. Look it up on Youtube.uk. It is a long time since I saw those hippy hair styles and colourful clothes. Got everybody singing it now. October 8th Our second day in Rabat and we explored the souks (market place), medinas and Kasbah. What a colourful place, a bit grubby in places but full of life. I think the kids were a little shocked, some of the beggars were quite deformed, Jordan had definitley never seen anyone with Polio before. And India's flipflops were probably not the best thing to wear in a street that was running with mud and filthy water, I think we have persuaded her that in some countries fashion must be replaced by practicality! This is really the first time they have experienced anything other than a western culture and they are definitley having their horizons expanded! The souk/medina which seemed to blend into one long gaggle of thin streets lined with cafes and little shops of every description which would then open out occasionally to bench style stores. The whole area was full of smells, some delicious some not so, a huge variety of people from the very traditional to the almost western. Westerners were very few and far between. The kids bought nougat from a street seller: horrible sweet stuff impregnated with peanuts, they thought it was lovely! Out of the market, we were ‘picked up’, rather cleverly by a tour guide who started by pointing the way to somewhere and then told us he worked for the King, as a jet ski instructor! This likely occupation convinced us he was genuine! He was entertaining and it meant we did not get hassled by anyone else. The huge grave yard that we past at the entrance to the river is said to contain more than 2 million souls, Christians, catholics and muslims all buried in the same yard but in separate sectors with the muslim stones all facing mecca. It looks out to sea, we were at the mouth of the river where we had entered a couple of days ago. The Kasbah was very clean and all the walls painted a deep but bright blue up to about shoulder height. This is said to ward off the mosquitos. From the Kasbah we walked down to the beach: Indy, Jordan and their new friend Alice played in the surf while we drank mint tea. No alcohol around here! Oh yes and after a bit of bartering we let the tour guide go! (though Becky did momentarily lose her bartering skills and notes were being pulled from a variety of pockets as he kept shaking his head!) We returned to the boat, having seen the throng of people just ½ a mile away, we realised what a protected life we lead in our guarded and railed marina. I guess most of the guard presence is supplied by the King as he keeps his boats here. He has one whole length of pontoon to himself and a variety of motor boats, a classic sail boat etc. They are cleaned everyday by an entourage of cleaners! We haven’t seen him yet, maybe he only sails at weekends! Spent the early evening on Vagabond Heart, had a beer or two, the kids decided to change the sleeping arrangements: Jordan decamped to Vagabond Heart and we had Alice in Indy’s lower bunk. Guess who got the best deal!!!! The sun went down, the evening cooled, a last Ricard and we went to bed! We have decided to leave the boat here and hire a car tomorrow and go to Marrakesh and maybe Fez for a few days - dog friendly hotels permitting! When I got back the kids had made friends with Nick and Georgina, two Aussies. We met their parents Ian and Jenny (Mikado). Actually this so often happens, the kids meet first on the pontoon and then we go to find which boat they are on! Anyone thinking of cruising with kids don’t delay they are good meet and greeters! Ian and Jenny were from Brisbane, he had been finance director for Castlemain XXXX. They plan to sail back to Australia and are going across the Atlantic with the ARC like us. We had a beer with them on their boat and then arranged to go out for a meal the following night. Ian was clearly a hugely experienced sailor and had sailed in several Hobarts. Good fun both of them. I was settling down to a game of chess or two on the computer when the Perkins dealer turned up. We spent an hour or so, starting the engine, looking at the water, listening to the engine, looking underneath for oil, feeling around for oil. No oil to be seen. He said he didn’t know what the problem was but the engine sounded quite healthy to him. I like it when someone goes through everything and honestly says I don’t know, it is so much better than a lot of conjecture. I always made sure that anyone I trained as a forensic scientist was brave enough to say I don’t know, speculation in the witness box was always manna for the defence QC who would then systematically take you apart. He wouldn’t take anything for his time. What we did agree was that I had put Castrol GTX D 10 40 in and some STP Diesel additive. He though it would be better to change to Shell 20 40, which he could supply and we agreed we would put on the larger oil filter unit. I would collect it tomorrow.
