A Frustrating Year Draws to a Close

Well, 2012 is almost over now and we can look back on a frustrating time but now we are in place and the dream really does look like happening in 2013. The two month cruise to Gibraltar in 2011 was a huge success and persuaded us that we really did want to go long distance cruising. It was just a case of getting all the bits in place for it.

Of course, that took a good bit longer than either of us expected but all the bits are falling into place now and if all still goes to plan, we will cast off from Puerto Alcaidesa around the middle of April. Other posts earlier outline where we think we will go. We only have firm plans for the first six months with our trip out to the Azores and then back to France where we will make decisions about where to go from there.

One idea is that this time next year we will be drinking rum punch in Barbados or at least on approach to the Caribbean. On the other hand, we might be in Falmouth talking about how the gales this year are even stronger than last year. We shall see.

Anyway, Happy New Year to all the legions of avid readers!

Working out the Costs

How big is a good budget? For something so important to all cruisers, there is a surprising lack of information. At one extreme you have the people who have been inspired by Annie Hill who had an annual income of £1300 (albeit in the early 1990s). At the other extreme are the Oyster types who have full satellite communication and run their multi million pound businesses and presumably spend five or six thousand a month. Perhaps predictably, the Cruising Association has a collection of information on this for people like us.

Sadly, the only concrete information is for people cruising in the Med rather than the Atlantic but it seems as if Turkish Waters are roughly analagous to what you would expect on an Atlantic circuit so we are going to use them as our guide. It seems as if you should be able to live reasonably well for around £1500 a month.

That assumes we anchor mostly (which we prefer), do all our own maintenance, drink what the local drink rather than cold beers ashore, only eat ashore two or three times a month. We will also have to take care to use the engine as little as possible or diesel will become a major expense. We are on a sailing boat after all!

List Hell

Last year when we were getting ready for our 2 month cruise, lists seemed to dominate our life. This is also something that dominates the writings of other people planning long distance cruises and it is certainly true!

This is our list of things to do as it currently stands. It will grow, that is certain.

House
carpet in living room
carpet in hallway
storage boxes
flooring in loft
strip wallpaper and paint new kitchen
fix window and fan in old kitchen
bolt down bog
fix back door
check out storage off site
tile rest of bathroom
front gate
paint shed doors
clear out junk
purge books
rip cds to disk
purge dvds
get rid of rubbish




Cruising Food
Garam Massala
Turmericc
Encona
Cumin
TVP
Mock Duck
bamboo shoots
Gluten protein
jerk seasoning
Cajun seasoning
suitable tea
thai curry paste/powder



Boat
standing rigging?
Fix broken toerail
engine service
cover over holding tank
rethink stowage
fit windmill
fit plotter
plastic containers for spices (pound shop)
containers for organising bosuns locker
set of allen keys
powdered milk?
Spray hood
top climber
tea pot
skin so soft
citronella (candles & spray)
bread bag
crimp fittings
shackles
special shackle for main and jib halyard
wire to go from regulator to battery (windmill)
thin wire for nmea to VHF (find out how to do this)
anchor chain
reeve new jib halyard
Move gas locker?
Enable calor gas?
Flares

Out of water maintenance
anode
seacocks
abrade coppercoat

BIFB

That is Back In Freezing Blighty!

The plane deposited us at Gatwick this afternoon and we are now trying to get to grips with not being in a bright and sunny Spain but rather in a near freezing house in gray London.

We have had our last visit to Sarah G for 2012 and it has to go on record as the one with the least sailing in it for a very long time. Basically, we managed a three hour daysail and that was it. This last trip was supposed to include a visit to Ceuta or even Smir in Morocco but the wind had other ideas and a consistent force six or seven put paid to our ideas of trotting across the Straits.

Still, as documented earlier, we had a good time and eventually plumped for a ferry trip to Ceuta.

The windmill continues to whirr round though it is waiting impatiently for new batteries to keep topped up rather than striggle to push a charge into the existing ones. The jib halyard is shackled to the pulput and waits to hoist it's first jib up.

We won't be down there again till the spring now but then it will be for the duration. Plans are still to head out to the Azores (with a generously slow shakedown cruise along the SW of Spain and Algarve. From there back to France and a decision about where to go. Of course, that could all be subject to change of course.

Here are a few pictures, now I have a good fast broadband to upload them with.

First up - the lashing to hold the mounting pole up before I had fixed the permanent struts.

Next up, the aftermath of the celebratory curry we had that evening!

Skip forward to our day trip to Ceuta.

The view of Gibraltar from the south and proof that it really was blowing hard.

The view of Jebel Musa (the other pillar of Hercules for those of you interested in mythology).

And finally, a tantalizing view south to Morocco proper.

Windmill Up And Working

Well, we have now got an alternative source of juice for charging the batteries!

In the end, it was not that difficult though, as ever, there was a lot of contorting oneself into awkward positions to feed wires through lockers and behind panels and such like.

The regulator is screwed to the panel where the switches and such like are. It has a green light on it to show that charge is going into the batteries though we are more and more of the view that they need replacing

We have reassembled down below and are going to go to the bar for a celebratory beer shortly.

Here is a picture of it working. More to follow when we have a fast internet connection.

Progress

Well, we have had a fun day. As the wind seemsto be lighter in the morning we decided to get going on the jib halyard first thing. We had a bit of a palaver getting the ascender set up and working out which was the best halyard and such like to use for the ascender. Eventually, we settled on the main halyard for the bosuns chair and the topping lift for the ascender.

