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thevalmaiorian · 4 years

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Seven years of doing stuff

Preface/intro

So, it is March 2013, I am working on contract in China, I have been married for about 8 weeks and will be 60 in 3 months. 60 is the normal retirement age in China, but my employer has already offered me a 1 year renewal when my current contract expires. I am looking for a bigger apartment to live in, when all the foreign staff are called to a meeting. It transpires that my employer has been refused an extension on the lease for the land, and has decided to drastically reduce the size of the operation, so they can relocate to some older premises. 80% of us are informed that our contracts will not be renewed. The chance of me finding another job when I have passed retirement age are virtually zero. I applied for several positions, but age fifty nine and three quarters did not win me any interviews.

Where to next? Do this logically and ignore emotion – Spock head attached. UK is out, even if only because of the weather. EU makes things simple, so ideally an EU country. I have only recently found out that Guadeloupe is part of France, and part of EU, and has free movement, and uses the Euro. If I had known that earlier, plans might have been different, but at the time Portugal ticked lots of boxes. It ranked high in the list of countries where people feel safe, the population is declining as jobs pay more in other EU countries. There are a lot of cheap rural properties with land, the weather is better.

Other options - I could go and live with the in-laws in Beijing, or, I could buy a boat and we could go sailing, to Portugal, and live on the boat while house hunting. Started searching, and eventually found a boat online, exactly what I was looking for, in Dublin. After some email negotiation, we agreed in principal to buy. I wired a deposit, then on the 25th of August, we arrived in Dublin via London. Checked into a hotel, and the next day, we went to look at our potential boat. All seemed fine so the sale was agreed. The owner suggested that we move on board to save on hotel bills and taxis, and eventually money and papers were exchanged, Irish registration cancelled, UK registration acquired. UK radio license sorted, Insurance arranged.

Oleander is ours.

Oleander is a fin keel centre cockpit ketch, I have been a fan of ketch rigged boats for a long time, since boat No. 3, my first ketch (1 and 2 had been aft cockpit sloops) No.3 was purchased not because it was a ketch, but because it was the right boat even though it was a ketch.

For the non boaty folks, a ketch has two masts. A main mast in the middle, and a small mizzen mast at the back. A yawl is similar, but the mizzen mast is even smaller, and further back. The official difference between the two is that on a yawl, the mizzen mast is aft of the rudder post, and on a ketch it is forward of the rudder post. Practically, on a ketch, the mizzen provides additional driving force, on a yawl, the mizzen exists purely to balance the main. The mathematics of sailing is all about compromise.

Warning – the following paragraph is techy and boring, and is about monohulls, Catamarans and trimarans are somewhat different.

The sails of a boat act in the same way as aeroplane wings. Wind blows from the side, sails produce lift, which propels the boat forward. The wind also makes the boat lean over, so, a heavy weight is needed on the bottom to make sure that it doesn’t fall over. The centre of the driving force produced by the sails is roughly 1/3 up from the bottom of the sail. Consequently because the boat is leaning over and the sails are over the downwind side, the force driving the boat is not on the centre line. This offset force tries to turn the boat into the wind. The wind blowing from the side is also trying to push the boat sideways through the water. A big fin on the bottom helps to reduce the sideways travel. The fin is not positioned centrally, but a little further back, so it helps to counterbalance the turning force produced by the offset sails.

The big fin on the bottom is designed as a classic aerofoil section, so as the boat is travelling forward through the water, and being pushed sideways through the water, it produces lift to oppose the sideways push. A consequence of this is that the boat leans over a little more.

A big advantage of ketches yawls and schooners (also two masts, but the big one at the back) is that the driving force from each mast can be easily adjusted to balance the boat.

Oleander is officially 10.9m in length, and weighs in at a little over 8 tons empty. There are enough beds for 8 and nearly enough living accommodation for 2.

8th Sep 2013

After waiting a few days for reasonable weather, we finally untied from the dock in Dublin, waved goodbye to Ireland, and set out to sea bound for the UK. The weather was a little too reasonable – not much wind, so mostly engine on the way. 9 hours later, we arrived in Holyhead. We were visited by officials, who decided that the entering UK stamp issued in London was sufficient, so we were free to roam Holyhead. We stayed 2 nights, then left and sailed around the corner to Llandudno bay, where we anchored for the night, or rather part of it. Our destination was Preston Marina. Timing is critical for Preston, the lock gates only open for 90 minutes before, and 90 minutes after high tide, and they are 20km from the sea. When Preston ceased to be a real port, dredging operations between the docks and the sea also ceased, and that was officially in 1981, though I suspect that dredging ceased quite some time before the official closure. The result is that the river is too shallow for keel boats except at high tide. Oleander touches the bottom at 1.8m, deep, so I get tense if indicated depth is less than 3m.

The idea is to time Preston arrival to shortly after high tide there. This depends on many things Onshore wind can increase water depth, offshore can reduce depth, low atmospheric pressure can increase water depth high reduces it. These factors can also cause timing fluctuations, and if it has been raining heavily recently, there can be more water than usual making the depth in the river greater, but also increasing the speed of the water which we are going against. To add to the fun, in this locality, the sea level can rise or fall more than 10m (the difference between high tide and low tide) in 6 hours.

The trip to the Ribble outer marker buoy should take about 7 hours, add the time to get underway and a little contingency, we left at about 3am. Straight line to Gut buoy (outer marker) – or so I thought. I sailed towards a field of offshore wind generating fans. I had no idea these things were here. They are not on my charts. It is still black and moonless, and I can’t see which way to go round them. I reason that the best thing to do is to stay on the shore side until I can see a better route. Eventually, dawn arrives, and it becomes easier to see where we are going. We work our way through several separate still under construction fields of these things. I suspect that none of them are working. We got close to a few, and it didn’t seem that they were generating any significant wind.

Arrived at Gut buoy in plenty of time, warm and windless weather. Had lunch, and played cards in the cockpit until the time came to start the engine, chugged uneventfully up the river – eyes glued to the sonar depth display, eventually reached Preston and were assigned a berth.

The last time I had been in Preston Marina was 1st May 1997, I was taking No. 3 from there to my mooring in Loch Creran, Scotland. That was a solo trip. I spent the first night listening to the General Election results on the radio and watching Hale Bopp, Great view from the middle of the Irish sea – clear sky and far from light pollution.

So Oleander, A new engine was fitted 2 years previously, and it behaved faultlessly, but seemed to consume a lot of engine oil. It came with an almost new liferaft, but was missing a few gadgets. For serious sailing, I would want RADAR, a wind generator, solar panels, and AIS – a newish idea with a transmitter linked to GPS broadcasting position and ID - Boat name etc. Class B transmits basic data – Class A (big ship class) broadcasts as Class B, but also includes course, speed, departure port, destination port and other stuff. AIS also receives the data broadcast by other vessels within range (usually about 100km), and this can then be displayed on a computer screen overlaying a nautical chart, and will warn of collision danger. Obviously, this only shows data for boats transmitting data, and it doesn’t show rocks or land, and fitment is not compulsory, for leisure vessels. Some boats have receive only units, and there is also the ability to switch off the transmission. This is useful when docked, saves jamming up the airwaves, and also useful in “here be pirates” locations. So it doesn’t replace RADAR. Oleander was equipped with an autopilot attached to the wheel, but it was a stand alone unit. Give it a compass course, and it would keep the boat pointing in that direction. Useful, but of limited use. It could not detect changes in wind direction, so it could not be relied upon when sailing, and unlike roads, water moves, and if the water moves sideways, a fixed compass course will not take the boat to it’s destination. Finally, it uses electricity. If the engine is not running, the electric motor that turns the wheel will soon result in flat batteries. Solution – Aries (or similar) an ingenious mechanical doodah that steers the boat and maintains the boat’s angle to the wind. I also want to upgrade the electronics, so the electric autopilot can accept a route with waypoints, so it will change course as required to follow the programmed route. It also seems that our fridge/freezer is broken. It makes all the right noises, but doesn’t actually get cool. So a new fridge is added to the shopping list, also an extended range wifi antenna, so we can have internet on the boat.

There are some structural changes that I need to make.

I want to reroute the engine exhaust. When the new engine was fitted, the fitters presumably decided that it was too much trouble to follow the previous route with the new pipe so ran the pipe straight to the back of the boat. This created two problems. The outlet is too low, sometimes underwater, and just on the other side of the hull there is a swan neck fitting, (an inverted U bend) which is fitted to help prevent water being forced into the exhaust, and into the engine. If the outlet is already below the water level, then the swan neck will not be as effective as intended. Also, the swan neck intrudes into the bed space, so the mattress does not fit properly. Fortunately, the engine fitters left the old exhaust fitting in place, and just bunged it up with expanding foam.

I need to reinforce the deck above the aft cabin. The mizzen mast is only supported by the deck, and has already been depressed by excessive tightening of the rigging holding the mast in place. I had thought that this would be a relatively simple job. Just use a jack to force the deck back to where it belonged, then put some reinforcing arched structure underneath to hold it there that would be invisible when the internal panelling was replaced.

Looks like we are not going to make it to Portugal this year.

Decide to serviced the engine. Ordered all the bits, removed the old oil filter, and found the cause of high oil consumption there were two holes on opposite sides of the old filter, which had been repaired with solder – a leaky repair on the hidden side. Black oil in the bilges confirmed this. Ok, the new filter will fix that – except it doesn’t fit. Later discussion with suppliers reveals that there are 22mm and 24mm screw versions of the filter with the same part number, and we have the less common version on our engine. I am sure that the previous owner had also ordered the wrong part and used a screwdriver driven through the old filter to remove it rather than bother with a strap wrench, then had to patch the old filter to refit it. Luckily, we are not going anywhere soon, so I can wait for the correct part.

Rerouting the exhaust was a long job even though the new route followed the original route. From the engine room underneath the en-suite bathroom floor, then up behind the aft toilet, a horizontal bend to run through the aft cabin just below the deck, and behind all the panelling to the transom. It seems that the exhaust was fitted by the boat manufacturer before the interior was completely installed, and the new pipe is larger diameter than the old pipe, a lot of boat dismantling was required. The problem is that when mantling the boat again things never go back exactly as they were. I accept that this is a renegade use of the word mantle, but if I can dismantle something, I should be allowed to mantle it again.

Luckily, because I was in a calm inland marina, I could patch the now redundant hole without worrying too much about unwanted water ingress. Prettifying the hole could wait until the boat is on land.

Now on to the saggy roof. 1st job – remove mizzen mast, drive boat to crane – disconnect everything, lift mast, and lower on to deck horizontally, drive boat back to parking place. Having the mizzen mast on deck makes fitting all the extra brackets much easier.

Oops!, What I obviously didn’t factor in was that the depression had presumably occurred over many years, and it did not want to return to the original shape overnight. Small cracks began to appear when jacking started. After a bout of pondering, I abandoned further jacking, and reinforce where it is now with only a little reduction in depression. Several days spent applying fibreglass and resin to the ceiling, not all of which chose to stay there, until I had added 2cm to the ceiling thickness.

Gently released the jack – creaking and cracking noises, but all seems good.

When all the mizzen mast jobs were completed, then it was time for another trip to the crane

I knew that I would have to lengthen the RADAR cable, but I couldn’t find another 21 core cable anywhere, I eventually ordered a double length of shielded 12 core, at least I could double the cores carrying the power. And that would leave a spare. A fun – and long – nervous evening was spent with a soldering iron, cutting stripping and soldering one core at a time so there would be no mistakes. Amazingly, there were no mistakes – everything worked first time when I connected the extended cable and powered up. There are now a lot of cables to get from the mizzen to inside the boat. My two new radar cables, two antenna cables, WIFI Cat 5.(The antenna is screwed directly onto the P.O.E. weatherproof router) and the 3 phase power from the wind generator. Another big hole in the deck fitted with a stainless steel swan neck.

Fortunately, through all this chaos, the first mate was having fun in Beijing. I thought it only fair to delay the lift out for bottom painting until she returned. It seemed selfish to be having all this fun alone.

In Dublin, Oleander was craned out of the water for inspection, and bottom scrub (boats go better without seaweed, barnacles and mussels growing on their bottoms. One of the lifting straps slipped and damaged the impeller that is used to measure boat speed through the water, and record the distance travelled. Not a big deal, these things are not expensive. When I tried to order one, I discovered that they are no longer available and nothing else is compatible, so, need a complete new unit, new impeller, and matching new display. Need to drill another big hole in the bottom of the boat. Might as well get a combined unit with a new depth display at the same time.

I also have to remove the boarding ladder which is centrally mounted on the transom, and remount it off centre, to make room for the Aires which has to be mounted within a few centimeters of dead centre.

So, this is Oleander, or as close as I can get. Things not shown are:

1) at the top of main mast is the primary VHF antenna, the anemometer and a multi purpose light unit which includes an all-round white anchor light, and a sailing only navigation light, which shows red to port, white to the rear, and green to starboard. The colour of the light that can be seen determines which vessel has to give way in the event of a potential collision at night.

If we are using the engine, or engine and sails, we are no longer classed as a sailing vessel and cannot use the tricolour light. We have to switch to deck level navigation lights, with an additional white light showing forward and above the deck level lights. As a motor vessel, the collision avoidance rules change.

2) at the top of the mizzen mast is another VHF antenna for the AIS, but it can also be used as a backup antenna for the marine VHF, there is also an antenna for FM radio, and the antenna for long range wifi.

The appendages on the mizzen mast are from the top:

RADAR reflector, to make our echo stronger on other boats’ RADAR.

Our RADAR transceiver, and the wind generator.

The only significant item not include in the pic is the wind vane steering.

Finally, the Aires unit.

It consists on a flat vertical plywood vane pivoted at the bottom with a counterbalance weight to hold it vertical. When edge on to the wind, it remains vertical, if the wind is to one side, the wind will overcome the counterbalance and swing the vane over. The vane has a lever on one side connected to a vertical pushrod which transmits the movement down to a gear wheel with 45°

teeth. This meshes with another 45° gear wheel mounted on a servo oar – which looks like a small rudder, and turns it. This rudder like device has a pivot at the top, which causes the water passing over it to generate lift, albeit sideways. Ropes connected to the servo oar are pulled, and this effort is passed by pulleys to the steering wheel or tiller, which steers the boat back onto course, which bring the plywood vane back edge on to the wind. The counterbalance brings the vane back to vertical causing the steering to straighten out.

See illustration below.

The plywood wind vane is mounted on a rotatable base, which can be turned in either direction in increments or decrements of 6° by pulling on strings in the cockpit, which are connected to a ratchet and gear mechanism.

There are many variants of this design by different companies, some have a servo oar and a second rudder which means there is no need to connect to the boat’s steering, others are more sleek and self contained, but I have always preferred Aires.

The pic below is the same model as mine, but mine has an improved mechanism for detaching and attaching the servo oar. Also, mine came without the mounting brackets, and a rather important baseplate was missing, so I had to make my own. The original plate was cast aluminium, and is no longer available. Mine is made from rectangular and tubular aluminium which I cut and drilled. I took all the bits to a pro to be welded together, which came out great, but distorted, so nothing would fit. It took several days of sanding and filing to make it fit together.

I have had two problems with this unit. When I first tried it at sea, the boat would sail a sine wave course, and I didn’t know why. The only logical explanation was that the plywood vane was too heavy and was not returning to vertical fast enough. This was strange, because I was given a pattern to cut the plywood vane by another Aires owner in the marina. I reduced the size of the vane, and then it was fine. Admittedly, the other Aires was a different model, but I hadn’t thought that the vane size would need to change. Several month later, I saw the same model of Aires windvane on another boat, and their vane was much smaller than my cut down version.

The other problem is not with the Aires, but with the connection to the steering wheel. The connection must be capable of being disengaged instantly, in case of emergency. The unit I bought used friction locking very much like a clutch on a car, but using a screw with a big knurled knob to press the two parts together. It doesn’t like getting wet, which is an issue when there are wind and waves and rain. It squeaks and slips. This is a major problem. After it has slipped, the boat is no long pointing in the right direction.

Normal operation sequence is to get the boat sailing in the desired direction, trim the sails to reduce steering effort, rotate the plywood vane so edge on to the wind and vertical, engage steering wheel clutch.

And as fitted to Oleander.

Eventually, it was time to recall the crew from shore leave. Oleander was lifted out of the water and set in a cradle on land. We spent a few days there. Cleaned all the underwater parts removing slime, seaweed, shellfish….Drilled a big hole for the new speed impeller. It is big, because it is often necessary when afloat to pull the thing out of the hole to clean off marine growth. This action, creates a fountain in the boat on removal and replacement. I also investigated the problem with the original speed impeller and realised that the damage was preventing the impeller from reaching the correct position when inserted. The impeller was then shielded from the water flow. A little extra force on insertion was all that was needed to reach the correct position. I tidied up all the temporarily patched holes in the transom, and we repainted the bottom with self eroding antifoul, then back in the water. All we need to do now is fill the tanks, fill the fridge and the cupboards, fill the drinks cabinet, and we are ready to go.

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This is where the sailing blog started...

Day 1

2014/09/09

Left Preston at 11:30 BST, slalomed down the river avoiding dead trees and other stuff. New speed instrument showed 0.0. Dived below, slackened off the impeller, and rotated through 90 degrees, held there for a moment, then through another 90, so it was now backwards. Thought that would clear any seaweed. Tightened up again and rushed back to the cockpit. First mate was doing an admirable job of negotiating a floating forest. Still 0.0! The @#£%& thing was working fine 2 weeks ago. Chart plotter could not get any GPS data, so no speed from that either. Original speed instrument showed 0.75. B&G digital display below showed 5.2. That seemed about right, but can’t be seen from the helm. AIS reported an antenna fault, but apart from that, all seemed OK.

Switch off then on again fixed chart plotter. Wobbling the wires at the back of the AIS unit fixed the antenna, but log impeller would have to wait until we reached the sea, then the skipper could play below decks.