Today & yesterday (30th) were pretty much the same lots of school work and boat stuff. The weather has been pretty awful with 20-25 knts of wind constantly now for nearly a week but the last two days have also had alot of rain so difficult to get outside jobs done and the kids are defintiley becoming cabin bound! Ange & Richard flew back to the UK on thursday night and were were in bed by 8.30 exhausted! In the afternoon we wnet to Sale souk. A smaller and bit grubbier market than Rabat. Lots of animals around (later I talked to the guys on the boat next door but one (Tonty and Jill...they had gone to the same souk and saw a chiken still clucking dipped in boiling water to loosen its feathers, plucked and then they slit its throat. Godd job the kids did not see that!
Bought lots of bread/pastries: good funwith the staff who were much amused by us westerners...we really are in the 0-2% minority here.
October 7th Our first day in Rabat. A Frenchman arrived on the boat and announced he would help with the engine. Together we peered down into the engine bay. It seemed that with all the shaking around, the pre-solenoid, that was completely non-standard, had shaken from its mounting and thrown off some of its connections. A quick test with the multi-meter and he put the wires back on and hey presto we are running again. He finished the job by tightening up the connectors, spraying the whole thing with insulator and tying it back into its mountings.
I discovered through my poor French and his even poorer English that he was not the mechanic as billed by the marina but a fellow boater who was on the first pontoon. He would take nothing for his efforts, we forced a packet of cigarettes upon him and some biscuits! He wanted to show me his boat, a power boat at the end of the marina that he used for fishing trips. It was big and powerful and quite old yet in very good condition. He had spent three years rebuilding this boat from top to bottom and it was now his pride and joy!
I showed him the two air con pumps that I had taken out, we tested them, one worked one didn’t. The latter being declared as ‘caput’. I returned to Chilli Oyster and tested the remaining two air con units. It seemed that with the parts I had, I could get one of them working, so now we have two air con units working one in our cabin and one in Jordan’s that also blows through to India’s cabin. The one in the main living area seems to be a little sicker and, of course, it now has no pump!
Two fixes in one day so I went for a third and rewired the starboard side navigation light, the copper in the lamp housing was so corroded that when I tried to unscrew the wires the whole mount crumbled away! One new housing and three feet of wire sorted the problem. I am constantly amazed at the damage the sea can do to things that on dry land you consider virtually inert.
As we were blocking the thoroughfare for one section of the marina we decided to move the boat, it was good to do this in complete calm and with the engine on. Again there were lots of helpers who stood by to take warps.At 6pm we invited some of our fellow boaters around for drinks and nibbles: Johnny and Kate (Newstville, named after the previous owner’s wife who was always ****), a couple from England who are sailing from England to Australia, he has to be there to take up his job by November 2009, Bill and Debbie (Vagabond Heart), an Australian couple who emigrated some time ago from England, they are going right round and have come up through the Red Sea, Ray and Barbara (Sunchaser II) who had also emigrated to Australia, though Barbara being a Geordie had lost none of her wonderful accent, they had also come up through the Red Sea but had spent a year in Thailand, and another couple who happened to be wandering back to their boat (Bees Knees) while the ‘party’ was in full swing, get their names tomorrow. Lots of chat and a few drinks and a good night I think was had by all. Ages ranged from 20s to 60s but that doesn’t seem to matter. It was a pity that Will and Brenda didn’t join us, but they were both suffering from colds. Will had been really helpful with his tools and his nuts and bolts. A softly spoken methodical Texan, good man.