Tom Cunliffe had a chapter in his latest book from which I had got the idea and it all looked great. The reality is that it is a lot of hard work but is eminently possible. There is no way that Audrey could have wound me up the mast even with the genoa sheet winches but with me stepping up on the ascender, we got there in the end.

I even remembered to tie the new jib halyard onto the chair so didn't have to come back down for it. We even got it threaded and reeved without too much swearing. There are good views from the top of the mast as well.

Next up was a quick trip to Sheppards in Gib to get some nuts and bolts with a view to tackling the windmill. Suffice to say that it is erected and a cable is now led to the regulator by the chart table but lack of daylight and an urgent need on my part for beer has meant that the last bit of connecting it to the batteries will have to wait.

We should have that done tomorrow when we will see about boring all the legions of readers with photos.

Bright, Cold and Windy

Well, we have been here for twenty four hours now. The weather is nice and bright with cloudless skies but the wind is up around force 7 gusting to 32 knots so no sailing is happening. It is also a lot colder than we expected with temperatures only reaching 10-12.

Still, it is nice to be here!

Off to the Boat

Well, it feels like a long wait but we are now on holiday and doing the last minute rushing around everyone does before flying anywhere to spend a week on Sarah G.

Hopes are to get the jib halyard re-reeved and the wind generator up and running at last. We are also hoping to get some sailing in. Even, dare I say it to get across the straits to Morocco but we shall have to see what the weather throws at us.

On the subject of the weather, it is not looking that clever with the temperature forecast to plummet into single figures - almost as bad as here though hopefully with less rain than the rather sodden Britain we have at the moment.

Anyway, time to get back to clearing the rubbish off the bed and such like.

Progress on the House

A long weekend so as to burn up some annual leave has been used productively for once and the floor in the living room is sanded and varnished now.

Here is the room bare and waiting for the sander

And, the finished result!

On a more boaty topic, just a week to go till we fly down for a week aboard. Priority will be to get the windmill up but we also want to do some small scale cruising. We shall have to see.

Off Topic - But the More That Come ...

The better.

Belly Dancing has a very long tradition and makes for a great evening out. Anyone in London on the 25th is encouraged to come along.

Brixton Hafla

Bunch of Loons But You Have to Admire Them

As I write, the Vendee Globe round the world race is starting off Les Sables D'Olonne. They race round the world non stop south of the three great capes - Good Hope, Leeuwin and The Horn.

The idea of enduring the biggest seas that the world can throw at you in what is essentially an overblown dinghy is not something I am ever likely to wish to endure even though Robin Knox-Johnston did it in his sixties!

Vendee Globe

The very best of British to all of them anyway!

Found their blog

Nik and Tony are busy enjoying Archangel though it is a bit reassuring to find that they find it as challenging to actually get on their way as we do! According to stated plans we will be heading to Spain about the same time they are heading down the Thames.

Click Here

In other news, I did a bit of quick research into travelling with your cat. It is a bit of a mixed bag unfortunately. I suspect that taking her out of the EU will be a major hassle. There is also some doubt about crossing EU borders such as from Sapin to Portugal.

We shall have to find out anyway.

Not Much Happening

Well, we have a holiday booked now. 27 November to 04 December now. Falls after Audrey's hafla. Plan is to finally get the windmill fully installed and then get across the straits to Cueta and hopefully cross the border into Morocco for a visit.

We took a jolly to Bursledon between bouts of the lurgies to get some bits at Force 4. The most eye watering bit were a couple of Wichard shackles for the halyards - £21 each!!

Oh well, more to follow.

Photos

Now we are home, here are some boring photos to help everyone to sleep.

I forgot to mention that when we arrived, the weather was decidedly wet and we both got soaked in the short walk from the airport to the marina. This was a view more appropriate for Plymouth Sound than La Bahia de Algeciras/Gibraltar Bay!

At least the weather did get back to normal for southern Spain at this time of year. And we enjoyed cold beers in the new bar they have opened conveniently near the gate for our pontoon.

Meantime, here are some pictures of the problems with the mounting pole for the wind generator. I think I will write to Marlec about it though we can't realistically make any warrantee claims.

And, finally, confirmation from Mr Garmin that we are indeed in La Linea and it even has the Puerto Alcaidesa in it rather than showing us in the middle of a shallow bay.

Other tasks still to follow of course.

Here in Spain

We have had the usual ups and frustrating downs when you try and work on a boat - particularly at a distance.


The big thing is that we have the chart plotter installed and working. The internal Aerial works fine so we are fully up to date on that front. Thank you Marco for that.

The bad news is that the batteries seem to have been damaged beyond repair. They are not holding a charge at all. So an expensive bit of shopping is in order now. The recommendation is to get AGM but they cost an arm and a leg so we may have to settle for sealed lead-acid ones. Lots of research is in order I think.

The windmill has taken a good bit longer and there has been some real frustration with the mounting pole as the holes drilled in it are fractionally off center which means that not all the screws can go in. It comes in two parts and only three of the four bolts will fit into the aluminium jointer. Similarly, only one of the bolts that attach the actual windmill into the tube will go in. A bit of work with a file or Dremel should do the trick in due course.

Further details and photos will follow in due course. As usual!