Reached the sea, switched on the autohelm. It’s compass display was 90 degrees out! Couldn’t remember how to swing it - circled a couple of times, but that made no difference. Got on course using the boat steering compass, then told autohelm to maintain whatever heading it thought it had. played with the log impeller again, this time success, - so enough function restored to proceed.

No wind, so engine all the way. Not sure if we had enough fuel to motor all the way to Dublin, so decided to call into Holyhead. ETA 1am. No adventures during the day.

Sunset, but no green flash. Time for navigation lights. Port and starboard on, steaming light on, stern light not on. Changed bulb, still nothing. Cleaned contacts still nothing, went below and found the feed wire, cut into it and spliced in a live feed. Nothing. Getting dark now. Don’t want to run without a stern light, so switched off nav lights and switched on masthead tricolour and steaming light. Technically an illegal combination, but forgivable. First mate decided it was time to sleep, so retired below. Skipper was left alone in the cockpit, but well supplied with coffee, pork pies, and Eccles cakes (known locally as jia yue bing) due to their similarity to a Chinese delicacy traditionally eaten at mid autumn festival which fell on September 8th this year. Made it into Holyhead at 1:30. Not easy finding a parking spot in the dark. Found one eventually, tied up, switched off engine, and first mate woke up!

Day 2 & 3

Decided to stay 1 more night in Holyhead, and leave on Thursday morning. Wednesday evening, skipper developed toothache. took paracetamol, it got worse, took more paracetamol tried to lie down and sleep - No way!, spent a lot of the night sitting on sofa propped up against a bulkhead. Next morning, tried the marina office to see if they had any recommendations for a dentist. nope, and their internet was down. Went back to the boat, found a dentist on google called them at 9:10 - they have a slot at 9:30. No time to wash, change, or brush teeth, and a lengthy brisk walk. got there at 9:35 They looked, poked and prodded, said go away, take amoxycillin, dimarzipan and cocomodo (or something like that), and come back at 3.

Lots of drilling hammering, root canalling, plastering later I walked out with half of my face anaesthetised - probably looked like a stroke victim. Anaesthetic wore off, no toothache, but felt like I had been punched in the face. Decided to stay 2 more nights in Holyhead.

Day 5&6&7&8

First useable internet for a while. Left Holyhead. Having found the instruction book for the autohelm, was able to get the compass right, and do a slow circle outside the harbour to calculate deviation, then motored across a windless Irish Sea to Dun Laoghaire (if you don’t know the pronunciation, I guarantee that you got it wrong). Saw a flock of dolphins on the way (flock because they were flying out of the water) tried to get a video, but max zoom from a moving boat made that a little shaky. Stayed in Dun Laoghaire Marina for 3 nights - really felt like the poor relations.. All the neighbouring boats were well into 6 figures (UK figures nor Irish figures) and several into 7 figures. Left there about 2pm bound for Cork. Got outside the harbour, through a Topper fleet. All beginners I suspect, because they were toppling all around .3 rescue ribs were buzzing around the fleet righting the toppled toppers. Outside the harbour - wind!!!. Sails hoisted, some good progress made under sail for almost 30 minutes, then the wind just faded away. sails down, engine on.

8pm - first mate felt a little under the weather, so went below for a nap. no naps for the poor skipper, motoring alone through darkness. Just before midnight, the wind picked up. Sails hoisted, engine off, yell from below “why have we stopped” Sailed for a couple of hours, then lost the wind again, engine on. 3am: box of jaffa cakes finished. 4am had to open a new jar of coffee. The first grey light of dawn appeared.. Skipper was running on auto pilot. Needed sleep, so began checking charts looking for an anchorage. Dawn and first mate appeared together. I advised first mate of new plan then went below to nap. Slept about 15 or 20 minutes, enough for a second wind. About 8 or 9am, anchored in a large river mouth just south of Waterford, on the east side tucked under some cliffs giving excellent shelter from easterly winds. Went to bed.

Day 9

Skipper got about 4 hours sleep then launched the dinghy and rowed the crew ashore (fix outboard motor is still on the “to do” list) A reasonable sized beach, but with no simple exit or entry. Cliffs seemed risky, and beach vanished underwater at each end, leaving us with about 200 meters of beach to ourselves. A strange cave was discovered - looked like it had been hacked out by hand, but why? It is quite obvious from the water, so not much use for smugglers, It would be exposed to any south westerly storms, and waves would crash in. The rock type would not contain anything worth mining.. Maybe in the past, it was more concealed. Neither skipper nor first mate had brought a torch, so exploration was not possible. There is a ruined Knights Templar Church above, but about 500m in from the cliff edge. That is a long way to tunnel through rock.

Day 10

Decided not to do Cork in one leg, so set off for Youghal. Got out to sea, hoisted sails. Wind from north east we are headed south west. Not going fast enough to get there before dark, and didn’t want to risk the narrow entrance at night, then search for a spot to anchor in the dark, so engine on, sails down.chugged along under engine for a while, then the revs dropped, it spluttered and died. Tried to restart, it started then died again. Temperature was OK, Oil was OK. First mate asked if we had run out of fuel. I knew we hadn’t, but went below to check.

The fuel gauge is a transparent sight tube on the side of the tank. It has a tap at the bottom which is only opened to level the fuel in the sight tube. I opened the tap, fuel level dropped to zero. We had 26 gallons when I checked before setting off. Suspecting a catastrophic fuel leak, I pulled up the floorboards to check the bilges. No sign of diesel, no smell of diesel. Several possibilities sprang to mind. Fuel gauge had been blocked so was over reading, and we were actually dry, fuel line was blocked, and the pump had created a partial vacuum which had sucked the fuel from the sight tube. A leak was also not totally ruled out, but needed time to investigate, so hoisted sails and headed back to Templeton bay. heading now north east, into a north east wind, and the bay/estuary is also aligned sw/ne. So a few hours of “ready about, lee ho” Skipper chose to return to the same anchorage, because it is very gently sloping, there are no rocks, and the holding is good - we would be anchoring under sail. Wind picked up, saw 6.5 knots close hauled under jib and jigger. Got to a position where we could sail due north, going close in to Hookhead lighthouse, then switched to final tack at the starboard marker buoy for the Waterford channel. I also half furled the jib so we wouldn’t be charging up the beach, or trying to anchor under a frantically flapping jib. Speed dropped to 2.5 knots. A slight error, as the outgoing tide then pushed us further south than intended, about 300m south of the ideal spot,we could still anchor safely there, but couldn’t easily get ashore. I tried the engine, it fired, and took us to the ideal spot. Dropped anchor, made sure it had dug in securely. and relaxed.

First mate had a nap, Skipper found a long piece of wood, and dipped the fuel tank. 18 gallons. Fuel leak eliminated.

Skipper sat in the cockpit as darkness fell. The only sounds were a gentle breeze, an occasional gull, and waves crashing onto the rocks.

Skipper discovered that it is almost impossible to roll a cigarette in total darkness.

Day 11

After pondering the previous evening, the skipper determined that the problem could only be a blockage in or around the fuel tap on the main tank. simple solution was to detach the top of the sight tube (which is T’d into the diesel return line from the injector pump), put my lips together and blow. Sound of bubbles in the main tank. re-attached the top of the sight tube, and tried to start the engine. Heard the clatter of a relay, but no engine start sound.

Yesterday, we were obviously profligate with the electrickery. Sailing with AIS, Laptop, Chart plotter, autohelm, radio, all other instruments, cabin lights in the evening, pressurised water, standard incandescent masthead anchor light at night… Switched over to engine battery, and the engine fired up. Which leaves a question. What does the engine battery do? Obviously, the starter motor was taking power from the “house” batteries. I was trying to remember previous boats. Were they the same? I had just kinda assumed that the engine battery provided power for the starter motor, fuel pumps and engine instruments, but could be switched to power house systems if needed, or switched to become part of the house system.

Oleander’s 1, both, 2, off switch is always on the house position, when we are onboard, off when we leave the boat for a period, both when using an external charger, but only ever on engine when comparing voltages. Oh well, ran the engine for an hour to confirm it was fixed, and charge batteries, all seemed ok. Rowed ashore, ventured further north to see if we could escape from the beach and explore inland, the answer was yes we could, just, but we wouldn’t be be able to get back because of the rising tide. Skipper had brought a torch so ventured into the mysterious cave, however, something jumped on his ear, so he ran out again. Braver sole is required to complete the subterranean exploration. We had already decided it was too late to make another attempt at Youghal, combined with concern about the engine, and the death of the radar screen, so spent the evening discussing options, and agreed not to go to Portugal, but to return to UK and make another attempt in spring.

Day 12 & 13

A short trip east to Kilmore Quay - last parking place before the southeast corner of Ireland. A great day for sailing, wind was 3-4 on the beam, but needed to prove the engine was really fixed, so only the mizzen came out to play. Wind Generator whirred reassuringly for the whole trip. The first time it has done that since we left Preston. Kilmore Quay is a cute little marina in a working fishing port, with many small boats, and a few deep sea trawlers. Quirky little place, Bathrooms locked at 7pm, access to bathrooms (when unlocked) and marina is by phone. Make a call to a certain number, and providing your phone is registered and authorised, both are automatically unlocked, even though they are not in the same place. So for us, Spending a penny has increased to the cost of a roaming international call!!

Nearest ATM, 8km

Next day we explored the town - fully!

Walked along every street, looked in every shop window, - that killed 30 minutes.

Pics of Kilmore Quay and our private beach in Waterford Harbour

Oleander, and a lifeboat handy, just in case we sink at the dock.

and

Day 14

Replaced masthead anchor light bulb with LED

Day 15

Still in Kilmore Quay - crew deserve extended shoreleave. The entertainment for the day was watching a fishing boat being lifted out of the water. A small boat by the standards of the other boats on the quay, weighing about 50 tons. It was a big operation. A massive mobile crane - 5 axles. An artic (semi) carrying extra bits of crane, and another artic to put the boat on, about 7 guys in total, and a diver. The crane had to spread out it’s support struts, and lift extra weights off the back of the support truck to put on itself so it didn’t fall in the water. The whole operation took about 5 hours. When the boat was out, it had to be welded onto the truck which was going to carry it away. An expensive operation, but an insurance job I guess. It seems that the boat had previously been using a fork lift truck to unload stuff, but the forklift fell off the dock onto the back of the boat and sunk it. It had to be lifted from the bottom by a different crane, then pumped dry, then towed to another dock big enough to fit the crane on. I watched for hours, just in case there were any “youtubeable” moments, but everything went smoothly. The weather was horrid when they arrived, strong wind and heavy rain, but brightened up as the work progressed. The other event was the loss of shore power - while I was making coffee!!! Checked all the wiring in the boat - couldn’t find a problem, checked the cable - everything seemed fine - I decided that the marina power had gone out, so got the wind generator running, and waited. A few minutes later, I noticed a guy from a neighbouring boat prodding his supply socket. That confirmed that it was the marina. I yelled at him that we we out too, so don’t bother prodding. About an hour later, power came back. Later still I was chatting to the marina manager, who knew there was an outage scheduled for today by the power company, but forgot to tell anyone else. P.S. How is it that typo’s are invisible until the item is posted? Then they jump out and laugh at me. P.P.S. How is it that after fixing all the typo’s, The first mate can still find more?

Day 16

A work day. Finally finished installing all the woodwork in the aft cabin. Now all it needs is decorating, and we can move back in. Ran out of prepaid electric in the evening, but we are leaving early tomorrow, so not worth getting any more. Stayed up late preparing the boat for sea. Stowing away any thing that could fall over. Stuff mostly stuffed into the aft cabin, so it all has to come out again so I can do more work.

Day 17

Set off early bound for Milford Haven, though not as early as intended. Motored out into a strong cross current. Not quite as easy to keep a straight track over the ground as it had been going in. But as soon as we turned east, that current gave us a boost. Got all the sails up and killed the engine. Played with the wind vane steering for a while, but realised that I needed to re route the lines to the steering wheel. They are fouling each other when under load. No quick fix, so I gave up. Autohelm was also misbehaving. It would switch silently to standby, so Oleander would slowly round up into the wind. The wind was also almost dead astern, so progress was not spectacular. A real sailor would have hoisted the spinnaker, but I have yet to get that sail out of the bag. Speed was dropping below 4 knots, so rolled in the jib, started the engine, rounded up and dropped the main then pointed at Milford Haven. We wanted to be in the marina before it got dark. Auto helm was having a bad day. Display switched to XTE (Cross Track Error) and couldn’t be switched to anything else. Doubly strange. Firstly because that was the only thing it would display, and secondly because there was no track set for there to be an error. It is currently a stand alone instrument, not currently connected to the chart plotter (on to do list), so there is no way to give it a waypoint, and without a waypoint, there can be no track, and no track means no cross track error, also, to have a cross track error, the device needs to know the boat’s position, but there is no GPS feed. Currently, it is just used to maintain a compass heading. I will deal with any XTE as required. The display later switched to BTW I guessed that meant bearing to waypoint. It was the only thing I could think of. Fortunately, it was able to maintain a compass course, but not able to say what course it was maintaining. We eventually reached Milford Haven at dusk. Switched on the nav lights, checked that the stern light was still ok, used the super tanker channel to enter and motored along until we reached the turning for the marina. It was just before high tide, so we we able to just motor straight though the lock which was open at both ends. The Marina guy had gone to pierhead control and yelled Charlie 15 which was our designated parking spot. Found Charlie, but couldn’t find 15. Oleander does not like going backwards. It is the worst boat I have ever owned from that point of view. The prop seemed unable to get any real bite in the water in reverse, and the stern kicks to port when it is engaged, so manoeuvring in tight spaces is a nightmare. Fortunately, there was no wind and no current, so dead slow was OK. Eventually found C15.it looked very tight, I thought for a moment that we wouldn’t fit, but squeezed in tied up, ate dinner, went for showers, then sleep. Before sleeping, I confirmed my suspicion that the steaming light was out! Next morning, woke up, looked out of the window, saw Aquila 10m away!

Day 18,19,…….

Lovely Milford Haven spent our first day tidying up a little, putting the sail covers on, redoing dock lines, repositioning fenders - that kind of stuff. Last night everything was “that’ll do ‘til tomorrow” Later that evening, we went for a stroll. Saw a road sign directing cars to the town centre, but we decided that it was probably too far to walk at night. There is a street with a few shops just behind the marina. We strolled along there. Nothing very interesting apart from a US 60’s style diner. that looked cute. Next day I looked at a map to see how far it was to the town centre. Not far, it consists of a street with a few shops just behind the marina. So, no department stores, no Starbucks, no McDonalds or Burger King. No Pizza Hut. Looked up Milford Haven - population 12000 oh I thought it was bigger.

More days

Milford Haven temporarily abandoned. The crew is on a train to Manchester. Slow train, 6 hours. The aft cabin is now habitable, only minor leaks remain. So the crew have a permanent bed, which is much more convenient and more importantly, much more comfortable. The “en suite” is a junk room though. Still not fully reassembled after rerouting the engine exhaust through there, so used as a store cupboard/junk room. The wind generator is a possible issue. It is mounted on the mizzen mast, and the mizzen mast is mounted on the aft cabin roof. As it spins, noise is transmitted along the mast, and the roof acts like a sound box to amplify it. It was windy last night, but first mate slept soundly, so probably not a problem, probably. It has been windy, steady 8s gusting 9. The crew of Aquila heard the forecast, got scared and ran away. Aquila seems to have survived unscathed though. The wind was southerly, so coming across Oleander’s starboard bow. (and blowing straight under Aquila’s sprayhood). Oleander’s crew is happy when the wind is forward of the beam, they can leave the companion way open. When the wind swings aft, the rain blows into the saloon and galley. First mate has donned admiral’s hat, and commanded that the skipper can not discuss oysters. The train took more than 7 hours. The train stopped. There was, allegedly, a tree that had fallen across the track, but when it started moving again, there was no sign of a fallen tree, no sign of men with lumberjack shirts, bushy beards, and chainsaws. Maybe it was a twig.

Daze

Checked out of the hotel at 04:30. Shuttle bus to the airport, and only 1 person in front of us at check in. Check in was quick apart from first mate’s passport, which the check in girl didn’t know how to process. She ran away to see a supervisor. Not much of a queue at security either. Security was quick apart from the skipper’s carry on bag, which was full of chargers, cables and cameras (and Jaffa cakes). It had to be emptied, the contents split over several trays, and rescanned, twice. They found nothing bombish, so skipper was allowed through. We had checked in deliberately early to ensure that we were seated together, tickets said we weren’t, because we hadn’t paid £8 per person per plane for that option, and there was no online check in. Food on plane was charged for, hence the Jaffa cakes. Drinks were also additional cost, but skipper needed coffee, so paid. First mate caused problems with passport at immigration too, but soon resolved, and we were let into Portugal. Had a longish wait for bags, then scurried out to look for the travel company rep who had the details of how we would get to the hotel. Checked all the people hanging over the rail at arrivals, but no Thomas Cook. Out of the arrivals area looked around, no Thomas Cook. Left first mate guarding the luggage, and wandered outside, looked at all the buses, no Thomas Cook. Back in the airport, looked at the arrivals area. Car rental was at the far end, I wondered if Thomas Cook was there also. The only way to get there was to go back in to arrivals. I heard somebody being told that they would have to walk round, so I tried that. Out of the airport building, walked around the outside, couldn’t get back in. Security fencing was separating car renters from everybody else. Never really figured out why. Thought about following the fence around to where the cars escaped, but decided to go back for two reasons. 1 to confer with the admiral, and 2, security fencing would be pointless if people could just walk round it. After getting back, I rummaged through the paperwork, and found a contact number for the rep, a freephone number, which meant it could only be dialed by a Portuguese phone. Tried different combinations of prefixes, but nothing worked. Rummaged further, and found a 24hour emergency contact number. Dialed that. The person I spoke to said she would contact the agent and call back. She did. Thomas Cook have a little booth inside the arrivals area. Obvious if you are looking for it inside the arrivals area, not obvious if you do not expect to find them inside the arrivals area, and the sign is not visible from outside arrivals. Sneaked back into arrival. “Where have you been, the bus has gone” After some discussion, space was found on a bus transporting German tourist, but that didn’t leave for 3 hours. Faro is a boring little airport. Arrived at hotel 4 hours late.

