march, 2004 (too)

boaty chores
------------

arrived back at the boat to several layers of a mix of mildew
and dust.  it was all closed up, so i'm not sure where the dust
came from, but there was plenty of it.  cleaned for a day, got 
someone lined up to paint the bottom of the boat the following
week, and generally puttered around.

then the marina decided that the rules had changed and i could
not sleep on the boat while it was out of the water.  i asked
if i could sign something that said i wouldnt sue them if i got
hurt, since it was insurance that made the rules change.  that
gave me a 2 day reprieve on the weekend while they waited for
a big enough boss to arrive to make that decision.  monday they
said no.  so i took a stoll to the beach thinking that i had my
sleeping bag, had my pad, just didnt have a tent, but had big
garbage bags to keep off the dew or light rain.  also stopped
by the hotel just a block away that was supposed to have a 47 euro
rate that included breakfast and dinner.  went to the front desk
and asked for the price of rooms.  they said they couldnt tell me,
that i could call a travel agent or call a local number to make a
booking.  i called the local number and there was no answer.  so
i was thinking beach.  a local brit who i met offered the back of
his work van, then the guys painting my boat offered a boat that 
was in the water, and therefore legal.  they also said they would
hurry with the painting.

a few hours later, matt rose, a friend of kc's who i had never met
showed up to stay on the boat and help with chores. oops.  he went
to the same hotel, not asking for the price of a room but asking to
have a room for the night, credit card in hand.  the front desk said
the hotel was full and there was no space for matt.  they might have
been influenced by the restaurant cook who went with him and definitely
did not match the german/british 70 year old tourist profile of their
other guests.  or maybe thats the spanish way to run a hotel.

we arrived at a workable solution to the sleeping problem, i had been
told not to sleep on my boat, but matt hadnt.  and i had the painters
friends boat to sleep on.  and it was legal for me to work on my boat,
even at midnight.  so with a low profile, it all worked out.

matt was a great help and we got the thermostat changed, the wind
generator debugged (but not fixed) and some other electrical chores
done.  matt also decided to rent a car and get on with his vacation
at just the right time as my nieces (libby and susha) who are my permanent
crew for the summer arrived 2 hours after the last bus and had 150 lbs of
junk for the boat in their luggage and no way to get the last 50 km to it.
thanks matt.

one of the chores associated with hauling the boat out of the water
is changing the zincs on the prop and shaft that prevent electrolysis
and greasing the prop.  it has a grease fitting so this chore should
be a snap.  my grease gun is the kind that you have to fill because the
grease for the prop doesnt come in cartridges.  unfortunately, since you
do this only once a year, you dont (at my age) remember how much grease
is in the gun.  so when it didnt seem to be coming out when i squeezed
the handle i opened it up.  dont ever open a cocked grease gun.  especially
when you dont have any paper towels or rags or place for the grease that
squirts out in all directions to go.  and of course they are all up on
the boat (3 concrete blocks, then the inverted swim ladder away, with
greasy hands).  instead i went to the marina bathroom to wash my hands
and discovered that the pink soap in the soap dispenser not only didnt
cut grease, it didnt even smooth it out.  especially in cold water.
eventually the prop was greased properly i think, although the grease
did push the key that keeps the prop on the shaft out a ways.

had to resew a couple of spots on my sails and to fix the jib leach line
that comes down the outside of the sail and keeps it from fluttering.
used my plumbing snake to grab the leach line that had pulled up into
the seam of the sail.  then went to put the sail up and by the time it
was up about 4 feet (out of 50 or 55) it was already too hard for my
weight to pull it up.  i put the nieces on it and with all three of
us we got it up 10 ft maybe.  decided that probably the sheave (big pulley)
at the top of the mast was corroded and needed some wd40 or grease or
something.  so the next day i went up the mast in my bosuns chair.
didnt think before i went up and so ended up there, 60 ft. in the air
on the wrong side of the mast. the jib is on the front of the boat and
the main halyard that i used to go up on the back side of the mast.
so i blasted it with corrosion fighter and tried to turn it, but it
was frozen.  couldnt see what was going on, but i could feel that when
the jib halyard moved, the pulley didnt.  sprayed it a couple of times
and even hit it with grease in a spray can.  the next day, after asking
andy, my rigger, if it would hurt anything to just force the sail up,
we got out the winch handle and had one person feed the sail into the
slot, one person standing at the mast pulling as hard as they could,
and one person on the winch winding it up.  about half way up, it got
significantly easier (not easy by any means, but easier) so we think
that the sheave started turning.  didnt pull it down and check, just
were thankful that we had been strong enough (collectively) to get it
up.  and the furler even worked, so except for the issue of can we get
the sail down if we need to, we are all rigged and ready to go.

susha and libby tried all my cleaning products (inherited from the 
original owner of the boat) on the hull.  it had a layer of grey inland
spain dust and a layer of red moroccan dust all over it, that had been
smeared around by rain so that it looked very un-yachty.  about the
5th thing they tried, that required a scrub brush and rubber gloves,
the junk finally started coming off.  now wonderland's stern and right
side are very yachty looking.