Next Visit Imminent

We have the usual 0500 start tomorrow morning and a flight down to Gibraltar courtessy of Sleazyjet. The weather is very much not sunny though with a depression off out in the Atlantic bringing forecast thunder showers and a possible easterly (or westerly).

Plans are to fit the wind generator at last, install the newly aquired chart plotter, reeve on the new halyards and have a look at the Henry the Navigator (AKA Aries windvane).

We will probably also run up the Honda outboard to see if it is knackered as I suspect.

Time and weather permitting we will try and get out for a day sail as well. If weather really plays ball we will blow up the dinghy and see about getting some photos of her under sail!

Watch this space anyway.

Boatshow visit

We made our annual pilgrimage down to Southampton today and visited the great temple of marine consumerism that is known as the Southampton International Boatshow. It was, as ever, a nice day out. There were even a couple of boats we liked the look of amongst all the dreadful Sunseekers and their ilk. In particular, the Ovni and Rustlers caught our eye as well as a beautiful gaff cutter and a late fifties ocean racer.

Of course, the bulk of our time was spent more geekily looking at toys we might like to get for Sarah G. In particular, new engines are high on our drool list though charts, books and rigging caught our eye as well. I am increasingly coming to the view that we may wind up replacing the standing rigging before we do any more serious cruising.

Piplers was the only organisation to actually get any of our money where we bought the Imray-Iolaire chart of the Azores archipelago so that is firmly nailing some colours to the mast I suppose.

Plans and ideas will follow in due course of course.

Good News and Congratulations

Fantastic that they have managed to get back cruising.

http://blog.mailasail.com/lynnrival

Updates and a new visit to La Linea

We are starting to get some certainty now and plans are finally firming up. Sadly, we are not going to get away this year now but should be away next year now. Details will follow on the specifics of what happens early next year but …

We have booked a long weekend for the end of September – the primary purpose of that will be to install the Windmill which we have now christened Don Quixote and the newly acquired chart plotter. We will then take a week or perhaps two near the end of November for a holiday. I am hoping that we can get down to Morocco and perhaps do a series of day trips from places like Smir though it would also be good to get a little bit further afield.

Next year, however, is now taking shape. We will most likely go to Jamaica in February for a two or three weeks. Then it will be a mad rush here in the UK to get the house finalised and rented. Then another mad rush to get Sarah G dealt with for an April departure. We will work our way along the Costa de Luz and the Algarve before kicking off from somewhere like Lagos for the Azores.

The routing charts seem to favour heading for the Azores around the end of April. I like the idea of spending a couple of weeks visiting the islands and then making our way back to mainland Europe late May/ early June. We can then make a decision about whether to come back to the UK for a winter fit out or carrying on south again. If we do go south it will be with the intention of carrying on across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.

All very easy to type now and looking at the nice pale blue on the Atlantic routing chart from Imray or the wind diagrams in our wind atlas. What we actually encounter and what we like or dislike is a completely other affair. Still, it feels like a nice idea now.

Easyjet will be getting more of our custom anyway but I won't be sorry to leave the Gibraltar area in the end.

Sarah G will have to spend some time out of the water over the winter so we can do below the waterline things - check seacocks, change anodes and all that sort of thing.

Here in London, we have continued our surprise at the success of the Olympics and Paralympics. Last Thursday, we went to the Wheelchair Basketball semi finals where we saw a Canada v Australia final be set up and a US v GB play off. Tonight we have tickets for the final and play off. Never have I been so pleased to have to eat my words having been so implacably opposed to the whole thing right from the winning bid to the opening ceremony.

Perhaps we really should plan to sail down to Rio for 2016!

Boat Porn

This all I can describe this video as. Still, there are some ideas for what we might do on Sarah G sometime.

Click Here

Now real news at the moment. Off the boat, we had a very nice anniversary weekend in Paris.

New Aquisition

Last week Sarah Giddings entered the world of 21st century navigation. I have always resisted having a chart plotter aboard and, given a choice, I would still prefer to use paper charts. However, the difficulty in acquiring large scale charts of the Moroccan coast has persuaded me of the need to get some sort of chart plotter.

I was leaning towards investing in a laptop and putting a suitable bit of software on it. I had even experimented with OpenCPN on our netbook. Then, Marco Nannini of the Global Ocean Race let it be known that he had a Garmin plotter to dispose of. A bit of discussion followed on Facebook and a deal was struck! We are now the proud owners of a GPSMap 720 and an SD card with the western Mediterranean on it. We then decided to jointly treat ourselves to a large map including the Canaries, Azores, Atlantic Iberia and most of the Bay of Biscay.

Thanks to Marco for that and we wish him luck with future plans.

I am determined that the days of drawing little triangles on large expensive bits of paper should not die out. Nor will laying off courses to allow for tidal set or even EPs. However, poor visibility and strange entrances where we do not have a detailed chart will no longer cause so much concern.

I will post photos once we have it installed on the chart table.

In other news, my Brother had a mad moment and bought a Yanmar 1GM10 off Ebay and now has to figure out how to shoehorn it under Kemara's cockpit. This is to say nothing of putting in a new sea cock for the cooling water intake, redriling the shaft hole in the trailing edge of the keel, moving the cockpit drain seacocks, installing a fuel tank, installing an exhaust and silencer to come out over the transom and finally, glassing in the outboard well!

I think it is actually a good idea and will make her a much more practicable boat. We should be able to get some ideas for when we have to face up to replacing our old Bukh diesel engine as well.