Sunny days

The first few days were marked by periods of torrential rain followed by brilliant sunshine. I lobsterised myself in 2 hours sitting by the pool. The crew is complaining about her skin becoming darker. In China, a suntan is the mark of a peasant. Logical really. China has only recently become an industrialised country. Before this, only the rich and powerful could afford to spend their days indoors. The proles had to work outside in the fields, or fishing boats, so pale skin is the mark of success or power, and thus attractiveness. In the UK, the proles worked in mines or factories, and didn’t get to see much sun. Only the rich and powerful could afford trips to the south of France, so here, a suntan is the mark of success or power and hence attractiveness. Most Chinese become brown at the merest hint of sun. Life is so perverse and unfair. On a brighter note, one more bucket list item ticked off, and no, it didn’t involve women wearing tight leather and stiletto heels. Took a trip to a marina in Lagos. Nice place, easy entry at any state of tide. Near train and bus stations, surrounded by restaurants. Considering it as a possible wintering place for next year. One weird thing in the docs. There may be occasions when due to a bad weather or maintenance requirements, they will need to move some boats, not unreasonable. If the skipper is aboard, they will ask him/her to move it. If he/she is not available, the Marina staff will move it, and charge the owner for doing so! Seems like an easy way to make money to me. “Projections indicate that we will miss our revenue target for this quarter. Let’s check the widgets on all the slips on pontoon E, that’s, the one with no liveaboards.” Got up early this morning dragged the crew out of bed, and drove to a lighthouse to watch the sunrise. The combination of the sunrise and the spectacular erosion of the mesozoic limestone cliffs was truly amazing. Pics will be posted as soon as I regain access to my laptop. Back to the hotel for breakfast, then a trip to cape St. Vincent. Memorised the place so I know where to turn left next year. Called in at Sagres on the way back. There was a Warrior 35 on the beach. It didn’t look intentional. The boat looked undamaged. Bower and kedge were deployed straight out into the water, the rope rode of the kedge was bar tight. The boat was locked up, and an inflatable dingy was high up the beach. The tide was falling, next high at 1am next morning. No point in speculating, could have dragged, parked too close and put out too much chain, miscalculated the range….I generally use the rule of twelfths. For most places it is a good enough approximation, and easy to calculate. This was written over several days, so ignore references to today/yesterday etc. This morning we are off to find a mall. First mate is suffering from withdrawal symptoms.

Seasons Greetings

Firstly, an apology. The last two posts didn’t arrive at tumblr (probably my fault), so you were all left hanging, wondering about the Potuguese mall trip. Same shops as in any mall in Beijing - just different prices, and an equally sullen and sulky skipper trudging behind the mate (who rarely actually buys anything) Did some stuff in Portugal, went back to UK, connected the chart plotter to the autohelm, so it can now accept a route with waypoints, took the RADAR display to a marine electronics man who said it needed a new tube (it has a CRT display). I left my details, and he said he would contact me with a progress report. Winterised Oleander (i.e. locked the cockpit locker, and switched off the electrics) Flew to Beijing with Finnair. - much shorter than going via UAE or Qatar, but, Manchester to Helsinki, food and drinks were all charged for. Helsinki to Beijing, food and drinks were included, but the food was the worst I have ever had on a long haul flight. When we go back, we will take lots of snacks! Rented a car for 3 days to get from Milford Haven to Manchester. Booked it online at Enterprise, ticked all the insurance boxes. Went to pick up the car, and was told that the insurance had an excess of £1000, tyres and glass were not insured at all. Luckily, they sell additional insurance at the counter (not available online) For only £50 or £60 (it was somewhere between the two) I could bring the excess (called deductible in U.S. and probably Canada too) down to £200, and have cover for tyres and glass) They have me over a barrel, I am there to drive away in their car. Do I risk a big bill, or submit to extortion? I caved. Later I checked their website. including all the small print. Yep, it is there. Found postings online from others who had been caught in the same trap. Enterprise can’t sell it on the website, because then they wouldn’t be at the cheaper end of the scale. Further research found several insurance companies who sell excess cover insurance, from £2 per day with better cover! There are even annual policies available from less than £100. Will be renting a car to go back, and taking out my own insurance beforehand! renting a car is cheaper than the cheapest 1 way second class rail fare, and quicker! My Chinese visa confused the check-in staff at the airport. It expired in 1 week, and had an allowed duration of stay in China of 000 days. It was not a normal tourist visa, but has to be exchanged for a residence permit in Beijing. For some reason the police have increased the time to issue a residence permit from 2 weeks to 3 weeks. Don’t quite understand the logic behind that. anyway, Excuses time…. I bought a bunch of Christmas cards, but missed the last posting day by a long way, so this will have to suffice. Happy Christmas, 圣诞快乐 (shung dan kwai ler) I don’t think the inlaws are aware that today is Christmas day. Pretty cold here - all the rivers and lakes are frozen - there is a mini ski slope in one of the big parks, working on the mate to go play there for a couple of hours. Not a big holiday here, just a normal work day/school day. I hope all you westerners have a great day, and that you have been nice all year, so that Santa has rewarded you. See you next year. Skipper and Mate

Milford Haven again.

Heard Nothing from Milford Haven boaty electrics shop. I suspect that either they couldn’t fix the display, or they couldn’t be bothered to fix the display, on arrival at Manchester, we rented a car again, but not from the airport. The same company is cheaper just 2 miles away. Spot an identical RADAR system on ebay, so, for very little money, I get a replacement display, and a spare scanner. Pick these up on the way back to Milford Haven. When we get back, I call in at the boaty electrics shop. “Fixed” says the guy. “We sent you an email” says the guy. I paid the bill and now have two complete systems.

To Dale

At last - usable internet!

2015-04-08 Finally left Milford Haven. Leaving was not easy. Went to the office yesterday to settle our account, and there were no females on duty. The guys couldn’t figure out what to do. I agreed to come back the next day when Julie would be in the office. That meant we would miss the 7am to 9amfreeflow exit (when all the lock gates are open) and would have to lock out at about noon. Next morning I filled the water tank then went to pay the bill - seemed simple enough. At about 11, we untied and motored to the fuel dock to top up the tank. Called Pierhead (the dock and lock controler) and said we wanted to leave at 12. He said OK, and he would call us when we were clear to enter the lock. We waited for the lock to fill (there were two motor boats in there coming in to the marina). The gate opened, the two motor boats came in and we waited for a call from Pierhead, and waited, then I noticed that the inner gate had started to close. I called Pierhead and asked if it was ok to enter. He said yes, and the gate stopped at about 45°. I wiggled around the half closed gate and tied up to the pontoon. I had assumed that they would use the new gates, but they stayed firmly open. I later discovered that there was a problem with the new gates. We slowly dropped about 3.5m to sea level. I estimated that we used more than 16,000,000 litres of marina water to escape from Milford Haven, we were the only boat in the lock! I initially thought that the guy had just forgotten about us, now I think he was trying to sneakily close the gate thus preventing us from leaving alone. There were at least 2 other boats scheduled to leave at the same time as us, but two called and cancelled because of a strong wind forecast. When the outer gate was open, I called Pierhead for permission to leave - no answer, after 3 attempt I gave up and headed to Dale. Arrived at Dale. Aquilla, looked OK. Passed the pontoon. A guy scrubbing the pontoon said that we couldn’t tie up there, he was spraying it with hydrochloric acid, and pointed us to a mooring. Spent a peaceful night on board.

To Tresco

2015-04-09 Motored out early next morning headed for the Scillies. We had changed headail to the lightweight genoa in Milford. We hoisted mizzen and main, rolled out all the genny, making 4 to 5 knots. Lovely sailing weather. An hour or so later, it was 3 to 4 knots, then 2 to 3. when it droped below 2, we dropped the main, and rolled in the genny, then fired up the iron topsail - just 4 hours of sailing. The Aires (wind robot) had been steering, but behaving a little strangely. We were sailing a sine wave course. Thinking about it later, I realised that the plywood vane was too heavy. Having been blown over one way, the counterbalance weight was not enough to bring the vane back to the upright position, it required wind assistance on the other side. So we would over correct, then over correct the other way etc. It was only a few degrees each way, a long wavelength low amplitude sinewave. The wind returned later, but on the nose. Oleander can’t sail close enough to the wind, to make worthwhile use of that on a relatively short passage, so we stuck to the engine with the mizzen as a riding sail. The sea picked up considerably over the next few hours. First mate retired for the night leaving the skipper skippering. Primary nav instrument was raspberry pi running OCPN, with AIS data overlaid. AIS also provided the GPS data. AIS and GPS failed a few times during the night, rebooted several times. Dawn came eventually, and the sea looked quite scary north of the Scillies, estimated 5m swell, with big round holes like craters. I guess that was caused by wind, swell and current heading in different directions. Reached the charted leading line into the passage between Tresco and Bryher. Couldn’t see a passage, just massive white waves breaking against evil rocks. Motored in anyway, and it did eventually become obvious, and the sea calmed down. First mate awoke. We found a mooring, and picked it up. then realised the mooring we had picked up was the only one with pick up buoy and a strop, all the others just had a ring on the top. Closer inspection revealed a metal plate with some message buried in the weed on the strop. I didn’t need to clean off the weed to realise it said private mooring. We dropped that one and went for the next. Missed it. Missed the next too. There was a strong current running. Came back and tried again. Got it with the boat hook, but couldn’t hold it. Couldn’t get near the ring with a rope from the foredeck. I was tired and becoming really frustrated. After several further attempts, I managed to get a line with a heavy shackle in the middle over and under the buoy, so it could be hauled up enough to get a line through the top ring. Killed the engine, dropped the mizzen and slept for a couple of hours. Note to self, buy one of those magic hooky things that can pass a line through an eye.

Tresco

2015-04-11 Pottered around on board for the rest of the day, and spent a very rolly night on the mooring. Next day launched the dinghy to go ashore. The swell in the sound was so bad that first mate couldn’t get into the dinghy, which was going up and down by almost a meter as Oleander pitched and rolled. Skipper went ashore alone and found the only shop in the village. My price benchmark - Nescafe. 200g £7.99. The 300g jars we had on board cost £5.00 from Tesco. So, 600g from Tesco, £10.00. 600g from Tresco £23.97. Bought other stuff as instructed, and headed back. The painter on the dinghy is secured to two metal rings on the underside. I imagine that this is to encourage it to plane when being towed, and it seems to work, the drag is much less than some other inflatables that I have towed. This line was on the dinghy when we bought Oleander, and has never been touched. My normal behaviour was to just throw the line over a stern cleat, but because of the pitching I added a single figure 8 round the cleat. Next morning, one end of the line was untied, the dinghy was held only by a single figure 8!!! That knot (bowline I think) had survived for at least 18 months. That includes being towed, and used to hoist the dinghy out of the water onto the foredeck! How could a knot like that suddenly fail? There was a strongish wind and current, and quite a lot of water in the bottom of the dinghy, but we decided to go ashore anyway. About a quarter of a mile to row, but I enjoy rowing. We climbed aboard and set off for the beach more water sloshing about in the dinghy than I thought. A lot more water - more than a few minutes ago. We are taking on water! The dinghy is getting slower and harder to row. Options, 1: head back to Oleander - the current is with us, but if we miss first time, I might not be able to row an even fuller dinghy fast enough for a second chance. 2: Continue to the beach, the only safe landing, but not halfway yet - the dinghy might become unmanageable before we get there. 3: Head for the rocks. Closest and calmest, but more chance of damaging the dinghy. Crew should be able to get ashore without problems though. I chose option 3. We reached the rocks. I got out, then first mate with no issues. Lifted and pulled the dinghy onto the smoothest rocks - tipped out most of the water - put the bailing bung back in - that was the source of the water ingress. First mate walked along the path to the beach - it was easier for me to launch and board the dinghy alone. I rowed there, took out the bung again to drain the last of the water, then we strolled to the shop (which was closed) and had a pleasant walk around Tresco. Did I take the bung out and forget to replace it, or did it just fall out? No way to know. Next morning - thoughts of departure vanished in 50m visibility. Mr harbour master arrived later and demanded £20 per night though the third night was free. I had been trying to figure out the problem with AIS and PI. Even using a laptop, there was limited NMEA data coming out of the USB string. A quick burst then nothing. AIS is still working, Transmitting our position, but we can’t see any other ships. Hopefully just a faulty cable. I thought I might be able to splice a serial cable to a USB cable, but it seems they are different voltages, and need some electronics to convert the signal. Next morning, vis was still bad, but not as bad We were planning to go to St. Mary’s Island, which is the largest island, and closer to Brest, plans to head directly across Biscay to Portugal having been abandoned.

To St Mary’s

2015-04-14 About lunchtime vis was ok. I was too chicken to take the 3 mile drying passage between Tresco and Bryher, and elected to take the 8 mile route round the outside of the islands. We unmoored and headed out, to motor round. We reached the open sea, and turned left. 5 minutes later, the engine spluttered and died. Scary place, we were only 300m from the evil rocks. At least this time I knew how to fix it. Into the engine room, disconnect the sight tube and blow. We were underway again. Uneventful short passage, 1hr 45 mins after leaving Tresco, we were in St Mary’s harbour. Sensible mooring buoys. A pick up buoy attached to the second link of about 1m of massive chain attached to the top of the buoy. Easy to get a line through the first link.

St Mary’s

2015-04-14 In theory, the yellow buoys were for boats up to 40ft long, but because it was early in the season, the mooring chains were buried in the mud. This meant that unless there was a boat tied to the buoy to pull the chain out of the mud, the buoys were effectively on a very short scope. The first night, the buoy directly behind ours was hitting us amidships with a hefty thump. Not conducive to a good night’s sleep.The following day we changed to the buoy behind, but the wind changed too, so the situation didn’t improve. The next day we switched to a green buoy (up to 60ft boat length) problem solved. We didn’t do that initially, because the green buoys were more expensive, however, discussion with the harbour master got us a green buoy at yellow buoy price - £18.50 per night (buy 3 get 1 free) A pretty Island, with well preserved defences against the French, and later the Germans. We had some good strolls, Weather was iffy though. Strong wind, dense fog, Every inshore waters forecast seemed to say “sea state slight or moderate but rough around the Scillies”

To Brest

2015-04-20 We were waiting for a weather window for the jump to Brest, after 6 days, the forecast was good, we left mid afternoon, went round the island and hit the worst wind over tide I had ever encountered. Oleander landed really hard off a few of the waves. I continued east rather then turning south towards Brest reasoning that a couple of miles further would get us clear of the islands and out of the tidal race in St Mary’s sound. I throttled the engine back a little, checked the revs - unchanged?? increased the revs - no change. It seemed that the engine control panel was dead. Would I be able to restart the engine if I turned it off? I was not going to experiment there! The waves were easing so I looked for a relatively smooth patch and turned 180° back to St Mary’s. Having picked up another green buoy, I stopped the engine. Tacho stayed at 1200 rpm, but everything else behaved normally. Just a sticky tacho needle - I could live with that. Water quantity was reading empty though. The pounding had broken something there. I was expecting about a quarter tank.

To Brest again

2015-04-22 2 days later, the forecast was East 4/5 in Plymouth, and North east 4 the next day around Brest. We had been discussing going to Falmouth, but that forecast seemed to good to miss - we left early that morning, this time we would arrive at St Mary’s sound just before slack. No wind over tide this time, we cleared the island and pointed Oleander at Brest. Half a genoa and the mizzen were giving us a comfortable 5.5 knots, without too much leanining over. Aries was steering impeccably in about 20 knots. Next weather forecast was 5 to 7 the wind steadily increased, and kept increasing a quarter of the genoa was now enough. The dinghy was lashed to the foredeck. That meant that the storm jib couldn’t be used, and it was now too rough to be playing on the foredeck out of choice. A lot of water on deck now, really quite unpleasant. Night now, steady 45 knots at one point. We were still heading in the right direction at a decent speed though. We would have to cross Ushant TSS in the dark. Still no AIS, impossible to use a handbearing compass. and difficult to make any significant change in direction. I decided to heave to, and time our arrival at the TSS for dawn. I lay down to relax, and set an alarm for the 00:48 shipping forecast. Didn’t need the alarm, couldn’t sleep. Missed the forecast, because things were happening. Lay down again for an hour, and slept for 3. Woke at 4:30, we had been pushed back by wind and current 16 miles in 5 hours. That was frustrating, it took more than 3 hours to get back to where we were, and added 8 hours to the journey. Wind robot was having problems. The wheel adapter that I bought uses friction rather than positive locking, and it was being overloaded. Instead of turning the wheel, it would emit a squeak and slip then obviously the lines and the wheel were in the wrong relative positions. The next few hours were constant tweaking/hand steering. When daylight arrived, I could see a significant tear and hole in the genoa near the clew, but it seemed stable. We reached the TSS. I had already decided to motor across, so started the engine, and rolled in as much of the genny as possible, It was wound so tightly that we had run out of line, about 1m of sail, including the tear was still out. With the engine on, there was no issue with power or battery life, so radar was on also. Vis was about 5 miles, and only saw 2 ships. ETA Brest was now about 2am, and I was exhausted. First mate had stayed in the passageway berth. It was the safest place with permanent lee boards and the least movement, we were still being thrown about a lot. We decided to head to Ushant for the night, and then to Brest the next day. Electric robot (autohelm) was also misbehaving - switching randomly to standby. sometimes it would last for 30 minutes, other times just 2 seconds, and everything in between. Two hours out from Ushant, the mizzen sail finally quit - ripped horizontally from luff to leach. I pulled it down, and life became even more rolly, but the seas were calming as we approached shelter. 1 hour out and the engine spluttered and died. Down to the engine room, blow through the sight tube, this time got much less diesel in my mouth. Made it into Limpaul bay just after sunset, picked up a mooring - eventually. Like Tresco, just a ring on the top of the buoy. Lost the boathook though. on one attempt, I hooked the ring, but with a strong current - again!, the pole was pulled out of the rubber handle that I was holding Note to self, buy one of those magic hooky things that can pass a line through an eye. Buy new boathook.