the spanish coast to gibraltar
------------------------------

on march 25 we finally got under way, just a day sail to remember what
rope goes where and how to do it all.  wanted to do parking practice
(i need it and the girls have never parked the boat), but we were late
coming in and so went right to our dock.  ian and ginger friends of 
sushas were there waiting for us.  they were backpacking around europe
and had two of the largest (and heaviest) packs i have ever seen.  the
packs either totally filled the salon or the forward bunk depending on
whether we were up or sleeping.  they taught us a great dice game called
greedy, which we played every night till they (and their dice) left.

sailed along the spanish coast stopping in most of the harbours. usually
have good wind at a reasonable direction (i.e. not straight on the nose).
minor mishap in parking at chipiona marina.  parked at the reception 
pontoon fine in strongish wind (15-20 knots) blowing us backwards and
onto the dock.  hinted to the marina folks that i was not good at parking
and wished they would let me stay where i was till the wind died down.
need to be more insistent and refuse to move when i dont think i can do
it.  but instead i tried to move the boat to its slip that was in the
last row and such that the wind would blow me into the slip and onto
the finger pier at the side of the slip.  hard part was getting off 
the reception pontoon.  i tried forward, but we couldnt push the nose of
the boat out far enough to get going without hitting the boat ahead of
us on the dock.  so i decided to back off.  should have been fine but
somehow i got the wheel turned so far that backing my butt out swung
my front in and my anchor broke the top of the electrical post where
boats hook up for water and electricity.  should have refused to move
or gotten out my chapmans and reminded myself how to use a spring line
to help get off a dock against the wind.  but i didnt. then, headed to
my assigned berth and managed to park there ok with lots of help from
folks on neighboring boats.

ended up parked right next to a boat called china moon who we had met
in lisbon and portimao on the portuguese coast.  and right beside them
were two germans in their 30s who were traveling around europe in sea
kayaks. they had left ulm germany 4 years ago, going down the danube,
into the black sea, thru the bosporos, thru turkey and greece, along
the italian, french and spanish coasts heading west.  in another couple
of years they will be back in germany and complete their trip.  they have
a great boat pet, at least for sea kayak sized boats, a duck named ensa.
this instance of ensa was the second on their journey, the first having
been caught and eaten by an italian fisherman.

probably have to pay for the damage to the electrical post, although it
looked like just superficial damage to a plastic light cover and light
bulb.  they are accessing the damage and will email me, meanwhile we
are continuing along the southern atlantic coast of spain.

hannah, my eldest niece came to visit from the peace corps in guatemala.
we sailed along planning to get to gibraltar with her and then leave
the boat and go over to morocco for a day or so.  turns out the wind
direction and speed are totally important to going thru the straits
of gibraltar and with a wimpy engine like mine (32 hp) the wind from
the west (behind) is essential.  so our sail to gibraltar was delayed
till the weather changed.  the boat was in rota spain in a nice marina.

we decided to do morocco anyway and so took a bus, ferry, train (6am-6pm)
to fez, one of the original imperial cities of morocco.  explored the old
city, called the medina, that has 9000 streets that are basically a maze 
of twisty little passages all alike.  there are no vehicles there, just
people on foot and donkeys carrying big loads.  very easy to get lost,
very easy to get run over by a donkey if you arent paying attention,
very easy to step in donkey poop in your sandals.  but fun. the people
were very friendly, spoke french and sometimes english, so we could
communicate.  we had a 12 year old boy, hicham, as a guide for the morning
so we could find the money machine and not get too badly lost. only stayed
one full day in fez, then back to tangier where we spent an hour walking
around the casbah before getting on the ferry back to spain.

hannah left the next day to go back to madrid and home to guatemala.
was lots of fun with all three of my 20ish nieces along, sure turned a
few spanish and moroccan heads.

on to gibraltar
---------------

the weather was predicted to be good for gibraltar so we set off from 
rota headed for barbate, the last safe harbor in atlantic spain.  wind
was predicted to be sw force 3-4, nice and gentle and a fine direction,
since we needed to go southeast, with seas labeled as "calm".  but the
forecast was wrong and the wind was in fact southeast and force 4-5 and
seas rough.  once we got around the cape of trafalgar we could sail toward
barbate and we arrived pretty late, like 9:30pm, barely able to make out
the buoys that marked a tuna net to avoid.  everyone was a bit queasy
and the girls were not looking forward to continuing.  next morning, we
checked the weather and it said "rough", so we took seasick pills and went
for a final weather check before deciding to go or not go.  on the way to
the marina office we climbed up onto the breakwater to look at the ocean
and it was flat calm like a lake, not rough at all. the girls perked up a
bit.  then as we were asking about tides and weather in the office a new
fax came in from tarifa (the worst point where the straits are narrowest)
that said the seas would be "slight" and the wind west force 3-4 (perfect).
this was fine so we left immediately to be able to have the tide with us
for the second half of the trip where the current is fastest and the wind
also fastest.  was a beautiful sail and we were wing-n-wing for most of
the way speeding thru the straits with 2 knots of current with us.

whew, made it.

hugs to all,

-evi

ps - we have a cell phone, +34 675 226 889 that works as long as we are
in spain.  seems to work in gibraltar at the docks but not downtown.