More Olympics and a different sort of cruising

A great weekend so far. The sailing was great fun in Weymouth and it was also good to be on the Breakwater rather than on the beach where you couldn’t see it. That said, it was a bit strange to have little idea of what was going on and having to phone Audrey at work to get a run down of what happened. Suffice to say, that the British men in the 470 got a brilliant silver and were thrilled about it. Meanwhile the Women also had a brilliant silver though it was tainted by the fact that they so nearly got gold and just made a wrong judgement call about which side of the course to go and fell foul of a wind shift.

Although I took some pictures, they all suffer from camera shake though like all amateurs, I am going to blame the equipment and claim that my long lens does not focus very well at full length. Here, however is a picture of the three person Elliot 6M match racing. The Spanish went on to take gold.

I had some more reflections on sailing and racing in particular. Unsurprisingly, I am of the view that we are better suited to cruising. If you get on the wrong side of a wind shift while cruising it is just an annoyance that forces you to put another tack in and perhaps miss closing time at the pub. While for a racer it makes all the difference in the world. We can get similar senses of achievement after making a successful passage. The buzz of arriving in Cascais last September was, for me, the equal of winning a regatta. I cannot imagine how it will feel when we do get across the Atlantic.

I am more and more wondering if we should look into cruising to Brazil for the 2016 games. I am not sure exactly how the timings would work. It would probably be necessary to head south in 2015 and get across the Atlantic at the normal time after the hurricane season ends. Then, you would need to head south and aim to get to Rio in the summer. I am not sure if there would then be time to get back north and heading home across the Atlantic in time. It would all depend on how far south the hurricane belt ran in the Autumn. To say nothing of what the winds do around there.

In more focussed plans, ours are still at the beck and call of employers. We will just have to wait and see. Chances are that our original date of 31 August is out for now. If, as I suspect, it is not till the end of September, that we get away, we will have to look at going down for just a weekend in September in order to get the wind generator installed as well as assure poor Sarah G that we haven’t forgotten her!

At least we would be able to get to visit the Southampton boat show! Small silver lining that.

On Saturday we visited my Sister and their new "dutch barge". It is a huge steel affair in which they intend to travel the canals of Europe and some coastal hopping in the Med. She is a beautiful boat and immaculately fitted out as well as being huge! I expect they will have a great time though sadly, the fact that we are now not looking to cruise the Med makes it less likely that we will meet up.

Visiting the Olympics at Weymouth

We took the plunge and drove down to Weymouth yesterday to watch the medal races for the Star and Finn with British favourites in both. As everyone will know, Andrew Simpson and Iain Percy were pipped for gold by the Swedish pair but Ben Ainslie managed to play a ruthlessly tactical race and beat the Dane Hogh-Christiansen and get his record breaking Gold medal. People are comparing his achievement with the greatest ever Olympic sailor Paul Elvestrom (another Dane). He is certainly the equal of Elvestrom and in pure medal terms has more than Elvestrom since he got a silver in Atlanta as well as the four golds. Though we must remember that Paul Elvestrom continued competing at the Olympics till 1988 when he entered the Tornado class with his daughter as crew.

As a teenager I went through a phase of wanting to go dinghy racing and harboured dreams of entering the Olympics myself. It was never to be. Not least since there was no interest in dinghy racing in the town where I grew up. Also, I doubt if I would have had the inclination or dedication to seek out that extra tenth of a knot that makes a crucial difference on the race course. My interests in sailing definitely move at a slower pace than is needed to win races. Hence, sailing a Rival rather than a First 30 or some such.

For a while, I found that quite saddening but then I thought back to the buzz from arriving in Cascais after a long fast sail down from Porto. There was also the last few miles from Tarifa to La Linea which brought last years cruise to an end and I fancy that there was a similar sense of achievement as winning a race.

Here is a picture of one of the races taking part after we had discovered that the breakwater at the harbour entrance is not a ticket only area.

So, no sudden change of tack and selling Sarah G to buy a 470! However, I am hoping to get back down to Weymouth to watch the final for the Women’s' 470 regatta. I am also starting to seriously dream about visiting
here in 2016!

Another highlight was finding The Boat Project on display in the harbour.

Reflections on the London Olympics

I know that this is really not about our adventures with Sarah G or our plans but it has been fascinating to watch the Olympic sailing events. When I was a teenager I wanted to get into dinghy racing but various things including a total lack of dinghy racing in my home town ruled it out. I was however a keen follower of Rodney Pattinson and had dreams of entering the Olympics Flying Dutchman

I had been very cynical about the London Olympics but have had to admit to having to eat humble pie on that. We did even have a go at getting tickets for Weymouth but the Locog ticketing system defeated us.

Now, it is even on television though as Ben Ainslie's chances seem to be fading for gold and Brits the BBCs traditional antipathy to sailing is reasserting itself and there is little coverage. The television coverage has also been a bit of a revalation. The boats must be carrying transponders as they are able to show the relative positions of the boat using computer animation.

Personally, I will be cheering for Saskia Clarke and Hannah Mills in the Womens 470 and Ian Percy and Andrew Simpson in the Star class.

The great Paul Elvestrǿm claimed accurately that the sailors were some of the toughest athletes in the olympics. They have to spend hours concentrating very hard and making numerous tactical decisions while at the same time using all their muscles to hold the boat in perfect trim for maximum speed.