Slept.

We don’t like sailing.

Ushant

2015-04-23

Next morning was calm. Tidied up a lot of fallen down stuff, took the furling line off the forestay roller, finished winding in the genny by hand then re-attached the line. Put the cover on the mizzen. We decided to risk the last of our water, and both took hot showers. Deferred departure until tomorrow. Checked around the boat - all seemed fine, except there was some strange orange staining on the side of the sprayhood. While in Miford Haven, we had taken delivery of 2 100W flexible solar panels, without any real idea of where to mount them. I had lashed one of them to the spayhood, and wired it in temporaily with a domestic connecting block, just to test the wiring and positioning. it seemed to be working ok, so it had remained there until we decided where the second would go. The connect block was on the weather side for the trip, so had been subject to regular salt water drenching, and because the solar panel was connected to the batteries, the batteries were connected to the solar panels. The block had been trying to electroplate itself! Note to self, add some schotky diodes to the charging circuits.

To Brest part trois

2015-04-25

The next day, we left for Brest under power. Nothing exciting happened. Wind was about 10 knots,electric robot behaved faultlessly. Called the marina using the handheld VHF on high power from about 5 miles out. No answer. Tried again a few minutes later - nothing. Hung fenders both sides, got mooring ropes ready, motored in, tied up, called Marina - they answered.

Brest

2015-04-25

Went to the office, did all the paperwork, went to the immigration building. It was just closing, the departing staff checked, but there was no immigration officer in the building. This was Friday evening, and the office is closed at weekend. The first mate is not an EU citizen, so requires immigration and passport stamping. For that reason, we did not get off the boat in Ushant, we flew a French courtesy flag there, but not a Q as that could have complicated things. The departing staff gave me 2 numbers to call. I tried them after leaving the building - one was answered by a machine, the other was not answered. Went back to the Marina office, to see if they had any contact numbers - they closed at 6pm. We had put up the Q flag when out of sight of Ushant it stayed up. Next morning I went back to the marina office. They confirmed that immigration would have to wait until Monday, but thought it would be OK for first mate to wander around, so we wandered around Brest a bit. On Sunday we were visited by 3 armed customs officers. they came aboard, checked passports and ship’s papers, but were not authorised to stamp passports. Took the genoa off, put the number 1 back on. The damage is not too bad, we should be able to fix that in house. Thinking about the electric robot, sounds like water ingress. No water in the cockpit on Friday - faultless performance. Tracked down the failed connection to the watertank sensor - that will be an easy fix now it is found.

Brest officially

2015-04-25

On Monday, I took docs and passports to immigration, and got a stamp. Nous avons officiellement arrivé!!

smoked my last small cigar. Funny place Brest - not the kind of place I’d expected to find an Irish pub, and certainly not the kind of place I would expect to find two Irish pubs within 100m of each other. Grrrr, while tied up to the visitors pontoon, I rigged up the storm jib, which hanks on to the baby stay. When I tried it in Preston, I realised the the wire strop for attaching the tack was way too short. At that time, I was concerned that because it was low, it could be taken out by waves in storm conditions. I had extended the strop, but didn’t think about a dinghy. I discovered that I had extended it enough to clear the dinghy anyway. Genoa now fixed. First mate will soon be able to make us some new sails. Took the mizzen sail to the sailmaker to get a proper fix, that was too big a job for us. Spent a pleasant afternoon fishing in the fuel tank with bits of bent wire, and a thing like a bendy dalek’s arm. Push a button on one end, and a 3 prong claw opens on the other. The catch of the day was a small section of plastic bag. Hopefully no more fuel starvation problems. Oleander has shrunk. We are parked just 1 boat away from Bristolian, a 36m cutter with a 5 spreader rig - the biggest single mast I have ever seen.

2 boats away now, Anya, a 40m Sunseeker parked between us.

Leopard 3 arrived, came into the marina backwards in the dark - a 26m sloop, but a racer, Bristolian is a cruiser.

Brest to Audierne

After several delays, we were finally ready to leave, exactly one month after we arrived. Typical! thick fog, can’t even see the way out of the marina. No wind. We have to leave now to get through the Raz de Sein before the tide turns against us. Visibility improved as we left the land behind, and headed south, clearing totally after as we approached the Raz. Hah, it was a pussy cat. Read lots of scary stuff about the Raz de Sein, but going with the current, and in virtually windless conditions, the only indication of anything unusual was 10.2 SOG on GPS. Brilliant sunshine too. Turned left and headed to Audierne, where we picked up a mooring. Another British boat came in a couple of hours after us. He had been 2 cables behind us (his words, I had to look up cable) as we left Brest. He saw us on AIS, when he left Carmaret, but he just had a receiver, so we didn’t see him.

We stayed 2 nights at Audierne - nobody came to collect money. Had a couple of trips ashore to stroll. Entertainment was provided by the hydrofoil windsurfers. They can go pretty quick.

Audierne to Glenans

Another lovely day, A shortish trip, so no rush to leave, and no need stick to a schedule. Running downwind with a poled out jib, making a comfortable 4 knots.

Arrived at Glenans. I had previously looked at the chart and chosen my preferred parking spot for the anticipated condition, south of St. Nicolas Island, but, where we were didn’t match the Navionics chart! How could I have got it so wrong? There were some mooring buoys, so we picked one up, and I investigated. We were in the right place, but the passage between 2 islands that I was going to take was a beach - even at high water. Maybe the result of a severe winter storm? I looked at CM93, that showed a drying bank. I looked on Maxsea - drying bank and high enough to remain dry even at HW springs.The Navionics App has two options for charts, Navionics and Sonar. The sonar chart shows contour lines for depths. I prefer that presentation, is is more visual without needing to read spot heights. I had assumed that the charts were the same, and a computer program had interpolated between the measured depths, then joined up the dots with curvy lines. I switched the view from Sonar to Navionics, and a drying bank appeared 4 (see pics)

SONAR CHART

NAVIONICS CHART

Navionics is a nice app, and I know it says “Don’t use this for navigation”, but…

So far, I have discovered: 2 buoys not in the indicated positions, TSS lanes only show when zoomed in really close, sectored light colours swapped, using Sonar charts, I found one area where the depths should have been decreasing, and they were actually increasing, and now this.

Would the Jeppersen app have been a better choice?

Long term, I want to use OpenCPN on a Raspberry Pi as my Primary Navigation and Passage Planning app. I have been playing with it, The biggest problem I have found so far is sensitivity to Power supply voltage. Starting the engine causes a reboot. I suspect that the fridge kicking in also causes a reboot sometimes.

I have connected the autohelm to the chartplotter, but, the chart plotter has no charts for this area, and I am not going to pay over £200 for charts when I can get exactly the same charts from the same company, on Android for £20. The Seatalk interface beween the two allows the autohelm to send rudder and compass data to the chartplotter, and the chartplotter can send course/waypoint/XTE error etc. to the autohelm. Limited use without charts you may think, but, the lack of charts does not affect the routing. I have connected the chart plotter to the Pi, using NMEA. The Pi gets GPS and Compass data, and sends route and waypoint data to the chartplotter, which the chartplotter ignores. Peeved. I can send the NMEA data to the Autohelm directly, but didn’t think I would have to do that. The Autohelm doesn’t have NMEA output, so if I want the Pi to have Fluxgate and Rudder Position data, that will have to come via the chartplotter. The Autohelm manual says that it will output NMEA data on Seatalk, so maybe I can get the waypoints and routes into the chartplotter that way

Glenans has been likened to the Caribbean, and is very popular with local sailors and motorboatists. Really pretty, but there is nothing here. No facilities.

Glenans to Belle Ile

We stayed 2 nights, left early in the morning, but not early enough. First mate said the guy who collects the money is chasing us. I thought she was joking. She wasn’t. He didn’t look happy when he caught us, but only 13 euros per night.

Wind was light, and on the nose, so it was an engine day. Uneventful, except that as we approached Belle Ile, AIS alerted us to a potential collision, Sail boat approaching at 17/18 knots. Under engine, I was the give way vessel, but how to avoid something travelling that fast? I decided that the best plan was just to maintain course and speed. If this really was a boat sailing at 17 knots, it must be used to avoiding slower stuff.

That was quick.

I have learned not to trust static data on AIS, e.g. Name: F/V xxxx Type: Sailing vessel Status: moored SOG 8 knots Destination: fishing grounds

Speed and course come from GPS, somebody has to remember to key in the other stuff.

Arrived at Sauzon, and picked up a mooring. A rib came out to collect the fee, and give us the code for the showers, but as we planned to leave early next morning and be in a marina tomorrow, we didn’t go ashore.

Maybe we should have stayed longer, the pic is the view as we left.

Belle Ile to Ile de Noirmoutier

Our destination for today was Pornichet Marina. Not much wind initially, but it did pick up from astern during the day. Eventually enough to hoist the sails and kill the engine. Still dead astern, so the skipper decided to bear off 45° and gybe our way to Pornichet. Less rolly, and no significant impact on ETA.

Wind increased significantly during the day, dropped the sails well outside the bay, and motored the last few miles. Watched as a Hobie style cat fell over. Slowed in case the people needed assistance. They got it upright, but had left the sheets cleated, so it immediately fell over the other way. Second time they got it right.

While in Brest, I was talking to some Irish guys who were taking a boat back to Ireland. They said that they had called Marina du Chateau, and were told there were no berths available. They came in anyway, and easily found a place to park.

I thought that made sense, so I decided to adopt the same tactic. I found a place to park on a hammerhead in the marina which looked pretty full, then called the office. They said I couldn’t stay there as there were 2 boats coming in, and allocated me a space elsewhere. As we untied, the two boats booked on the hammerhead arrived. Quite windy now, found the very tight allocated space, but I could not get in there in these conditions. It would be difficult even in flat calm conditions.

Oleander has one significant problem, going backwards. Engage reverse, and nothing useful happens. The stern kicks sideways but it takes quite some time to stop or go backwards, even with full revs Our technique for tying up is a slow approach, then hook a pontoon cleat with a short line attached to our midships cleat. That stops the boat, and leaving the engine ticking over with about 10° of rudder on the opposite side to the pontoon keeps us straight. Funny thing about French marinas, there are often no cleats on the fingers, just a heavy metal loop at the end, which a line has to be passed through. Our allocated space was downwind, and tight. Seems that modern marinas assume everyone has a bowthruster. Now the problem is to turn round in a tight marina without hitting anything. I had to rest the port bow against a pontoon to get the stern round.

Stressed, don’t like this place, run away. There was another marina just outside, but when we approached, we realised it only had small boats, mostly motor boats. That will not fit our 1.8m draft.

It is evening. Need a plan B.

Wind and sea picking up now, check the charts and active captain for somewhere to anchor with shelter from the westerly 5/6 that we have now got, Ile de Noirmoutier is about 16 miles, and is in the right direction, so we head there. Dropped anchor about 9pm after a bumpy ride, wind is easing a little now, but surprisingly rolly all night

Ile de Noirmoutier to Ile de Yeu

No wind today, Engine time. Pulled up the anchor, motored round the North of the island, and pointed Oleander at Port Joinville. A pleasant and uneventful trip, Entered the marina and tied up on a long pontoon, then went to the office and announced our arrival. A very relaxed place. “You can stay where you are or move to a finger berth” I said we will stay on the long pontoon. I didn’t know how long we would stay, so they said “Pay when you leave” Actually this is quite a big marina. No security gates on any of the pontoons.

We planned to stay for a week, but that became 12 days, due to a few days of strong wind.

This is predominately a holiday island, about 6000 houses, of which only about 2500 are permanently occupied.

There are several chandleries, and quite well stocked. One moderately sized supermarket, and countless bars and restaurants. (no McDonalds though :-()

We got the bikes out and rode around a few times. There are lots of bicycle hire shops, I expect that the place is chaotic in high season.

Ile de Yeu to Ile de Re

Departure day. It seems that a lot of boats were waiting for the wind to ease. The boat rafted up to us moved over to a vacated finger, however there were boats rafted immediately in front and behind, which made getting out tricky. I also wanted to get fuel on the way out, but there was a queue for the pump. The rafted boat in front left, the rafted boat behind wanted our spot, so he was going nowhere. Nearly left several times, but each time some jumped on the fuel berth. Eventually decided to leave without refuelling even though it was almost certainly an engine day.

Initially, I had planned to anchor on the north side of the island, but given the benign conditions forecast for the next few days, I switched to a bay on the exposed south side, that would save time tomorrow, and save fuel. Uneventful trip. Another rolly night, but more understandable here in an exposed anchorage.

Ile de Re to Port Medoc

Misty with rain at first, engine on, anchor up. Almost a straight run to the Gironde. Wind too light to sail, getting a little concerned about fuel. Engine revs a little lower than usual, tried unrolling the jib. The difference is noticeable. Mizzen and jib are adding more than 1 knot to our speed. Making pretty good time, until we reach the river mouth. There is a lot of water coming out of the river. Jib furled now. I reason that the bulk of the water will come down the deep water channel, and decide to head across the shallows to avoid the strongest current, and reduce the distance to go.

Oops, it seems that a lot of the water also likes this shortcut, and as the water becomes shallower, it becomes faster. 4 knots against us. How much fuel have we got? I would rather it didn’t get too low and stir up the sediment which must be in the tank, but can’t check. I go forward and get the anchor ready to deploy in a hurry if the engine cuts out. Push the engine up to 1800, then 2000, then 2200. Even at that we are moving painfully slowly.

Eventually arrive in the marina. Trying to spot the visitors area. Give up and tie up on the first hammerhead, then call the marina. The office is either closed or closing. “come to the office tomorrow at 9am”. Checked the fuel 22 litres left – That is the lowest it has been

Next day I go to the office expecting to be asked to move, but no - “you can stay there if you want” but they did want me to pay for a week in advance, I said that was how long we intended to stay. A curious place. All the pontoons have coded security gates, all the gates are shut, but not locked. The closest toilets do not have seats or lids??? There are no laundry facilities on site or within walking distance.

A couple of days later, a large British motor boat is just floating in the marina about 50m away, shortly afterwards a rib full of marina staff arrive, and inform me that the hovering boat is waiting to come on the hammerhead, implying that I shouldn’t be there, so I had to move just inside. I didn’t mind moving, but some advance notice would have been appreciated.

Have to go back to the UK for a few weeks. The marina is happy for us to stay, but insist that if we stay for a month, we have to move again – same pontoon, but about half way in.

Port Medoc to Manchestoh, return

Looking for the easiest way to get to Manchester. Thought about renting a car, but Enterprise in France have a fixed mileage allowance, which I thought we would probably exceed, plus there would be a high-season ferry ticket to buy. The simplest way to get back was Easyjet, Bordeaux to Luton.

I really don’t like Luton, I really really don’t like Luton Airport, and I really really really don’t like Easyjet, but it would be a short flight. The train to Bordeaux runs 5 times per day, and takes 2hrs 10mins. There was a train from Le Verdon to Bordeaux leaving at 9:40, and a shuttle bus from Bordeaux railway station to the airport leaving every hour. That gives us 10 minutes to find to bus, which we did, and about 40 minutes later we arrived at the airport. I had paid extra for a suitcase, because all my stuff wouldn’t fit into a carry-on bag. Queued to check in the bag and was told by the Easyjet staff “too early. Can only drop a bag at most 2 hours before the flight” I had allowed 1 hour contingency in case we couldn’t find the bus, so had to drag the bag around for an hour. Got to the departure area eventually, and shortly after our flight was called. I had seen our gate number so we headed of that way, and found that we (and others) were not allowed through, but had to enter elsewhere. Found the elsewhere, the back of a long queue, that wasn’t moving. After a while, everybody in the queue figured out that there were 3 flights boarding through the same gate and tempers frayed. Luton, Bristol, and Cork, all departing within 20 minutes of each other, and all scheduled to depart with the next 40 minutes. Luton was the first to leave, so we were queue jumped through, and still almost the last on the plane.

Experienced usual immigration delays.

Left the airport, found a bus to the car hire place. I had booked manual, but got auto. No biggie.

I had allowed 2 weeks to do all the necessary stuff, plus 1 week contingency plus 1 week for R&R.

Ordered some stuff from ebay, 1st mate got eye test and new specs. Went to Blackpool, and ascended the tower for the first time. A long way short of Taipei 101 which I went up once.

Eventually it was time to head back. I needed to return the car at 10am, but it has been a long time since I have monday-morning-motorwayed at rush hour. No idea how long to allow, so left the day before and stayed in Milton Keynes for the night. Left MK at 9am, reached car hire place at 9:30, dropped the car and bussed to the airport. Dropped my bag 3 hours before the flight here, then we went straight to departures, we had boarding passes on phones.

It often takes me several attempts to get through xray checks, because I have many electrical devices and charging cables, but sailed through here. Boarded plane flew to Bordeaux. Usual immigration delays.

There had been a risk that if we were delayed en route, we could miss the last train to Le Verdon, so booked a night in a hotel near the station.

Checked email – got one from Port Medoc Marina - “You have paid up to 19th, it is now 20th, what are your plans?” I had been into the office before we left, told them we had to go back to UK, but were not sure exactly when we would return. I paid for 1 month and said we would sort out the difference when we returned. Nobody in the office said that was not acceptable.

Had breakfast in the hotel, shopped a little then checked out and walked to the station. Bought tickets from a machine, drank coffee and waited for the train.

Found a train, got on, and 2 hours 10 minutes later, arrived at Le Verdon 20 minute stroll to the Marina, and Oleander was waiting for us, with a big sticker on the coaming saying “Report to the Capitainiere!”

grrrr!