Kate and Johnny, who had been so helpful to us re: the emails about Rabat marina, had had a terrible time across Biscay, up to force 9, over 40knt winds. They had gone from Cork all the way down to La Coruna and in fact were in La Coruna when we were there, a pity we didn’t introduce them to the crowd we met there. Coincidences continued when Jim and Rosie Zoro’s name came up, Ray and Barbara knew them.
The kids had new friends also, these were the three kids belonging to Bill and Debbie, so they spent most of the time on board their boat called Vagabond Heart.
October 6th We arrived at Rabat, Morocco, about 9:00am and circled outside the entrance to the river. The pilot came out to meet us and lead us down the river. He had a large rib with a 50hp Honda on the back. A friendly wave and a welcome and we were off up the river. In the pilot book it said the river was not navigable by Yachts with depths as small as 0.5m in places. We followed the rib, I was concerned to stay exactly on his tail, but he was on the phone and wandering around on the river, I wandered behind him! The depth stayed around 3 metres all the way, well all the way until he ran out of fuel and pointed to to the reception pontoon some way off, while he started to paddle!
As soon as we reached the reception pontoon, our engine started to rattle like a bag of spanners, I switched off! We went through the feared customs and formalities in a matter of minutes, although they boarded the boat they did nothing else but ask 'Do we have guns?'.
I tried to restart the bag of nails, it didn't and a tow was organised. New men in the refuelled dinghy then attached a line to our windlass and off we went. Their goal seemed to be to get us into the marina as fast as possible, by the itme we went passed the first pontoon we were doing 3.5kn, the second pontoon 4kn and then at the entrance to the third they gestured in there, we were shifting. 26 tons of boat and no brakes. They pointed to a berth and stopped their dinghy, we overtook, their faces changed from smiles to concern as the process of towing was reversed, we were now towing them. I was faced with a choice, the end of the line of pontoons, a nicely refurbished stone wall or head into a bay and hope we did not mount the pontoon itself. The turn took about 1kn off, several men on the pontoon had heard our shouts to the dinghy of 'lentement, lentement', they rushed to the pontoon and grabbed the pushpit as it loomed over the pontoon and struck the post holding up the pontoon. We stopped, not too much damage and we were in. Our brakes had been: amercian, australian, french and the odd englishman. Our so helpful Morrocon hosts had learnt that without an engine yachts do not stop!
This is a beautiful new marina with a lot of building going on around, it is a little too small in terms of the gap between pontoon fingers and the fingers themselves are short, the staff are tremendously helpful, friendly and the security is brilliant. In other words far from your normal image and expectation.
Armed with donations from fellow boaters I spent the afternoon with my head and shoulders in the engine bay and my bum in the air. Lots of cursing about inaccessible bits but I managed to source the problem as a loose starter motor. It had only one of its three bolts still in place and that was loose! It had falen back and was flapping around! I found one bolt under the engine itself and Will, a Texan, donated some nuts. I got it back on and got Becky to turn the key confident in my expectation of success, provided the graunching had not stripped the starter motor gearing or worse fly wheel teeth.
She turned the key, nothing happened! I rang the Perkins man in Gibraltar. He described the various wires that should go into the motor and which to short out to test the motor. I did, it started the motor was OK. He explained things about two solenoids running in sequence. I would save that for the morning.
Becky and I went up to the new bar overlooking the marina for a drink..............this is Morroco: 'Would you like tea, coffee, fruit juice' asked the waiter with a smile. I had an espresso, she had a fruit juice, we smiled, the sun went down!
October 5th We sailed from Gibraltar to Rabat. We set off just after 8:00am, Becky decided we should refuel at the Shell pontoon just to make sure. The previous night we had carried several litres of fuel around to top up the tanks. On reaching the pontoon, the usual happy chap was there, what do some people enjoy? He fired up his huge industrial pumps and I started to fill, as soon as the boat rolled a little diesel came gushing out of the tank, we were already full and now the decks were flowing in diesel. Not a good start.