I wish all the competitors well in Weymouth while acknowledging that I doubt I would ever have had the mental toughness to pursue racing at that level. Our gentle cruising is much more suited to my essentially lazy character!

A long term idea?

Having just watched the opening ceremony for the London Olympics I noticed that the next one is to be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Unlike the run around to get tickets for London, they are on sale now.

This naturally leads to the thought that we should think about sailing down there to watch Ben Ainslie scoop his sixth gold (hopefully!!)

So, come on you yottie readers. Lets organise a rally to Rio in 2016.

Getting Closer Again

Well, we are getting closer again and now have a fair idea of where we are planning on going when we head off for the next stage of our adventure.

The plan is to head down to Cueta and on to Morocco for a couple of weeks or so. We will coast hop along to Melilla – the other Spanish enclave before heading back north to Spain. From there we will have to hope for easterlies like we experienced last year as we want to get to Faro for the winter. In between times, we want to spend some time exploring SW Andalucia especially focussing on the two big rivers, El Rio Guadalquivir and El Rio Guadiana.

Now of course we have a lot of lists to make and tick off. Not least is the vexed problem of charts. UK Admiralty charts are simply not sufficiently detailed. The word is that French SHOM charts are OK but Spanish IHM are the best. However, I know how difficult they are to get hold of. After extensive googling, I found an online seller in Madrid but they only stock peninsular charts so cannot help though they do claim to be able to get hold of SHOM ones. We will have to see.

We are also keen to get a good selection of spices to take with us. Spanish cuisine is great but they are not great users of chilli while things like cumin and turmeric are unheard of. And so it goes on!

Visit to Sarah G

It felt like a very frustrating visit at the time. I was not able to get on with installing the windmill (generador de viento and not molino a viento as I said in an email to the Marina). The mounting pole did not arrive.

I also did not feel sufficiently confident to cross the straits on my own in poor visibility. It is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and carries something like 25% of the worlds shipping through it every year so dodging supertankers on my own did not appeal. Then, when the sun did come out, the wind got up as well.

Still, it was relaxing and I was able to give some thought to where we might go. Go we must as it has become clear to me that the Gibraltar area is a bit of a graveyard of blue water dreams. There are places like this all over the world. One of the worst is Glasson Dock in Lancashire where loads of people build their ocean cruiser and never get out of the lock basin! I think that the year round sun and easy communications mean that Gib can be a bit of trap. Also, it is very non trivial to get west through the straits which could also make for a blockage. I am very anxious that we don't fall into the same trap!

Here are a couple of pictures - nothing original mind.

And a closeup of "The Rock" as I played with the extreme zoom on my new lens.

The most positive thing was that I had a chance to give thought to where we will go though o2 benefitted from the long calls while I discussed it with Audrey as well. We are now quite keen on the idea of going to the Mediterannean side of Morocco for a while, perhaps working out way along to Melilla before heading back north to Spain. We will most likely then make our way back through the Straits and slowly make our way to Faro where there is a good sounding boatyard. It has been three years since Sarah G has been out of the water and it would be a good idea to do this before heading south properly and across the Atlantic - probably.

Slowly visiting SW Andalucia will give us the chance to get to know Cadiz properly as well as going up the Rios Guadalquivir and Guadiana.

Faro has a lot to recommend it as a place for wintering having plenty of flights into it's airport.

What we do next spring is very much up for debate at the moment.

Back from Spain

One of the things I forgot to take with me last Thursday was this netbook so I have not been providing up to the minute updates on the exciting few days I had down in La Linea. Suffice to say that I got a lot of sun and a lot of mosquito bites but no sailing. Owing to circumstances beyond my control, I was there on my own and as it was either blowing very hard or was foggy (or both) my plans to get to Cueta and possibly further south into Morocco failed.

Full updates, such as they are, will follow.

Not Sailing as Such

But I have seen this doing the rounds of facefail and I should imagine it must be summing up the thoughts of yotties with a boat based in NW Europe at the moment.

I really miss having the boat close to but this would have been one hell of a frustrating season in UK waters.

Off to Gibraltar the day after tomorrow for some proper sunshine!

Brief Plug

I try to avoid mentioning too many companies here but Force4 deserver a special mention here. They have been very helpful in getting the mounting kit for the wind generator down to Spain as well as having very reasonable shipping costs.

Force4

Wind Generator Fun

We finally got the wind generator shipped down but have not got the support struts or the pole down there yet. The latter is because we simply didn't get Crete Shipping to quote for it (I wasn't thinking very clearly about that). The former is simply because we don't have it.

This leaves me in a bit of a quandry. The luggage limit on Easyjet is 20KG so the support struts would be unlikely to put me over the limit but it is not really clear if I could include it in my normal luggage. Looks as if we will have to call them.

The mounting tube is another issue as I will have to buy it first and then work out how to get it down. Best bet might be to get Force4 to ship it down. Otherwise, it might be worth paying for "sports equipment" on Easyjet.

Decisions, decisions!!

At least the weather is playing ball down there - unlike here

AGENCIA ESTATAL DE METEOROLOGIA

BOLETIN METEOROLOGICO Y MARINO PARA LAS ZONAS COSTERAS
OCCIDENTALES DE LA COMUNIDAD AUTONOMA DE ANDALUCIA Y CEUTA

JUEVES 5 DE JULIO DE 2012 A LAS 21:00 H.O.

PREDICCION VALIDA PARA EL VIERNES 6

1.- AVISO
NO HAY AVISO.