Port Medoc Part 2

Port Medoc is different. It is the quietest marina I have ever been in. It is quite full, but nothing really moves. There are a few on site restaurants and a chandlery, but nothing much else around. As mentioned before, the toilettes don’t have seats or lids. This is not some avant garde design, just standard toilets, with holes to fasten the aforementioned accessories. Another odd thing was that I had to leave security for the bathroom key card. Not unusual you may think, but they wanted the boat papers as security! However, if you like peace and tranquillity, then this is the place. There is nothing here but the marina. It is surrounded by forest – relatively new, and planted to protect the peninsular (which seems to be just a big sandbank) from erosion. There is a cycle path through the forest, which we used to visit Soulac sur mer. At the time that was the closest laundrette. There are lots of footpaths too. One evening after dinner, we went for a stroll through the forest, and followed a sign to the beach. We arrived at the beach, which was lovely, and totally deserted, but it was after 9pm, and there is nothing else there but beach. Another sign said Textile to the right, Naturiste to the left.

We had to hurry away or face walking through the forest in darkness.

Next day was hot, virtually windless, and sunny. “let’s go to the beach”. We made sandwiches, got bottles of water, couldn’t find the beach towels and left at 1pm. A lovely stroll through the cool forest, and we eventually reached the board walk through the dunes. Arrived at the beach and obviously turned

(pic stolen from google)

We decided to stay in Port Medoc another couple of days to wait for the pain to subside.

Note to self: add calamine lotion to the medical kit.

P.S. First mate burned back and shoulders, skipper legs.

Port Medoc to Cap Ferret

We were planning to leave about 1pm, but local knowledge suggested that 4:30 would be better. Most of the little jobs were done, Only cleaning the log impellers was omitted, but they couldn’t have fouled much in 6 weeks.

Motored over to the fuel berth, and filled the tank, then cast off and away, both logs reading 0.

We are still in the Estuary, but the sea is surprisingly rough, shortish steepish waves. Never mind, it will calm down when we get out to sea proper. Famous last words. Wind right on the nose, making very slow progress. Admittedly, engine revs are lower than usual, I had been planning a slow and peaceful overnight trip. Thought about increasing the revs, but that would have made the ride even rougher. First mate already retired with MdM. Dark now. SOG dropping to 1.2 after ploughing through a few big waves.

I decide to heave to and get my head down for a couple of hours.

2 hours later, wind has noticeably freshened, and swung through 90 degrees. This is an anticyclone, there is not supposed to be this much wind! At least it is now usable. Tramping along nicely between 5 and 6 knots under jib and mizzen in NW 5-6

No way am I going astern in the dark in a bumpy sea to set up the aries, so autohelm on. Autohelm drive motor freewheeling! I guess the drive belt has snapped, though it could also be an issue with the gear/sprocket. Hand steering it is then. Sea is confused. NW waves on top of the existing SW swell. Oleander will not hold a straight course for more than a few seconds.

It seemed a long time till dawn.

Dawn finally arrives, heave to. Too much jib, the bows won’t hold up to wind. Gybe round, roll in some jib and try again. Success. I go aft to drop the Aires paddle in the water, and attach the plywood vane, which has been shortened.

Gybe round again, and finally, I can leave the wheel, though not for too long. My modification to fix the slipping wheel drum friction thingy is only partially successful.

After a few hours of occasional resetting the lines, I figure out a way to connect the wind vane lines directly to the wheel spokes. No more slipped discs, (no easy adjustment either though)

The wind has now swung round and is blowing directly to Cap Ferret. I really don’t want to go forward and pole out the jib because a) the spinnaker pole is really too long, and it would not be easy to rig in anything over a 3, b) the whisker pole is securely lashed down under the inflated inflatable dink, c) going directly downwind would be too rolly and first mate is still confined to bunk. d) VMG would not be significantly improved.

We plough on, with the wind coming over the starboard quarter, heading further out to sea, until we can gybe for Cap Ferret.

The Gybe is a little later than planned to allow for further expected windshift. When we are a couple of miles from the shore, the wind shifts earlier than expected and we need to gybe out again.

The wind is now almost directly onshore. I decide to furl the jib when we are still 1 mile out, having prior experience of entering the Ribble in a strong onshore breeze. In theory, I can just go straight in, but as we approach, I see the channel markers about 1 mile to the south. I choose discretion and turn south.

We follow the marked channel slowly against the ebb current, and eventually reach the charted area for anchorage. It is now full of moorings. First mate has now joined me on deck, so we try to pick up a mooring, and fail many times, - the ebb is running at about 3 knots. Having grabbed the pick up buoy, it is impossible to hold on to. We look elsewhere, and finding nothing better we return to the mooring – eventually we hook it onto a midships cleat, then look a line through and lead that to the bows, then cast off the midships cleat. We are now secure, but quite a way from the buoy. I set an alarm for slack water, and sleep for a couple of hours.

Alarm sounds, I go forward to pull in all the slack line. Where are we? We are still attached to the mooring, but not in the mooring field It seems we have dragged the mooring, but I can’t see where we were.

A passing boat informs me that “you are not in the parking” He call the semaphore to inform them, I had no idea what Semaphore is. The mooring seems stable, so I set an anchor alarm and sleep. The alarm sounds when the tide turns, but we don’t move, so I reset the alarm and doze until dawn.

At 9am, a workboat with a crane arrives to take the mooring home, so we let go. Slightly concerned that I would be asked to pay the cost of the boat and crew, we decide to go elsewhere, and head off to the Marina at Arcachon. There is a waiting pontoon, but it is full, I can see an empty hammerhead ahead so I aim for that. There is a yell from behind. A guy wants to talk to me on CH 9. He calls me back to the waiting pontoon, and starts moving boats to make space. As we tie up, I realise that the engine alarm is sounding – high temperature, and lowish oil pressure. I switch off, then head up to the office. I am there a while, because I explain the problem with the autopilot, and he starts phoning round.

Nothing local, it will have to be shipped – about 7 days. We are allocated a berth, quite close, and just inside a hammerhead, so I guess that the engine will manage that. We set off, past the hammerhead turn in and stop. We have touched bottom. Reverse off, and try again. And stop again. This time I apply more power, we are moving slowly, turn into the berth, need even more power. Make it in enough, so kill the engine, the alarm is sounding again. No rush for mooring lines, we are not going anywhere soon. Set a couple of lines to stop us floating away, and a short time later. There was enough water to pull Oleander against the pontoon.

Sleep time

Port Arcachon

This is a big marina, 2600 berths, and it is full. It is also very expensive for visitors, €52 per night for Oleander. Strangely, it is cheap in winter,€15 per night, and not expensive for an annual contract, €2600. It is 15 minutes walk to the other side of the marina opposite Oleander. A further 20 minutes to the downtown area. Visited the chandlery to confirm that I wanted the drive belt ordered, they said 7 to 10 days, but fortunately, it arrived in 3.

Last Sunday was hot, 33°, cloudless, but with a 4ish breeze. It was like rush hour, a steady stream of boats leaving, and boats waiting for a gap to pull out into the main traffic flow.

I think that almost everyone in France must keep a boat in this area. There are other marinas, and thousands of moorings.

At high tide it is a massive lake, but full of drying banks. There are beaches all around, and as we came in I saw the biggest sand dune I have ever come across. People were soaring paragliders on it!

(pic stolen from google)

That is a dune. Time to look at the engine. The fresh water tank was ok, so the likely cause of the overheating was probably either a blocked sea water inlet or a broken pump impeller. Sea water was the easiest to check, so I closed the seacock and disconnected the hose from the filter. Opened the seacock and… nothing. No water coming in. I attached the dinghy footpump and stomped – nothing, stomped again – bubbles, and again – more bubbles – closed the seacock, disconnected the footpump opened the seacock and lots of water.Reconnected the hose. There was still a possibility that running dry had killed the impeller, so I started the engine, and after a scary few seconds wait, water was being blown out of the exhaust.I assume we must have sucked up a plastic bag or something similar, but all seems fine now.We used about 25 litres of fuel getting here, most of which was probably used chasing moorings.There is a good anchorage just outside the marina, but I wouldn’t like to leave Oleander there unattended. Anchors don’t always reset when the tide turns, guess how I know. Had a day out in Bordeaux, a very pretty city, with no high rise building. Most of the downtown area buildings seem quite old. I assume that neither side bombed it during the war (don’t mention the war. I did once, but I think I got away with it). Arcachon is a holiday town, lots of shops selling flip flops, inflatables – no, for swimming *sigh* and “embrasse moi vite” hats (metaphorically of course)

Drive belt arrived, so I guess I should put it on. Last time I took it apart to fix a slipping clutch, it exploded ball bearings everywhere. I must have done something wrong. It says in the manual that the belt is supposed to be user replaceable, from which I infer no explosion of bearings should occur. I read and re-read the manual, the instructions that came with the belt, and anything on the internet related to autohelm disassembly. Insert 4 flat non-metalic levers and pry the thing apart. I remove the steering wheel and lay it flat. It takes some manly prying, but finally comes apart with an explosion of ball bearings. Replacing the belt is fiddly, but is eventually achieved. Detailed inspection reveals the missing step in the instructions – REMOVE THE ASSEMBLY FROM THE WHEEL! The bolts for the spoke clamps screw into a section which is supposed to come off when pryed. My manly prying had separated the assembly at the next weakest part, the bearing assembly. At least I had the opportunity to replace the lost ball bearing from the last disassembly, which was found 2 days after reassembly, and amazingly, not lost in over a year! Removing the spoke clamps made reassembly much easier, though replacing the ball bearings was a pain in the ***. Time to leave. Capbreton is our next destination, about 60 miles to the south.

Arcachon to Capbreton

High tide was 4am, we wanted to go with the flow for an easy ride. We left the marina in the afternoon, and anchored outside for the night, then away at 5:30 am. A black moonless night still. The channel marker buoys for the marina were flashing brightly, but none of the others on the way out were lit! We missed a big heavy starboard channel marker by just a few meters, it was invisible until we were right on top of it. It was light by the time we reached the entrance channel from the sea, so I don’t know if the channel markers there had working lights.

Once out to sea, the navigation is easy – turn left and follow the beach.

Looks like we timed this perfectly to miss all the wind. Engine all the way. When we were in Port Joinville, one of the racers who rafted up to us was based in and sponsored by Port de Capbreton Marina. He gave us a brochure for the place (in French only) and sang it’s praises. I was idly glancing through this publication when we were about 2 hours out, looking for information on where visitors should go. I was sure I had seen something somewhere.

I didn’t find it, but I did find:

Acces de -2h a +2h par rapport a la PM, pour grand tirant d'eau.

Is that a serious oops? My French is not good. -2h to +2h must relate to high water grand tirant is probably deep draught, but what is classed as deep? Is 1.8m deep? It will be more than 3 hours after HW when we arrive. Only one sure way to find out – try it.

I find the visitors location on the Navionics chart, when fully zoomed in, first pontoon on the right.

We reach the entrance, and motor in slowly, keeping as close to the centre of the channel as traffic will allow. Too slowly, we are motoring against a strong ebb, so more revs. A short straight channel, then turn right into the marina. First Pontoon has a big sign – Visiteurs. We just drive straight into a vacant spot and park. 6:30pm engine off. Exactly on schedule.

Visit the Capitainerie, and sign in, “How long will you stay?” -”Don’t know yet” -”OK, pay when you leave”

I don’t know why more marinas can’t be like that. OK, you may lose the odd customer doing a moonlight flit, but most customers will appreciate the trust, and are more likely to return.

Capbreton

Capbreton marina is physically large, close to 1000 berths, but is arranged in separate basins or areas, as it is constructed in widened river channels, There is a taxi boat service to get 50m across to the other side, the alternative is a 30 minute walk. The downside of the easy access visitors pontoon is that is is close to the entrance and swell can come in, making life bouncy, it is next to the fishing fleet, which could be a little noisy, and the taxi boat is running backwards and forwards all day, it’s route cutting between the visitors pontoon and the fishing fleet.

Swell coming in.

But the ocean doesn’t look so bad

View from the marina entrance

No laundry facilities in the Marina, and unisex showers/toilets, at least I think they were unisex, but oddly, I never saw another guy in there.

The only real criticism is power - 5 amps max. Kettle OK, Kettle and toaster – pop. Kettle and microwave – pop. The supply pylons, are locked, so not customer resetable. I killed 3 of them. A couple of others were dead. I reported it once, but nothing happened.

On the plus side, each of the fishing boats has it’s own stall on the dockside, selling really fresh fish.

First mate took a tumble from her bicycle while we were out exploring one day, fortunately resulting in nothing worse than bruised hands and a badly grazed knee.

Heard a few native English speakers near the camping/caravan/motorhome sites, but nowhere else.

This is also a holiday town. Many restaurants and bars, spectacular fireworks display one night, but no idea why.

Lots of surfers here. It is a good place to learn, because the beach slopes steeply underwater, creating surfable waves close to the shore. It also creates a marina with an untenable entrance in any westerly more than a 4.

Time to leave, so went to the marina office to pay, left with a goodybag full of useful information, and a free bottle of silver medal Bordeaux rosé! Just like the trade shows I used to go to, but I never got free wine from any of the stands there.

I like this marina.

Actually, something that should have gone in the Brest blog, and I have just remembered, Don’t bring €500 notes to France! They are legal tender but difficult to get rid of. In January, the Euro was low, and the RMB was high, so went to the bank to get some euros. I was obviously not the only person with this idea. The bank had been cleaned out of smaller denominations, and only had 500s left. No problem I thought, I’ll just change them at a bank. Wrong! I tried several banks, because I didn’t believe them at first. Apparently, €500 notes can only be paid into an account at the bank. I tried several Bureaux de Change, with no success. I was told in one that it was illegal for them to change Euros into Euros, but I thought that was probably a lie.

Only businesses where the transactions were in that value region were willing to accept them, but as they are popular with drug dealers, I got a lot of suspicious looks.

Luckily, I didn’t have many.

France to Spain

Left Capbreton at 9ish, for the 20 mile trip to Hondarribia. I had head from several sources that the Spanish authorities can be “Senor Jobsworths” It is irritating but understandable. If you travel from France to Spain by car, there are no border controls at all. No checks, no paperwork, but if you travel by boat, then customs, immigration, get involved. It is understandable because a boat could have come from anywhere, and be carrying anything. That is one of the benefits of AIS. They can see where we came from. Brest customs officers knew that we stopped in Ushant, but they would also know what the weather had been like, so would understand why we did.

Anyway, I spent some time making sure that all the paperwork was ready – bi-lingual crew list, Boat registration certificate, radio operator certificate, ship radio licence, International Certificate of Competence (Boat drivers license), boat insurance, health insurance, proof that VAT was paid on the boat, two passports, a marriage certificate, and docs issued by customs in Brest and Capbreton.

No swell in the entrance channel, so straight out to sea, and hang a left for Spain. Engine on doing a little over 5 knots, with 5 knots showing right on the nose on the wind instruments. A couple of times I was tricked into throttling back the engine, but to no avail.

Hondarribia is a port of refuge, so can be entered in any conditions. Even in nil wind and flat sea! Into the marina, found a place to tie up, and went to the office armed with a folder full of documents. I didn’t need any.

We were allocated a berth, which even in windy conditions would have been easy to get into.

Tied up, plugged in, and not even a little bit sleepy.

Hondarribia

(The Costa Brava plane doesn’t stop here)

This is a really nice place. Mainly restaurants and bars, but a lot of the old town still exists.

The ultimate gated community?

Statue of a guy with a guards’ hat (or radical rasta afro) and an apron?

Not many cars

I was quite bemused by the local mooring technique. Many boat – predominately power boats – have a mainsheet tackle in the docklines, so they can get them really tight. I understood why a few days later, when Oleander was surging back and forth and side to side, in no wind and no appreciable current. The only thing I can think of is that vortexes (vorticese?) are created as the river and tide flow past the entrance to the marina.

I woke early one morning(pre dawn) and stuck my head out of the companion way to check the weather. There were two small birds perched on the pushpit rail.

A kingfisher? I thought they were exclusively fresh water birds.

This seems to be a very bikey place. Harleys abound, as do Japanese immitations, Goldwings, big BMWs, and various off road cruisers, Also a lot of old bikes – an absolutely immaculate Royal Enfield – real concourse condition, old BMWs and a couple of Triumphs. Old Vespas and modern scooters, sports bikes seem rare though.

One day there was a big race for some strange rowing gigs.

Count the oars

Now count the oars

6 oars on the starboard side, 7 on the port side

The crew was arranged with the steering oar guy at the back, then 12 oarsmen sitting 2 abreast, and one lone port side oarsman in the bows. The strange arrangement made a little more sense when they came to round a mark. The front guy stopped rowing, and used a front steering oar to get the bows round more quickly. Some historical quirk I suspect.

This seemed to be a hugely popular event. It looked like the whole town turned out to watch, all wearing team green neckerchiefs and T-shits. TV cameras were there, including live feed of the race from onboard cameras, shore cameras and a chase boat to a shoreside big screen.

The marina is a friendly and relaxed place. I can use the toaster and kettle at the same time!

The next leg

We will set off this morning, heading for La (A) Coruna. The plan is just to make 1 marina stop, in Gijon, taking 5 days to get there, but anchoring in the Rias overnight. It is unlikely that we will have any internet, and we are not planning any trips ashore, but this is not a rigid plan. If we like a place, maybe we will stop for a day or two. If the weather get bouncy, maybe we will seek shelter in a port or marina.

Hondaribbia to San Sebastian- Donostia

We needed about 50 litres of fuel to fill the tank before departing, but that proved problematic. There was an automatic put your card in machine, as in other places, but this machine only spoke Spanish, and I could not get it to play. Took about 1 hour to get fuel, No rush though, our next stop was only about 12 miles.

Donostia was a little more “Costa Brava”, but an excellent anchorage, sheltered and with good holding. A very boaty place, dinghies, stand up paddlers, jet skis… a few days later, I was idly surfing TV channels, when I came across 13 oar gigs racing at Donostia,

Looking across from the anchorage.

We stayed just 1 night, and left earlyish next morning.

Donostia to Plentzia

Motored out to sea, and we had a good southerly sailing breeze – 3 to 4. hoisted the mizzen, hoisted the main pointed Oleander west and unfurled the genoa or rather tried to. It was jammed. Some problem with the top swivel – it wasn’t swiveling – it was just trying to wrap the halyard round the forestay, but for no obvious reason. Too rolly to go up the mast, but we were making decent progress without it.