Out of Gibraltar bay we hit 20 to 30kn Easterlies which was good and as predicted. We got through the Strait with little problem. The are some very big and very fast ships in the Strait. Tarifa, in the middle of the Strait, this time lived up to its reputation of 30nt winds for 300 days of the year. As we headed down the coast of Africa, the winds turned NE as predicted by the US grib file and assisted by 1 to 2kn of current we travelled down the coast. Only once seeing some dolphins.
Again as predicted toward night fall the wind dropped and despite a short flurry with the cruising chute, we switched on the iron genoa and headed into the night. The quarter moon rose and set very quickly,leaving a dark dark night with a milky way in sight. Then, not as predicted on the US Grib, the wind picked up and we were headed by 10 to 15kn of Southerly, at that point we lifted the spray hood and put on our tops over our T-shirts. It was getting colder.
At night the water is black. Our AIS system went blank as no big ships were in range and the radar showed nothing. We were alone at least we though so. Every now and again, through the darkness came a white blinking light. They seem to carry these on fishing boats here. The boats are wood and not detected by the radar. You can't see anything but a small white light in the darkness. It is hard to judge how close they are and if they are coming toward you or moving away!
October 4th Last day in Gibraltar and we have decided to do chores on the boat and teach the kids in the morning and then go and have the Great British ‘fish and chips’ in the castled square.
Becky did deck things and scrubbed everything up. I took the outboard off and put it into the lazarette, then got several cans of diesel to top up. We both taught the kids.
Then we went for fish and chips, wow what a lot we got and wow I must have got used to lighter food, I came out of there with a lead weight around my mid riff. We wandered up the main street and bought booze and cigarettes for the bakhsheesh that we might encounter in Morocco. Whisky at £2:50 a bottle and cigarettes at £10 a pack of 200! No Gordon Brown influence here!
When we went back to the boat Becky got all concerned about the stories of boat searches on arrival in Morroco, so we have now bottles of whiskey secreted in all parts of the boat!
October 3rd Jordan and India went off with Jenny to visit the Rock and the monkeys via the cable car. Experienced Rock people now they decided that they would show Jenny, Nick and Georgina how cheeky the monkeys were, so this time they bought packets of crisps just to feed them (strictly forbidden of course). It seemed at one stage this all got a bit out of hand with monkeys jumping onto Jenny. Apparently the plan went wrong when the bag of crisps thrown at the monkeys blew back along the ground between Jennie’s legs, she was jumping backwards, monkeys were jumping forwards, they grabbed her legs in their attempts to get the crisps. Oh dear scary stuff.
Later we helped Ian and Jenny with a few chores as they made ready to leave on the plane to London, the first leg of their journey back to Aus, they would return in three weeks. They left with no time to spare, the kids went with them, Indy returned and watched the runway next to the marina. She waited for their plane to go and waved them goodbye.
October 2nd In the morning I set off to collect the oil from the Perkins dealer. They gave me an extra empty container to pump the old oil into, which is always a problem.
So another day with my arse in the air and my head where my feet should be as I peer into the engine bay. The oil pumped out easily enough and thankfully the oil filter came off just as the chain I was using to get it off bit through the metal, so although it was holed it was soon off and therefore not much mess. I put in nearly 10 litres of Shell before the dipstick said full! Let’s hope that this will do the trick in terms of the heavy oil consumption we have been experiencing. Then I changed the the pre-filter on the diesel. In doing this you have to be careful not to get air into the system so a little bit of diesel to top up the bowl is useful, I had about 700 litres in the tank but try as I might I couldn’t get at it. In the end it was a walk around to the fuel depot, buy a new can and get some diesel. The remainder of the 10 litres, 9.90litres I poured into the tank!
In the evening we went out with Ian and Jenny to the local curry restaurant on the board walk at Ocean village. Quite posh, it was a bit pricy but very good food. Good company, good food and Cobra beer , good times, oh yes we left the kids cooking pizza on the Chilli Oyster!