2.- SITUACION GENERAL A LAS 00 UTC DEL VIERNES 6 Y EVOLUCION
BAJA DE 1008 SOBRE EL CANAL DE LA MANCHA, PROFUNDIZANDOSE A 1004
Y DESPLAZANDOSE LENTAMENTE HACIA EL NOROESTE. AREA DE BAJAS
PRESIONES RELATIVAS DE 1014 SOBRE EL ESTE DE LA PENINSULA IBERICA
Y MEDITERRANEO OCCIDENTAL. ANTICICLON DE 1030 AL NOROESTE DE LAS
AZORES, CASI ESTACIONARIO Y SIN CAMBIOS.

3.- PREDICCION PARA EL VIERNES 6

AGUAS COSTERAS DE HUELVA:
NOROESTE FUERZA 4, CON INTERVALOS DE OESTE FUERZA 3 A MEDIODIA.
MAREJADA.

AGUAS COSTERAS DE CADIZ:
- DE GUADALQUIVIR A CABO ROCHE: NOROESTE FUERZA 3. MAREJADILLA
CON INTERVALOS DE MAREJADA PRONTO.

- DE CABO ROCHE A PUNTA CAMARINAL (AREA DE TRAFALGAR):
NOROESTE Y OESTE FUERZA 3. MAREJADILLA.

- DE PUNTA CAMARINAL A PUNTA CARNERO (AREA DE TARIFA):
OESTE FUERZA 3 A 4. MAREJADILLA A MAREJADA.

- DE PUNTA CARNERO A PUNTA CHULLERA (AREA DE ALGECIRAS-CEUTA):
OESTE FUERZA 4 AMAINANDO AL FINAL A OESTE FUERZA 3. MAREJADILLA A
MAREJADA.

For those who don't speak the third most important language globally, the synopsis (Situacion General) reads:
General situation at 0000 UTC on Friday 6 and outlook. Low 1008 in the English Channel, deepening to 1004 and moving slowly to the northeast. Area of relatively low pressur of 1014 over the east of the Iberian Peninsula and western Mediterranean. Anticyclone of 1030 to the northeast of the Azores, almost stationary and without change.

The final bit reads:
From Punta Carnero to Punty Chillera (Area of Algeciras-Cueta). West Force 4 reducing later to West 3. Slight to moderate.

For people unfamiliar with our shipping forecast the slight to moderate refers to sea state. :-)

So, good sailing weather than. The F304 around Tarifa won't please boardsailors or the kite boarders though.

Frustrating being so far from the boat

We are feeling very frustrated at being so far from the boat. Granted, the cost of flying down with Easyjet is probably not much more than running the car down to Plymouth but we simply have not done any sailing to speak of this year.

It will be great to start cruising again and then we will appreciate having the boat in the sun already.

That said, the UK weather this year must be seriously frustrating for cruisers anyway.

More counting down the days though.

Next Trip Down

Flights are booked Thursday 12/07 to Tuesday 16/07. My Brother and I are hoping to get to Morocco. Original idea was to go down the straits to Tangier but that seems to be a bit difficult for yotties and it is easier to go to a marina called Marina Smir to the south of Cueta on the Med coast. People in the know then recommend going to Tetuan which apparently has a much more interesting Souk than Tanger. Should be fun anyway.

We are also finally getting the wind generator shipped down so I hope to be busy installing that as well.

Next Trip Down

Well, I have booked my flight and committed to geting their 12/07 to 17/07. No Audrey this time but my Brother will be joining with the intention of sailing across the straits to Africa.

Our original plan was to go to Tangier down the Straits but research seems to indicate that visiting in a yacht is very fraught. You also need to clear in a designated port of entry so I suspect we will go to Smir a few miles south of the Spanish enclave of Cueta. That is apparently quite close to a town called Tetuan which has a magnificent Souk.

We shall see anyway.

Trying Blogger app

First time I have tried this app on the phone.

News is that the next trip down has been booked.12 July for five days or so.

I'll do a proper update later.

A Bit of Instructive Fun

One of the mistaken things we bought last year when getting ready for our cruise to Gibraltar was a liferaft which we got on Ebay. It was out of service and it turned out that the price of getting it serviced was going to be the same as a new one after we had paid £200 for it anyway. The odds of being able to resell it were vanishingly small. Freecycle even failed so we decided to see what happens when you pull the cord!

As ever, I think it is an excellent thing to do this in a controlled manner so you know what to expect if you have to do it for real on a dark and stormy night. Not that we want to be in the position of having to abandon ship on a dark and stormy night.

Two things were interesting:
One is the length of the painter/ripcord though I suspcect that this would be less of an issue when afloat.
The other is that it makes quite a lot of sound with a definite bang when the CO2 cylinder goes off. After that it is all over in less than ten seconds!

I have a rather poor quality video and will get that uploaded somewhere soon. These photos show it. I didn't have time to get a picture of it coming out of the canister between dropping the painter and raising the camera.

And here is the video!
Click Here

First time I have ever posted a video but there you go.

News From Others

We got an email from Miss Poess who we had met in Ria de Cedeira last August. They announced their intention to leave for the duration with a terrifying list of things that they had sold and canceled in The Netherlands. Plans are to get to the Med around the end of August so hopefully we will be lucky enough to cross paths.

This does seem to be the year for jacking it in and going off. My half Sister and her husband are in the process of getting their house rented out and commissioning their barge to cruise the French canals.