As it turned out, no genny was a good thing. A little later we were getting gusts of 30 to 35 knots. With no foresail we were still occasionally putting the toe rail underwater. If the genny had been up, we would have been seriously over canvassed. Also, we still had the light genoa on, and that doesn’t like anything much above 4.

Weather helm was excessive though, needed some manly helming to hold the course.

We saw a body board about 4 miles offshore – fortunately with no body attached. Had the conditions been more benign, I would have stopped to retrieve a new toy.

The gusty conditions only persisted for about 1 hour, then we needed assistance from the iron topsail.

Arrived at Plentzia. Another good anchorage, but a little tight. Tucked in behind a wall, with a line of floats delimiting the swimming area just 3 meters off our stern. Went up the mast to check the top swivel. It would turn, but was crunchy. I came down and slackened the halyard, and the genny was usable again,

A curious place. There was a large hospital on the beach, and people marching vigorously along the beach, most just in the water.

Just stayed one night, then a short trip round to Bilbao and into Getxo Marina.

We parked temporarily on a huge finger – about 20m long. Went to the office and checked in, expecting to be allocated another berth, but no, “you can stay there”. What luxury, able to lake a line aft from our stern cleat.

Getxo/Bilbao

Our first full day here was Saturday, and it was hot – 33 on Saturday, 35 on Sunday. The beaches were full, but it seemed that was the final fling of summer. Very little wind, so I unfurled and dropped the genoa to inspect the swivel, no obvious problems, the bearings seemed ok, so I flushed it out with water, and that seemed to cure the crunchiness. Pulled the genoa back up the furler and all was smooth again. Perfect timing, as 30 minutes later, it became quite breezy, from astern.

While poking around is a small local supermarket, I came across an obvious “must buy” item, Spanish! (noun not adjective). Points awarded for knowing what I bought. I ate most of it on the way back to the boat.

Ferry? Cable car? Bridge?

Took a trip on the Metro to Bilbao a couple of days later. Strolled around the outside of Athletico Bilbao’s ground – accidentally. We took a wrong turn looking for a shopping mall. If any football supporters ever need directions to get there, just ask me :-).

Found the mall eventually, wandered around all the usual clothes stores, we didn’t buy anything (as usual) which leaves me conflicted. I dislike wandering around malls, but like not spending money ;-)

Bought some supplies in the basement supermarket, and returned to Getxo.

Stayed in the marina for 8 days, then went to check out. I emphasised that we stayed 1 week and 1 day, to ensure we paid the weekly rate for 7 days, rather than 8xdaily rate, but the guy said 1 week, giving us 1 free day, and only charged the 10m rate (Oleander is 10.9m without the windvane)

Departed for the 4 hour trip to Santona.

Santona

Water was lowish when we arrived, so crawled gently in across the bar at the entrance, then followed the channel round to our chosen spot.

Google Earth is a little out of date. When available, I use it to check potential mooring/anchorage destinations.

There are lots more moorings here than show on Google. They extend across the deep water channel, and further back into the shallows. We find a spot and drop the hook, but it eventually becomes apparent that we are dragging, so move closer behind the moorings and try again.

This time we stick.

Next morning, we weigh anchor and reverse our previous course, now knowing that it is deep enough. We pass a couple of boats trying to sail out, but jibs hang limp. We motored round to our next stop.

Santander

Anchored just inside the entrance, off the beach. Oleander could not decide if she wanted to lay to the wind or the current, and settled on pointing into the current but with the chain leading back under the bows. Several other boats arrived and anchored – all having similar issues, but as evening drew in, they all departed back up river for the safety of their marina berths, leaving just Oleander and another boat flying a Spanish courtesy flag. We couldn’t see a national flag, but the boat looked French. Hard chine, yellow hull, looking like a serious passage maker

Next morning we pulled up the anchor and set off for San Vincente.

San Vincente - or not

No sailing today, a gentle breeze from almost dead astern. There was another boat behind, same course and speed, Possibly our neighbour from last night, but too far off to be sure. After a while, he headed inshore. And followed the coastline. Local knowledge maybe? He was now flying a spinnaker, and still making about 4 knots. We however motored the 30 miles to San Vincente, with the wind steadily increasing. When we arrived, the wind had increased significantly, and was blowing straight into the narrow entrance channel. This looked scary as we approached. Big breakers burying the lights at the end of the walls. Looked a lot like Capbreton, but rockier and narrower. It would probably have been ok, but probably wasn’t good enough. I aborted and turned 90 Starboard.

We need a new destination. Nothing we can get into for 30 miles, and it is 2pm now, There is a headland about 7 miles ahead, which looks like it would offer shelter from the blustery northeasterly. We head off to investigate, but it doesn’t look good, so 23 more miles to go.

The next port – Ribadesella, which was to have been our destination for tomorrow, has a marina, but Navionics’ details say “No Transient Moorings” I had planned to anchor in the bay, but that is probably not a good idea today. We arrive about 8pm, and confirm that anchoring in the bay would be unwise and uncomfortable, so head round to the marina. It is late, so the office will probably be closed. We will just find a vacant spot then worry about the consequences tomorrow.

Entrance is fun, needing quick reactions on the helm, but once in the channel, peace. No wind, flat water.

As we approach the marina, we notice a sign on one of the piles “Transito”, and an arrow pointing left.

We turn left, and see another pile with transito and an arrow indicating turn right.

According to the charts, this area dries, so we are creeping forward and watching the sounder

We turn right and find a 150m long pontoon with just 1 sailboat on it,

We tie up, do some sums to ensure that we will remain afloat, plug in, and sleep.

Ribadesella

This is a cute little place but the marina is strange. A key is required to get out and of course the office is outside. No laundry, no showers, no toilets. We intended to stay two nights, but a visit from the revenue man just as we were about to get ready for departure delayed us, so we stayed 3 nights. The guy in the office only charged us for two though. I don’t know if this was a discount or if they were not aware that we arrived late. The 150m pontoon has signs all along “Reservado Transito”. I would certainly stop here again if we are ever back in the area.

It is also possible to tie up to the harbour wall for free, but we didn’t know that at the time. Anyway, at 15€ per night, it is the cheapest marina we have ever stayed in.

Visitors pontoon – near high tide.

And tide getting lower.

Waiting for enough water to leave comfortably for Gijon, we eventually throw off the lines at about 12:30. Engine all the way, with the mizzen up so we at least look a little like a sailboat. 6 hours later, we arrive at the marina, and are met by a marina guy in a small boat, who asks our length, then leads us to a berth. He ties up and jumps out to take our lines, then rushes off again to meet the next boat. Next day we go to the office and check in for 4 days.

Gijon

Gijon is a reasonably large city, the metropolitan area is 7th by size in Spain. The marina is located next to the town centre, so easy access to shops restaurants, supermarkets etc. and a shopping mall. yay. (capitalisation intentionally omitted).

The old city.

After our initial 4 day stay, we book in for another 4 days to hide from the forecast four day hurricane!

And more hurricanes!!!

I use the Meteo Consult app as one source of inshore waters forecasts, and it was giving a hurricane warning Force 12, from Gijon to Cap Ortegal, but the actual inshore wind forecasts were nothing like that even further out to sea there was nothing anywhere in Biscay more than 8. It was still windy enough to justify the extra 4 days. Departure day was forecast to have winds on the nose for 12 hours, so add another day. The next day was no wind initially, then 2 to 3 tail wind, which would be much more relaxing.

While here, I finally plucked up the courage to take a hacksaw to the anchor chain. Oleander was designed with a chain locker for 60m of 8mm chain. We had 80m of 10mm chain. It would all fit in, but not without a lot of help. The previous owner’s solution was to fit a small hatch on the foredeck so that the mountain of chain could be pushed over when it backed up and jammed the winch, which it would do every 2m or so for the last 20m. Not an ideal solution. I have never needed to use more than 40m of chain, The full 80m would only ever be used in severe conditions, so I chopped off 20m, which can always be shackled back on if needed.

Filled up the fuel and water tanks, then we were ready for an early start tomorrow.

Gijon to Ribadeo/Luarca

Departure was delayed slightly and motoring at 5 knots in the correctly forecast 0, was not going to get us to Ribadeo in daylight. Increasing speed to 6 knots would, but 6 knots was too bumpy in that sea, so throttled back to 5 knots and diverted to Luarca, which we could reach in daylight.

The tailwind eventually arrived, but not enough to give us 5 knots, so stuck with the engine all the way.

Luarca

Luarca from mooring balls

Odd mooring arrangement. 5 buoys reserved for yachts in the small harbour, but close together. The idea is that you tie one end of your boat to a buoy, then take a line ashore from the other end. Our rubber dinghy was rolled up and lashed to the foredeck, and having picked up a mooring from the bows, it looked like about 40m to the wall from where the stern was lying. As we were the only boat on the moorings, I waited until the stern swung close to another buoy, then tied the stern to that.

Luarca to Ribadeo

As we we leaving the harbour the next morning there was a loud clattering noise. First mate commented that our boathook was in the water. I must have forgotten to secure it, however a quick boathook head count showed we had the full complement aboard, I turned to investigate the white stick, wondering what part of Oleander it could be, but couldn’t see it again. I supposed that it was just floating debris which clattered along the hull, so turned and headed out again.

No wind again, motored to Ribadeo. Anchored about 50m from a Spanish boat, much to the chagrin of the skipper who protested in Spanish that we were too close. I played dumb, because I couldn’t be bothered to move. A really pleasant place, but then conditions were calm.

Looking out to sea from the anchorage.

As evening approached, the still gesticulating Spaniard hauled up his anchor and headed back up river to the marina about a mile away.

Vivero

Next morning, we departed for Vivero. Very little wind, but a surprisingly lumpy sea. A sheltered anchorage, and close enough to the marina to borrow their wifi, and get weather information, but strangely, a little while later, it was asking for a password and username. Luckily, we got the gribs and inshore waters forecast before we were blocked.

Aha! While standing on the foredeck checking the anchor, I looked back and saw something strange tangled around the top of the mizzen mast. Looked like a 1m long wire, with evenly spaced knots about 15cm apart along the length, right next to the wifi antenna, err, right next to where the wifi antenna should be. The mystery of the white stick in the water at Luarca is solved. Fortunately, the antenna had just shed its skin. The internal gubbins was still working fine, and showing dozens of useless password protected stations.

Carino

Next morning was misty/foggy, visibility about 500m, I guessed that it would clear through the day, so we left. and visibility did improve.

We had 2 possible destinations. Given 4m swell and a strongish head wind, we chose the nearest, Carino. Anchored close to the beach, just inside the harbour wall, and had a very rolly night in a calm sea. We left early next morning.

The beach, harbour to the right.

To La (A) Coruna

We had an option to do this trip in two legs, with an overnight halt midway, but the weather information showed that conditions would start to deteriorate the next day, so a longer day today.

Swell now even bigger, wind force 1 – 2. Stayed further offshore for a smoother ride. Watching waves breaking on the rocky shore was like watching in slow motion. The spray would hang in the air for several seconds. It was only the time that gave an idea of the scale.

When we reached Cabo Prior, I elected to maintain course rather than turning for Coruna, firstly to give us some more “offing”, and secondly to give us a course of 180° – due south, for the last 12 miles to Coruna, a psychological fillip, I like going south.

La Coruna

The nearest Marina is Marina Coruna, just inside the big breakwater. All the reviews I have seen of this marina have a common theme, swell. We decide to risk it anyway, and book in for 2 days. The reviews are kinda right. Swell to me is ocean getting in. While we were here, that didn’t happen, but we did, surge, pitch and roll and yaw, sometimes quite violently, but because of wake rather than ocean swell. Some big boats go in and out of Coruna. The really big boats – Oil tankers, Cruise liners… don’t cause problems, smaller cargo ships, pilot boats, fishing boats etc. are the main culprits. At least the Marina is relaxed and friendly – park where you want, pay when you leave, but if you try to leave without paying…

The city itself is a maze of tiny streets, restaurants and bars galore. Many touristy trinket shops catering mainly to the cruise ship passengers I suppose. British cruise ship passengers are easy to spot. All mature couples, the guy wearing pastel coloured shorts and trainers (sneakers). Maybe there are some others who rebel and don’t wear what appears to be the obligatory dress code. Arrivals and departures of cruise ships can be determined by the exclusively African descent handbag sellers who spread their wares out on a sheet on the ground. When we were in Bilbao, we were on the other side of the harbour from the cruise terminal, and are unable to comment on passenger or vendor behaviour there.

Cute little boat leaving La Coruna.

We have flights booked back to China leaving from Porto on October 15th, so were hoping to make the final 170 miles before then. We could make Baiona, 120 miles away, but then strong southerly winds were forecast. The choices are head for Baiona, and stay there hoping for a weather window to open, or leave Oleander here for the winter. Even though travelling from here to Porto is a PITA (3 trains or a 6 hour bus ride) that seemed the sensible option.

La Coruna to Baiona/Povoa de Varzim

We had planned to move to another marina, Sada, about 7 miles away, to escape the swell in Marina Coruna and for a change of view, then in about another week, going to Marina Seca to be hauled out. We have been here for 8 days now, but checking the weather raised the viability of Baiona. The final decision was not reached until we left the fuel dock, but Baiona it is. Calm sea, little wind, and much less swell than in the marina. Unprepared, no course or waypoints ready, so as soon as we were at sea, I went below to do some navigation.

Totally uneventful trip. Turned to investigate what looked like somebody in the water next to a canoe or board, but it was only a small buoy attached to a short line of polystyrene floats. There were 3 periods of about 20 minutes duration when the wind picked up to force 3, but I am wise to these tricks now. Too often I have hauled up the main. Rolled out the genoa, only to see the wind vanish as soon as the engine was switched off.

We changed to our ocean watchkeeping system 21 hours on, 3 hours off for me. The autumnal equinox had passed, so this was going to be a long night.

At 22:22:22 GMT (not UTC), Cape Finistere light was abeam. Shortly after that I heard a noise and looked over the side to see a big dolphin streaking passed, like a grey torpedo. About an hour or so later, a bunch of smaller dolphins were playing chicken, seeing how close they could get to Oleander’s stem without being hit as they raced across our path. They were entertaining themselves and me for quite a while, leaving phosphorescent trails in the water. I tried videoing them, but my smartphone couldn’t see anything in the dark. I went to fetch the hardly ever used video camera, which has a much better lens, but the battery was dead, and I couldn’t remember where the charger was.

I pondered about dolphins, and about evolution. I can understand how giraffes evolved to have long necks, survival of the fittest, but how does a species evolve a hole in the top of it’s head to exhale through? I also wondered if dolphins like sailboats because they look like big upside down dolphins? This was my first night time dolphin experience. The following day, dolphins were back, lots of them. Migrating south perhaps? Many of them went straight by, travelling in large packs. Others stopped to play. I did get some video this time, which will be posted once edited.

I also thought about a possible change of destination. I would have to discuss this with the admiral when she awoke. Having problems with the chartplotter now. It is losing GPS, then sounding an alarm “This unit is no longer computing a fix. Shortly after that, the autohelm sounds an alarm saying “no data” Powering the chart plotter off and on temporarily fixes the problem, but when the route is engaged, the autohelm wants to turn round and start the route again from the beginning. I know there is a waypoint advance facility, but I have never used it, and don’t know which combination of buttons activates it.

I can’t get at the operating manual without disturbing a sleeping admiral, and as a lowly skipper, I am way too chicken to do that. I delete passed waypoints from the route, then activate the route again.

Note to self – don’t use this route in reverse if heading north.

This reminds me of another complaint. Now that the autohelm accepts routes and waypoints, I thought I would be able to preprogram a route to automatically do something like take the boat up the river to Preston, negotiating all the twists and shallow areas. Allowing me to do other stuff. Not so. When the autohelm receives an automated course change, It demands confirmation that the change can be actioned. I can understand why, I just wish there was a way to override it.

Dawn eventually arrives, but the sun takes a long time to appear above the cliffs.

When the admiral had risen and breakfasted, I raise my thoughts about a change in destination.

Calm conditions are forecast for today and tomorrow. If we go to Baiona, we will either have to leave early the next morning, or wait at least 4 days for the bad weather to blow through, then probably have a lumpy sea to contend with, The other choice is to avoid Baiona, and go straight to Povoa de Varzim, with an ETA of about 5pm. The admiral concurs that this is the better choice. I alter course. In the calm conditions, Oleander is making 5.5knots at 1600RPM, in normal conditions we would only expect 5.0 knots.

Skipper heads below for 1 of his 3 hours off watch. Having had a refreshing nap, I realise that there was a minor error in my sleep deprived calculations, and that it will take 1 hour longer to get to Povoa, but as luck would have it, Portuguese local time is one hour behind Spain, so we still arrive at 5pm. Error or prophecy? ;-) Next task is the ceremony of changing the courtesy flag as we cross from Spanish to Portuguese waters.

At 13:00, I received a text message from my brother, congratulating us on our arrival at Viana do Castelo. Odd, because we were going straight by and were about 3 miles off the coast.

Skipper retires to take his remaining 2 hours. On returning to the cockpit, I am confused by the lack of land to the right. This is not caused by lack of sleep, but by the conditions. The sea is more like an estuary or a Scottish loch. No detectable swell, and waves rarely more than 40cm. The nearest land to the right is Rhode Island, almost 3000 miles away.

We soon arrive at Povoa, and tie up to the visitors pontoon. The office closes at 5:30, so I scurry up without the paperwork, to make sure I catch them. Pontoon security gates, showers and toilets are accessed using a fingerprint scanner, so that is the highest priority. One of the guys comes with me to show me where to moor, but his initial choice of location is blocked by a line from a boat on the adjacent finger, he then directs me to a space on the next pontoon, two empty spaces together “so you can take lines across to the next finger” he says. Ominous. The weather must be bad here, for the office staff to suggest that I use 2 spaces to moor. I emailed this marina about a week ago, asking about storage ashore. Yes they said, but that is handled by a separate company, not the marina, also, from October to March, boats longer than 10.5m are not allowed to stay more than 1 week on the pontoons.