Our turn is coming anyway.

Getting closer

I have a count down widget on my phone and it shows 111 days to go till 31/08. The time is really getting closer now.

No particular boating news though. The BBQ was, as predicted cold but also very enjoyable. We had particular admiration for the others who had sailed there for the rally. Sailing up the Thames before a NE with the prospect of having to beat back into it would have been an arduous undertaking and reminded us why we decided to sail south!

Still, we now have to start seriously planning for our departure.

Off to a "BBQ" at The Cruising Association

Not a lot been going on cruising wise recently since we got back from Spain. The wind generator tweaks our conscience every time we look at it in the new kitchen and demands to be sent down to La Linea.

We are however off to a so called BBQ at CA House this evening. The weather is a bit drizzly and cold so I think it will be more of a visit to the bar rather than a BBQ. Still, a chance to chat to other yotties so it should be fun.

Back from Spain and back to the Grindstone

We flew back on Sunday and then back to work yesterday. The weather is gray and cold with more forecast while the sun continues to shine down in La Linea. We won't be able to get back down for a little while now but we paid the mooring through till the end of August. A nice little surprise caught us on that as the financial crisis in Europe has actually benefitted us with a devalued euro reducing the 1700 Euro down to £1400 odd.

The last couple of days in La Linea were great as we managed to get chatting to a few of the other long distance cruisers (as I shall slightly cheekily call ourselves).

Here are some pictures which, now we have our speedy broadband, I can put up here.

I had treated myself to a zoom lens in Gibraltar and it gives a nice view of this dry dock.

While down there I had intended to replace both the main and jib halyards and to splice the eyes in them myself. This defeated me. This picture shows roughly how far I got with one of them.

What did it was how hard it was to pull the core or cover up through the already thickened bit above the eye. There must be a technique because I have seen videos of people doing it. I am determined to get to grips with it as the ability to do a bit of rigging work might be a useful way of earning some beer money on the go.

The wind continued to blow hard right up to Friday when we finally managed a day sail in the Bay of Gibraltar or Bahia de Algeciras as the Spanish call it. The wind between the rock and the mountains behind Algeciras make for very flukey wind and we literally had spells of near flat calm from the WSW through to a F6 from the NW. Still, at leas we proved to ourselves that we still know how to handle a sailing boat.

I include this final picture to show just how revolting boats can be. This has been tied up in the Marina for ages but then on Saturday suddenly left.

Happy sailing to all especially to those in sunny climes and blue waters. We're not jealous delighted for you!

Windy days in La Linea

We had the usual 0400 start this morning to get to Gatwick in time for the Easyjet flight. The flight itself was a bit boring as there was a lot of cloud around. We saw a bit of the Golfe du Morbihan and then nothing till we were approaching southern Spain and even then, there was a lot of cloud around. I enjoyed the landing. The pilot had warned us that with the wind just south of west it would be a bit bumpy. There was a bit of turbulence but nothing too much.

The wind has been blowing very hard though and after a bit of nap we were just getting ready to go to the shops when it started raining. It has been belting down and has also shown a leak around the galley which will have to be found and sorted out.

Still, it is nice to be down here still and now the rain looks like easing off I will go and get some supplies.

Thursday now and the rain has definitely gone. The wind has however been in the north or north west which has meant chilly nights though it is nice and warm in the day. We Sunday to walk out to Europa Point and in an extravagant moment, I bought a long lens for the camera. So far it is great and also quite long as well. 300 mm is really at the limit of being able to do hand held pictures.

We have also acquired two 24 m lengths of rope to replace the halyards but now find that the splicing kit I bought doesn't have a needle for threading the core so another visit to Gibraltar is called for.

Lastly, I started looking at the starter motor on the engine as it has not been working properly as the gear has not been engaging with the flywheel properly. Getting it off looked really difficult as the nuts holding it to the main engine block are extremely tight. On a whim, I tried starting the engine and it worked fine. The bit of banging I gave it as well as a long rest has obviously done it some good. We would still really like to replace it with a nice shiny new Beta engine but will have to wait for redundancy or Mr Camelot to help out there! The fuel filters need changing and I should really change the oil as well but will need to check that we can dispose of used filters and such like.

19/04
Well, we bought two lengths of braided three strand rope to replace the halyards along with a couple of splicing needles. I have managed to get so far with the one designated as the main halyard. The essential process is to pull some of the core out at the beginning of the loop and then thread it up inside the cover. You then repeat the process for the excess cover and voilà! You have a loop. The principle is easy enough, it is just the effort in getting the additional core and cover to sit inside the core above the loop. I did eventually get the core to do what it should but have now ground to a halt with getting the needle threaded down to pull the cover up. There must be some technique that I am missing as riggers do not all have forearms like Popeye.

The wind continues strong from the north west which is making a sail across the straits increasingly unlikely. We could have a great sail to Cueta but then a vicious beat back across a very busy shipping lane.

We may wind up getting the ferry in the end.

We have now purchased a day's wifi here so I will post this. The wind continues howling seven most of the time with a few gusts to eight. I don't think we are going to get any sailing in. Still, it is a nice relaxing time here.

Next visit confirmed

We fly on 14/04 and come back the following Sunday. We left booking the flights a bit late so it was pricier than we would have hoped but it should still be a nice week away and it isn't long either!

More details soon I hope.