I assume that meant unattended. There is only a wall between the marina and the Atlantic, and that wall is built out into the ocean, so not much protection from southerly gales. One report said that this place eats lines.

We move to the allotted space, one of the guys comes round to catch lines. It is a really short finger, just about level with our midships cleat. The guy (who speaks no English) seems to want the boat angled in. Not sure why, but several advantages spring to mind. 1) there is more boat boardable from the finger. 2) it makes it easier for a boat to get in (or out) from the other side of the finger.3) it makes it more difficult for another boat to get into our space.

The one disadvantage, is that it doesn’t look right, like parking a car angled across 2 spaces.

Next morning I go and do all the paperwork, Ask about getting to the airport – easy just take the metro, then I wander round to the yard office to arrange the lift out. The girl in the office takes all the details then calls her boss. She said that he can give discounts and he did, 50€. I am still not sure if this is 50€ per month, or 50€ per month discount, or 50€ discount on 6 months payment, but she did say, stay for 6 months and get a free bottom wash. We are in sore need of a bottom wash.

Upcoming schedule

October 13, 4pm, Oleander leaves the water.

October 15, 7am, Oleander crew leave Portugal.

Povoa da Varzim

The strong southerlies started last night. I wasn’t anemometer watching, but I did see 46 knots at one point. We seem to be fairing better than a lot of other boats, maybe because we are deeper and heavier than more modern boats, or maybe we just tied up better

Strong southerly winds lasted about 3 days, then swung westerly and eased. Now the waves are coming over the harbour wall, a 70m wide waterfall.

That’s why there are no moorings that side of the basin!

A short while later, we watched as a big fishing boat – about 60 ft long, reached the channel between the overlapping walls, then turned back, about 10 minutes later, it charged back towards the channel at full power, but bottled it again, and returned to it’s berth. About an hour later, we were walking to the metro station to catch a train/tram to Porto, and got a good view of the entrance channel – really big breakers perpendicular to the channel, with little room to manoeuvre. I would have turned back too.

Gun Jumped.

Oleander left the water yesterday October 8th.

The surging back and forth followed by an abrupt stop as the lines go tight is too irritating to endure. The lines are as tight as possible, so much that they are lifting the pontoons out of the water and threatening to burst the air filled fenders. Fitting springs in the lines might be a solution, but they would have to be ordered, and we are leaving soon.

Bottom much cleaner than I expected – no big clumps of weed – very few barnacles, and after a quick rub down with a damp sponge…

Clean again.

This is where the sailing blog ended.

First mate and I spent the winter in Beijing, and returned in spring.

We booked into a hotel for 1 week, Thinking that we could start the paperwork there. I tried to use the hotel address to register for a N.I.F (Portuguese equivalent of a U.K. National Insurance number)

The person said no, but did say that I could use my UK address. Luckily, I had a UK Box address, that I was using for my driving licence and bank account, so I got my NIF.

In order to apply for residence permits, we needed a residence, and a boat would not do. So, we started hunting, and on 2016/04/07 we rented an apartment. With the NIF and an address, I could open a Portuguese bank account, and on 30/06/2016, I obtained a 5 year temporary residence certificate. Then we started house hunting. I really liked the first house we saw, but when I expressed interest, the agent told me that it was no longer available. Curious. I suspect that the agent used me to push a Portuguese ditherer. The following year, we were in that area again, so thought it would be worth a look, see if it was back on the market. Burned blackened trees all around, The house itself had survived, but it’s PVC front door was partially melted.

We viewed many houses, some near, some far. Some neither of us liked, some one of us liked, some both of us liked, but there were complications. We searched online, and enquired, and generally received no replies.

House hunting has been frustrating. Prices are rising rapidly, and it is proving difficult to find a house that we both agree on. Places we like require significant restoration. Portuguese (Real) Estate Agents are much worse than British Agents. They take comfort in the small print.

“All information provided by the listing agent/broker is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed and should be independently verified. No warranties or representations are made of any kind.”

In fact they seem to exploit the small print, and deliberately lie. Anything to get a sale, and as the purchase procedure in Portugal requires a 10% non-refundable deposit on acceptance of the offer, what can you do? Also they often don't respond to email, or respond after several days delay.

The decision to remain in Portugal for Christmas was made fairly late. Portuguese Christmas is very different to British style. Traditional Christmas fare in Portugal consists of boiled salted cod, boiled cabbage, boiled onions and boiled eggs.

I felt disinclined to embrace my adopted country's gastronomic heritage, hence a long overdue UK trip was planned, so we could stock up on the essentials and locally unobtainables.

Unfortunately, our Portuguese car had other opinions, and decided to breakdown - fortunately before we had booked anything. We were carless for 2 weeks. We both have folding bicycles, but though we live only 2.5 miles from the beach, we are almost 400 feet above sea level. Not ideal cycling terrain. Also, the railway station is near the coast, easy to get to, but not easy to get back home laden with shopping. There is a taxi rank outside the small local station, but I've never seen a taxi there.

Anyway, after we were mobile again, It was getting too close to Christmas to arrange the UK trip, and I was also a little wary of driving the car a long distance. It is 18 years old, and needs to prove itself again before I would trust it on a trip to UK. Plus, as we found out several weeks after we bought the car, the heater doesn't work on the passenger side, The air conditioning works fine though. I think I know what the problem is, but to fix it, or even just look at it to confirm my diagnosis is a huge task. Half the car has to be dismantled to access the unit, which has to be removed from the car (drain water and air conditioning) and further dismantled to access the electrically controlled flaps that determine the mix of hot and cold air.Fortunately, it is not really cold enough (yet) to make a heater absolutely essential.The week before Christmas was blue skies and unbroken sunshine, but the skies clouded over on Christmas eve and it has rained almost continuously since then.

So Christmas shopping in Portugal.

No Christmas cards - couldn't find any, so even the wife didn't get a card this year.

No Christmas crackers

No mincepies

No Christmas pudding

No Christmas cake

No cranberry sauce

No jars of mincemeat

No Paxo

No parsnips

And of course, no experience.

I have never cooked a turkey, though I did cook a chicken once.

I have never even roasted a potato

Way past the last mixing day for a pudding.

So off to the shops with a long shopping list

So many ingredients are unavailable. Back to google, look for different recipes, look for substitutes.

Can't find cranberries, can't find sage, can't find mixed spice...(What is mixed spice? can I find the components?)

Buy a frozen turkey, and put it in the fridge,

Chocolate sponge cake for Christmas? Tried making a plain sponge cake - seemed ok :) tried making two chocolate sponge cakes - disaster - middle collapsed to a solid squidgy mess - but tasted like a brownie- no time to experiment - cake abandoned. (Email me if you want my brownie recipe)

2 days left, Got enough ingredients to attempt mincemeat, Seems an excessively complex process. Fortunately I have real suet. That came from UK last time because I wanted to try cooking beef stew with dumplings. Never never got round to it luckily. Seems a strange thing to use, but press on.

Finally get a bowl of something that smells like mincemeat, but a lot of it. Having looked at recipes for mincemeat and Christmas pud, I realise the list of ingredients is very similar, so I split the mix in half and added chopped nuts, breadcrumbs, flour and egg to turn one half into Christmas pud, There was a little left over after filling the pudding bowl, just enough for two little cupcake sized puds.

Filled the kitchen with steam for the next 8 hours, then tried one of the cupcake puds. Unexpectedly, it tasted like CHRISTMAS PUDDING!!! :-D

Christmas eve morning, remove turkey from fridge to fully defrost. Later found sage!! in E. Le Clerk supermarket.

So, mincepies...

Not good at pastry, I lack consistency, but this seemed one of my better attempts. How do I convert flat discs of pastry into conical sections?

A dozen mince pies made and enough pastry and mincemeat left over for two small mincemeat pasties.

Cooked, sprinkled with icing sugar, they look and taste like mince pies.

Stuffing. First Make breadcrumbs. I don't have a food processor, not even an electric whisk, so grate dried bread by hand.

Add Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme (not in the recipe, I just wanted to serve "Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme" and onion stuffing) Add to the lightly butter fried chopped onion.

Crack open the Port...

Christmas day - in the kitchen early confirm turkey is defrosted. Hmm, seems my turkey still has a neck attached, but no head, so chop off the neck and bung turkey in the oven.

Later, veggies prepped. Roast potato and roast sweet potato (Parsnip sub) in the oven) oops nothing to cook stuffing in. Find 4 little shallow bowls,

Oops oven full, luckily we have a small electric oven that we borrowed from the boat - stuffed stuffing in there.

Remove the aluminium foil house from the turkey - realise I forgot to put a quartered orange in the turkey cavity, so that goes in late.

Carrots sliced and boiling, sprouts boiling, cauliflower and broccoli steaming.

The result:

Turkey fine - seems a little dry so maybe slightly overcooked.

Sprouts overcooked, but that is traditional

broccoli overcooked,

cauliflower fine

carrot fine

stuffing too dry and crispy

potatoes really excellent

sweet potatoes burned (but only on part of the outside)

Next the gravy, cornflour and turkey juice

not thick enough

add more cornflour

not thick enough

add more cornflour

not thick enough

think...

put gravy in microwave

take none liquid rubbery lump out of microwave

throw away 75% of rubbery lump

add more turkey juice and stir vigorously. We have gravy :-)

slice turkey (and thumb) plate up and serve

Verdict - yummy (apart from the broccoli which was still edible)

Needed a long delay before pudding could be served.

Pudding was also excellent Though the other half of the pudding served on boxing day was even better.

Made a lot of mistakes, Learned a lot, so confident that we can have guests for Christmas dinner next year :) (early booking recommended)

Boxing day dinner was virtually the same, Stuffing was softer this time - made in one lump and without the parsley, rosemary and thyme. The taste was ok but it seemed to fall apart rather than being a solid lump (breadcrumbs probably too dry). Out of broccoli, so couldn't improve there, sweet potatoes not burned. Roast potatoes excellent.

Next year, even if I find parsnips, I will still go with sweet potato.

Bottom line, quite chuffed :)

Back to house hunting now. The current 1st choice is advertised with double it's actual land size. I measured the plot on google earth and visited the agent to enquire where the rest of the land was. Several days later, I received an email from the agent stating "There was a mistake of areas." This was over a week ago, and the property is still listed with the erroneous area. I replied that if the land area was overstated by 46% then the listed price should be reduced by the same percentage. Didn’t get a reply.

There is a house being built on the other side of the road, on a plot (a field on google earth) which seems to be a similar size to our potential house plot, maybe just a little smaller ;-) My guess is that the owner got an offer that he couldn't refuse. If the land is across a road, then we don't really want it anyway. So this suits us. Anyway, nothing will happen now until 2018.

New year's Eve. The rain stopped. The grey clouds faded away to leave sunshine and blue skies.

Finally finished the turkey soup.

Celebrated the New Year by opening my last bottle of 2017 Gingerbeer, It fizzes like champagne, and is surprisingly alcoholic.

Turkey finished! took all the meat off the wings, and used it to to make something like Kung Pao Chicken (I invented宫保烤火鸡翅膀丁)

Expressed an interest in the 1st choice house - suddenly, the agents' website shows the house as "under offer". I have not made an offer yet, Do I have a competitor? Is the agent trying to generate interest? Is the agent trying to push me?

A few days later..

The area issue was explained as a "town hall" error. The previous owner had split the land into two lots, and sold one, but instead of creating new lot y and old lot x - y, the town hall created new lot y and old lot x - a clerical error, but one which must have cost the previous owner money in higher taxes than should have been charged. relatively easy to resolve, but will take about 4 months to work through the red tape..

The offer was genuine (probably), but came from another branch of the same company, much to the chagrin of the listing branch. The commission goes to the branch that makes the sale.

Under offer has changed to awaiting contract, so seems like another house bites the dust. but listing branch wants to proceed, just in case.

Funny thing, I saw Christmas cards in a tobacconist by a supermarket, just cheap cards, but 3 Euros each!, and that is after Christmas. No wonder the Portuguese don't "do" cards.

On 2018/02/07 we bought a house.

It Begins...

So, at the beginning of February, We, and our lawyer, and two real estate agents, two registration officials, 8 sellers and their lawyer, piled into a government registration office to sign contracts, and swap funds for keys. Couldn’t all fit in, so we had to move to a bigger office in the next building.

It seems to be an excessively complex procedure, further confused by the question “what type of marriage do you have?”

In Portugal, it seems that there are 3 choices,

1) Both parties are financially independent.

2) Everything is shared,

3) Everything is shared from the date of the marriage.

I don’t know which we got. Every page of the contract has to be signed by all concerned after being read aloud and corrected where errors were spotted ID documents for everyone recorded, financial numbers recorded.

I handed over a large cheque, and received a bunch of keys. Next a registration fee to be paid, then another registration fee to be paid. Then we were done, Only took 90 minutes. We have a house in Portugal :-D, a compromise between my isolated mountain farmhouse within walking distance of nothing, and First mates’s downtown apartment within walking distance of a shopping mall.

Said goodbye to our lawyer, who is a classic. Short, tubby, elderly, bald, but the remaining hair on the side was partly covering his ears. As well as being a solicitor, he does legal stuff for the local town hall, and is also a barrister. A useful person to know.

Then we went home though not to the new house, it would have been getting dark when we arrived, and there was no electricity or water. Next day we went to our house, and noticed many problems which we had not spotted on our previous visits. This house has been empty for a long time, many years I guess. The house has internal shutters on the windows, and a few broken windows, broken long enough for the internal shutters to show significant weathering behind the broken panes.

No heating, not even a fireplace. The kitchen seems to be a later addition, and does have a chimney, but no fireplace.

The house is built on the side of a hill, which seems to be the norm in rural Portugal, so we have a half cellar. with walls 80 cm thick. The main house walls are only 60 cm, and the kitchen walls are 55 cm.

A few days later, we were arranging to have water and electricity supplies reconnected. The water man arrived first, fitted a new meter. The water meter box in the garden wall had pipes but no meter,

I was doing something elsewhere, when the missus came and told me the water was connected. I tried the taps - nothing, I checked stoptaps, nothing. I went out to see the guy and he demonstrated. Turn water on at the meter, jet of water gushes out of his newly fitted pipe protruding from the other side of the wall. He went away with a “my job here is done” shrug. So, water available outside the house, how to get it inside.

The idea of drilling holes through thick stone walls didn’t appeal.

The house has a bathroom, with shower, toilet, washbasin and bidet. (I later discovered that a bidet is a legal requirement in a Portuguese bathroom.) It has a kitchen, with sink and taps, Two more water taps and another toilet with sink and washing machine connection in a newer extension to the kitchen,

There used to be a bottled gas water heater, but the heater has gone. The pipes and vent are in place, although the “chimney” just passes through the kitchen ceiling and vents into the kitchen attic (fortunately separate from the main house attic).

Obviously, water used to come into the house, but perhaps not from the mains.There is a well outside, and a box used to house an electric pump. There is also a header tank on the roof.

The estate agent blurb said mains water - I took that to mean supplying the house. Maybe it meant available at the house, and the house had actually been using well water. The easiest solution seemed to be to connect our mains supply to the feed from the tank, and the easiest way to do that is to pipe our new supply up to the roof. So, off to the DIY shops, and returned with 25m of 25mm coiled plastic pipe, and a bunch of 25mm elbows. Tried to figure out the header tank plumbing, but there was nowhere to get a clear view from the ground.

Discovered an old galvanised pipe protruding vertically from the ground close to the well. it seemed remote from everything wet, so I had assumed it was just a bit of old pipe used as a plant stake, but it could have been an external tap, connected to house water - it was several meters above well water level, so couldn’t be connected to that. The threaded end of the pipe was mangled. Whatever had been connect to it had been removed with a big hammer. If it was an external tap. Then connecting our water supply to it could well feed back into the house - worth a shot. Sawed off the mangled pipe end, Duct taped the 25 mm feed to the steel pipe, turned on the water.

Duct tape is not as strong as it seems. it burst in a few seconds, resulting in a wet wife. I did notice some old rusty hooks in the wall where the supply arrived, which indicated that water had once traveled this route, later confirmed by Google.

This 2009 image clearly shows a water pipe running along the wall from the meter.

I "modified” one of my 25 mm plastic elbows to fit the galvanised pipe - somewhat leaky, but it stayed put. Checked in the house. Water - or rather black sludge was coming out of the taps, which slowly cleared to become rusty water, and eventually clear water.

Still not had a date for electric connection so called the company, Finally got through to someone who could speak decent English. “Ah, there is a problem with your contract. you asked for a 5kw supply. the cables to your house can only take 3.4kw. I will email you a new contract to sign.” Our electric kettle is 2kw! but, anything is better that nothing - I need to run power tools etc.

Annoyed that they didn’t contact me to tell me. I had to put off the phone company, who were coming to install a landline which we don’t need, but we do need internet and TV. and it was either this or a 4g dongle and satellite TV. I can’t get a decent 4g signal on my phone when at the house, and they won’t install internet and TV without a landline.

So Electric day arrived Installation anytime between 10:30, and 13:00. We planned to arrive at the house at 10:30 to be safe. Got a call at 9:55, “I am at the house”! We weren’t. Got there at 10:30 - no electric company vehicle. Waited 4 hours, finally sent a text. The guy arrived 5 mins later. Shortly after, we had electricity.