Blog Fiddling

Well, more accurately, I hvae been playing with Picassa. Google's online album thing. I have put together an album with a load of photos of our cruise to La Linea.

The link is here.


I'll try and get around to putting captions on all the pictures in due course.

A Couple of Small Changes

The more eagle eyed amongst the legions of followers here will have noticed I have been tinkering round with things a bit. Crucially there is now a list of a few links and a chance to follow by email.

Look out, I may enable ad clicking next and become an overnight millionaire from all the click throughs you will bring here!

The Cruising Wiki

It had to come! I had been toying with the idea of using the Mediawiki software to deliver a cruising guide and someone has of course beaten me to it. Although wikis are fraught with problems as witnessed by the shenanigans experienced by Wikipedia it is a very useful way of collaboratively delivering factual content and is, in many ways, ideally suited to cruising guides.

The real problem is going to be getting the content when out of range of internet providers. We do not intend to carry oodles of sattelite technology such as is carried by the round the world racing fraternity who are able to update their blogs and all sorts from the depths of the southern ocean. Anyway, this project deserves as much support as possible.

Visited Sarah G

Well, we have just got back from a visit and a generally enjoyable time though coming back was just as difficult as last October. We didn't achieve much at all in terms of works on the boat but we had a nice relaxing time and did some more planning.

The view of "The Rock" is particularly impressive at night from the boat.

This year's cruising is now taking shape in a more definite way. We have shied away from trying to make it to Sardinnia and Corsica. Instead, we are going to head back west to Portugal and revisit much more slowly the south coast of Portugal (the bits we liked) and Spain. This will involve about a month of river crawling mainly as we intend to explore up the Guadiana and Guadalquivir. We will then head on into the Mediteranean and work swiftly past the Costa del Sol with a view to finishing up in Cartagena or Alicante.

Whether we return to England or stay aboard is another interesting question still to be decided. It would apparently be quite easy for me to get work in Gibraltar and I would imagine that Audrey would find the same. Of course, we would not be able to live aboard if the boat were in Alicante. Plans are though still quite nebulous in that area anyway.

This trip we first visited Gibraltar to allow Audrey to experience the strangeness of one of Britain's last colonies. We then hired a car and I showed Audrey both Barbate and Cadiz (albeit briefly) It was while visiting Cadiz that confirmed us in our view that we wanted to revisit the Atlantic ports again before making the final jump into the Med out of the Atlantic.

The views over the Straits from the Tarifa Algeciras road are typically spectacular and made a nice picture of Audrey as well.

Congratulations to Marco Nanini still holding second place in the Global Ocean Race and facing a huge storm in Drakes Passage while rounding Cape Horn

Also a huge thanks to Sitting Kitty who looked after Schrodinger excellently while we were away.

Off to Spain soon

At last, we are going down there for a few days. An unearthly start and easyjet from Gatwick but at least we will arrive in the middle of the day. It should be a fairly easy time though. We will mostly look around and hope to start planning the next stage of our cruise. Audrey will also get a chance to do the Gibraltar thing. We have also hired a car so we can do a bit of sightseeing.

On another note, I organised that the monthly charity dress down collection should be for the RNLI. It went quite well and I was happy to drop off around £200 to the RNLI London office. It felt nice to manage to get that much though it is only a drop in the ocean of their £150,000,000 annual budget. For all the myriad followers here, please see if you can give them a bit yourself. They can be found at:

The RNLI

I'll update while we are down there as well.

Happy Sailing for those lucky sods who are already cruising!

First Trip Down Planned

We have booked a five day weekend starting on 18 February and coming back the following Wednesday. It seems ages since I have been there and Audrey of course, hasn't been to Gibraltar at all. We'll do a bit of work on the boat but also do some sightseeing stuff. Who knows, we may even go for a sail.

Last Friday we attended a very disappointing boat show at Excel. We don't imagine that we will be going back there again. There were very few sailing boats and none that we liked except for the Cornish Crabbers and their prices are simply eye watering. The power boats were predictably revolting and there were even fewer equipment exhibitors than before which rendered the show more or less a complete waste of time for us. Sadly, we are unlikely to be in the country for the Southampton show either.

One bit we did like was a stand where Owners Associations could push their particular boat. I felt that it would have been a good thing to have the ROA there, not least since the Contessa 32 Association was there.

The evening was a much more satisfying affair with the ROA AGM. We still find it a bit odd going to the East India Club but it is always a good evening.

Now we just have to work out how to get our windmill shipped down to Gibraltar. I wonder if Easyjet would let us take it on - for a fee of course.

Big Decisions

Well, we have bowed to the inevitable and worked out we will not be ready to go in April. Various things such as getting the house ready for renting, jacking in the job and doing some necessary work on Sarah G are not going to happen in the next three months which means we can't realisticly chuck up the jobs and hope to be able to fund a six month cruise through Sardinnia, Corsica and the Med coasts of Spain and France.

We are now looking at staying in work for the summer with a series of long weekends down in La Linea to both work on the boat and do some sailing in the sun with a plan to finish in August. We could then have two months to reexplore the Costa de Luz and get up to Sevilla before spending a winter in Gibraltar.

It is a bit sad that we can't take the plunge fully this spring but I think that we will have a good time. I can help my Brother with his plans to sail Kemara round Britain and Audrey can do some belly dancing this summer.

Plans will, of course, be evolving more but we actually quite like this one. We just need a way of escaping London for the Olympics now!