The following day, the phone people arrived. I would not have been surprised if they had been unable to install TV and internet up to 24 Mbs over the existing ancient phone wires, but they strung a new coaxial cable from the pole to the house, so 150 channels and 12 Mbs internet installed. That’s what I checked it as. I was impressed, until I got back to to the apartment, and found we have 37 Mbs there. We now have a phone number too, just haven’t got a phone to plug in yet ;-)

Anyway, back to the water. The washing machine tap has a conventional threaded end. I needed a hose outside, so screwed a hoselock connection on and the tap broke -inside the tiled wall, Turned off the water - needed to get at the tap, so attacked the tiled wall with a very small hammer and a screw driver (the only tools available), I eventually managed to extract the tap. It was screwed into a brass? elbow, which had been screwed into a galvanised reducer, which was screwed into a galvanised T. The brass thing had just sheared off, Funny thing - all the plumbing is in imperial sizes. The T piece was on top of a vertical galvanised pipe, so I had to smash a lot more tiles and wall to be able to lever the pipe out of the wall to get at the broken bits. Finally got that fixed, though not the wall or tiles yet,

Next problem -water on the floor in the main bathroom. Can’t find a leak. Water on the step out of the kitchen. on the other side of the bathroom. The kitchen appears to be a later addition to the house. Seems like we have a leaky pipe embedded in the main house wall. The sensible solution would seem to be to replace all the plumbing. Working on a plan for that. Need a full campaign plan, I need a Gantt chart Can’t fix the kitchen until the plumbing is sorted, and probably should combine heating with plumbing.

We are several kms from the nearest gas main, so options are burning wood (or pellets), oil tank in the garden, propane tank in the garden or air source heat pump.

Oil here is the same price as diesel at the pumps, (probably higher with delivery charges) propane is cheaper, but the tank in much more expensive. Heat pump is favourite, but dependent on upgrading the electricity cables, or possibly switching to a 3 phase 380v supply. I don’t know much about 3 phase,. I thought I could get 3 380 to 220 transformers, use 1 phase for the heat pump the other 2 could supply household appliances, sockets and lights, but further research seems to indicate that this is a bad idea, as it would create an unbalanced load. The answer would seem to be buy a big 3 phase electric motor, and use this to drive a 220v generator.

I need to find out if there is a device that can shift the phase backward and forward by 120 degrees, then I could have single phase 380v, which would be easier to handle.

Another issue with the heat pump, is that the hot water coming out the back is 60 degrees max, much cooler than a conventional boiler, so it needs double sized radiators or underfloor heating to produce the same amount of heat. Can’t really go solar, not enough sun in winter when we really need the heat, and the house is in a valley, so not very windy either.

Delayed by the car again, the alternator diodes burned out. Luckily, I made it home, but not enough juice left in the battery to start the car again. Tried and failed to located a used alternator (they seem to sell quickly). Tried and failed to locate a new 8 diode rectifier/regulator assembly (8 diodes confused me for a while), so had to order a new alternator. The brushes and slip rings also seemed badly worn. Tried and failed to locate a supplier in Portugal, so had to get one shipped from the UK.

I will have to measure up for new water pipes and fittings, - see what we need to replace, and try to assess how much house will be destroyed in the fitting.

A River Runs Through It

Progress has been disappointingly slow. I have excuses of course….

Broken car again

Unanticipated complications

Garden became impenetrable jungle

Delays in supply chain

Changes to plans

Portuguese red tape

Too much prevaricating about the bush

(points awarded for knowing the source of that mangled idiom)

Sickness and injuries

etc.

So, the car. I drove to Lisbon, spent a few hours there and drove back. After about 100km on the expressway, the engine suddenly felt stiff as though it was about to seize. I pulled over and checked the gauges. Engine temperature was at maximum. Before I had come to a stop, the “check gauges” light came on, and the warning chime sounded. A little earlier would have been useful!

We waited for the engine to cool down, then removed the cap – no water, and no sign of a leak. Poured in all the bottled water we had and limped to the next service area. Let the engine cool again, filled up and set off. We had to stop and refill a few more times before we got home.

The next day, I started the engine and let it idle until it was warm. The water began bubbling, but not boiling. Exhaust gas in the coolant! - so either a cracked head or a blown head gasket. I decided to assume it was the head gasket, because that would be easiest to fix. Looked for an online car spares vendor in Portugal and ordered a new gasket set. It seems that there are no online car spares companies here. The web site I ordered from is just the Portuguese front end to a German supplier. I also ordered new head bolts. They have to be replaced every time the heads are removed. “Heads”, because it transpires that my engine has 5 separate heads. It seems that Chrysler didn’t have a suitable diesel engine so obtained engines from an Italian company, and these engines were designed for a static generator. One would assume that with 5 separate heads, a single head could be removed. Wrong. The bolts are between the heads, one bolt with a massive washer pulls down two heads, and the heads have interlocking tabs, and there is only one head gasket.

So, off to Europcar to rent again.

One week later, the German package arrived. The head bolts (two different sizes) are of a design I have not seen before, a 12 point star drive. The manual says that a special tool is required, I cannot find a supplier. I emailed VM Motori, and they eventually replied that they are Chrysler tools, but by this time I have established that these things are also known as Torque drive, and I order a set from ebay UK – no ebay in Portugal. There is ebay in Spain, which I have used before, but same stuff is more expensive, and takes just as long to arrive. I decide to move the car to the house, about 45km– I can work undercover there, and if I make an oily mess on the floor, it is my floor. So packed the car with bottles of water, and drove as gingerly as possible. Arrived without incident and didn’t need to stop to replenish the water.

I eventually get the heads off, but worryingly the old gasket looks fine. I check the heads as thoroughly as possible, but there are no obvious problems. I replaced the gasket and put the engine back together. Reassembly is such fun. I guess that Chrysler assumed that any major work would be done with the engine on a bench. Access is extremely limited. Another fun job is tightening the 12 main head bolts, start in the middle, torque to 30 ft/lbs (can’t think in newton meters yet) continue in a zigzag pattern to the end, then opposite zigzag to the other end and back to the start. Execute the same pattern again, tightening each bolt by another 75°, then execute the same pattern again, tightening each bolt by another 75°! The second 75° needs a long lever. That does partly explain why the bolts have to be replaced every time – the bolt is actually being stretched.

Continuing, I discovered that several of the rocker assembly studs were iffy, so had to find a helicoiling kit supplier. Re-coiled 3 studs in situ, so I can now torque the nuts to the prescribed values.

Unfortunately, no change. Remove the heads again, and tried making blanking plates so that I could pressurise the heads and check for leaks in a bucket of water, but that didn’t show anything. It only seems significant when the engine is hot. Took all the valves out, checked the seats, didn’t see anything wrong. Replaced the seals at the top of the guides. Put everything back together, and ordered a compression tester, from ebay.

During this time, several weeks, I had been renewing my car rental on a weekly basis. I decided to buy a cheap car, and suspend leak hunting in favour of house fixing.

Came back to the car after a significant delay. I thought I could use it for local trips the builders merchants etc. Started the engine, and was running it to get it warm, when there came an horrific clattering noise from the top end. Stopped the engine and looked hopefully for an external cause didn’t see anything – started the engine again – same noise so switched off and gave up.

Next return to the car, I took off the rocker covers, expecting to see things bent and broken, but all looked fine. Removed all the glow plugs, and dug out the compression tester. Checked all the cylinders with the engine cold. I knew that wouldn’t diagnose my cracked head, but it would show a broken valve or piston.

Surprisingly all were fairly close. 420psi lowest, 440psi highest (can’t think in bars yet – but then that could be a family failing ;-) )

Ran the engine with the rocker cover off – no nasty noise. Hmm – could it have been a transient problem which resolved itself, perhaps an issue with one of the hydraulic tappets? or is it something lurking, and waiting to strike at a more inopportune moment….

Enough car stuff..

One day, we wandered into the garden to look at the fruit trees, and realised that the garden had gone wild. A waist high tangled mass of brambles and grass – genuinely impenetrable, so house fixing was suspended again to tackle the blackcurrant menace. After several days of vigorous hacking, we could finally access most of the garden, a few of the trees were seriously choked with ivy and brambles. (still an issue). Our big fig tree had blackcurrants at it’s crown.

I was thinking about ordering some turf to create a lawn on the upper level, but after a couple of days of rain, in October, we suddenly had a lush green lawn! Seems like Spring. - had to dig the lawn mower out.

Oh, and I found a 1 meter long snakeskin in the garden, on a patch of grass that I had mowed, so at most 2 days old.

Not seen the snake, but seriously poisonous snakes are rare, so probably not a problem – probably… (another chance to earn points)

We have 3 peach trees, an orange tree, a fig tree and two fig saplings, A tree that I don’t recognise, no blossom of fruit that we noticed, but it is choked by ivy, and strangely, 4 small oak trees. Why oak? Acorns are not much use, Cork harvesting is not viable on a small scale. Some other harvest-able fruit trees would make more sense.

Some kind neighbour secretly harvested our figs for us. Understandable I guess. The peaches were not very good, we didn’t look after them, or protect them from pests, so the bugs had a feast. We salvaged a couple of edible peaches but didn’t bother picking the rest. I suspect that a neighbour noticed the peaches apparently going to waste, and chose to save the figs from the same fate.

We decided to tackle the rampant ivy that was invading the orange tree via much larger tree that had fallen against it some years ago. Disassembling the broken tree was a major task. Oddly, our house does not have a fireplace or chimney, so now we have a lot of wood which could have kept the place warm in winter.

There is a chimney in the kitchen, but no fireplace.

So, The house.

We have a 220V supply limited to 3.4kw. To upgrade, we first have to get a technical certificate issued by a qualified Portuguese electrician stating that the home installation is able to handle the increased power, Ours isn’t. Some of the cables are fabric covered, with failed insulation (guess how I know).

All the existing cables are external. Lights and power socket are all on the same circuit, clipped to skirting boards and door frames. It looks as though the house had gas lights at one time - presumably before electrickery invaded the valley. We still have part of a gas light fitting on one wall, and marks from the gas pipe. I suspect that one light was retained until this new fangled system had proved reliable. Regulations now require that all cables run in conduits buried in the walls. I got a few quotes for a complete rewire of a 4 bedroom house.

When I had recovered from the shock (pun intended), I crossed professional rewire off the options list. Current plan is to do the rewire myself – to Portuguese standards, and then get a qualified electrician to inspect it and issue a certificate. I still haven’t found the standards in English, and Portuguese translated by Google is too risky, so no progress there yet.

The final decision for home heating was air conditioners for the rooms, and an electric thermo-accumulator (insulated pressurised hot water tank with immersion heater) for the water.

All the plumbing has been replaced and the thermo-accumulator installed (though not yet tested). The laundry room/second bathroom is still using the old plumbing until we replace the toilet and washbasin, which won’t happen until the main bathroom is functional.

Kitchen.

Found a bargain online, so rented a van and drove down to the south coast to collect it. Three guys loaded the van in about 25 minutes. First mate and I unloaded the van in about 4 hours. We managed not to break anything, even when my fingers failed and I dropped a granite worktop on my foot. I was hobbling for a while and it was still sore 4 weeks later. That is not as silly as managing to drop a heavy chisel on my head! I left it on the top step of a very tall step ladder, and forgot it was there when I moved the ladder.

Funny thing, there were 3 guys working on a new build house opposite when we went to get the longest section of worktop from the van (3 meters) – they disappeared when we started to unload it. Another odd thing is that our kitchen is not quite rectangular – it is a parallelogram with angles of 92.5 and 87.5. This only becomes apparent when trying to fit a kitchen.

It’s beginning to look kitcheny

Yet another odd thing is that the kitchen floor is vaguely dome shaped. It obviously wasn’t always like this, because the kitchen floor tiles seem to have been laid on large rectangular (presumably concrete) rafts. At the doorways the kitchen floor is level with the external floor, but then slopes up toward the centre. Our rafts are flat but not level with noticeable gaps and height differences. The floor seems solid, so what could cause the floor to rise in the centre? The obvious first choice that the walls have subsided was quickly eliminated. Some of the walls are build directly on bedrock, so could not subside. If other walls did, there would be some significant and visible cracks. It seems unlikely that all the walls would subside at the same rate.

What could cause the floor to rise? Gas seems unlikely. Tree roots? No big trees close, and I doubt they could tunnel under walls without causing visible damage. The ground level outside the kitchen is lower then the kitchen floor by 1m on one side and 2m on the other. Hydraulic pressure? Possible, the well is right next to the kitchen, but the water level is much lower than the floor, and as the house is on a sloping site, that also seems unlikely.

The capped well next to the kitchen wall, and the water level is below ground level. The kitchen floor height is within a centimetre or so of the boundary between the brick shaped tiles, and the cement plastered wall. It seems unlikely that water is accumulating under the kitchen floor.

The bathroom has been the biggest job so far. The position of everything has been changed, so the old solid floor had to be destroyed to run new drains for the shower, toilet, bidet and washbasin. The walls had to be destroyed to remove the old steel pipes and fit new multilayer pipes.

I was originally intending to keep one tiled wall and stick new tiles on top, but decided against that. I later realised that the internal bathroom walls are actually slightly curved, and rectifying that was a major task.

A flat(ish) bathroom wall!!

The floor and walls are now fixed and flat except for the shower door area. The big delay is the shower door which is out of stock, and the delivery date is constantly being pushed back. I really need that to finish the walls, because the shower door is the full width of the bathroom. The distance between walls in the shower is 2cm less than outside. As things stand, I can adjust the position of the door. to whatever looks best. I would rather make the walls to fit the shower door rather that have to modify the door or walls later.

An issue that is more serious than I originally thought is a sloping floor in the main corridor. One side of the corridor is 5cm lower than the other at one point. This has been caused by the internal stone wall that has been built on a woefully inadequate sagging wooden beam. This has caused the internal wall to pull away from the main house wall.

In this pic you can see the gap increasing upwards up to the point where the gap was previously filled, and has continued pulling away, or rather tilting away.

The only solution is to build a supporting wall in the cellar, but to do that I would have to demolish the internal wall, and that wall supports the ceilings on both sides. The cellar has a concrete floor. I don’t know how thick the concrete is or what is beneath it, but I would replace the wall with a timber and plaster board (dry wall) construction which would be much lighter. I estimate current weight is about 3 tones. Or maybe not replace it at all if I can support the ceiling from above. I would rather not have a visible supporting beam.

While we are in the cellar, I should explain the title. We have an occasional stream in our cellar. The house is mainly built directly on the bedrock, When there is a prolonged period of rain – enough to saturate the soil, but unable to penetrate the underlying rock. a small stream flows ‘into’ the building (over the exposed rock in the cellar) and down a gully (last chance to earn points ;-)

youtube

The pic at the top was cut from this

..taken from the other side of the valley.

And this is from google earth, but is several years out of date

The trees shown in that pic don’t match what is there now.

This gives a good idea of the slope we are on, and though it looks like a cute little bungalow,

Update, the thermo-accumulator has been tested, and works better than expected. Water is still hot after 48 hours without power, and luke warm after 72 hours

Update 2, our single breaker tripped a few days ago when not under load. I needed to do some electrical stuff, so wanted the power off. I pressed a button marked “T”, which I assumed was test – nothing happened. I flipped the main breaker and completed the work. Switched it back on, and the fuse thing tripped a few minutes later. I reset it and no further problems, but looked at the box. It was marked 25A. Hmm, 25A * 220V = 5500W. I believed the electricity company when they informed me that I was limited to 3.4 kw, and I was making sure that we didn’t exceed that, I have since proved that we can exceed 4.5kw without issues.Stupid weather. Now just 1 week until December. Grass is still growing vigorously, small mosquitoes in the garden are still biting furiously, rain is falling continuously. Still the same in January, except no rain, just brilliant sunshine.

Asymptotically tending...

Saturday 13/07/2019. A momentous day. I took a shower! Showering in itself is not that unusual, I shower every month, whether I need it or not;-) This was a momentous day because it was my first shower in my as yet incomplete new bathroom, and by new, I mean new. New concrete floor, new drains, new plumbing, rebuilt walls, new floor and wall tiles, new toilet-bidet-sink, new mirror, new electrics, new ceiling, new doorway, new window, and incomplete because the last 4 items are not yet installed.

Funny thing about the bathroom mirror, it is of the “blue touch” type. It has a permanently illuminated blue circle – very useful at night, which can be touched to turn the built in lights on, or off and cycle through the lighting options. Made in China. On the box, it proclaimed blue tooth – silly Chinese. Obviously never heard of Blue Touch, so assume it was an error and helpfully corrected it for the manufacturer, except that after it was installed, I discovered that my phone can connect to it and play music. (apologies China) Also, when the lights are on, a heating element demists the central part of the mirror. Neither of these functions were on my list of essential features for a mirror.

The main problem has been the size of the house – 188 square meters – over 2000 square feet, and apart from the kitchen, the ceilings are over 3.5 meters (12 feet) high. Actually, the real problem has been underestimating the amount of work required, overestimating my skill and ability, and working around the lack of specialised tools.

So, it is now 2020. Time for an update. Progress has been slow. It is 1 year and 11 months since we bought the house. My initial estimate of 2 months to make it habitable is just a vague memory. The deeper I dig, the more I find that needs fixing. The termite damage that I though was confined to skirting boards proved to be more extensive. The schist stone construction is great for plants and small animals. It is like a dry stone wall, but the inside spaces are packed with soil. Where I replace termite terminated wood, I use concrete if possible.

In October, I visited the local health centre. I needed a medical to apply for a Portuguese driving license. I had been registered there for 3 years, but this was my first visit. While I was there, I was interrogated about my medical history, got measured, got a flu jab in one arm, and a tetanus jab in the other. Gluteus maximus, was untroubled. I have no idea if this is now the norm, or another Portuguese idiosyncrasy. Passed the driving test bit with no problems, amazingly, my eyesight was classed as perfect, but blood pressure was ridiculously high, looks like I will be on medication for a while. I was sent for chest X-rays, blood tests, I wore a heart monitor for 24 hours, and later, a blood pressure sampler for 24 hours. That machine squeezed my left bicep every 20 minute during the day, then allegedly every 30 minutes at night, but I don’t know for sure, because it didn’t wake me up. I also had a session on a treadmill whilst wired to monitoring equipment. On my last visit to the Doc, I was told that heart and lungs were fine. My blood test results went missing somewhere, so I had to go to the lab and get them printed again. Steamed open the envelope that I have to deliver to the doctor, and checked. Cholesterol 188?? I should be dead. Checked the units – seems that EU and US have a different set of units to those in the UK, so divide by 40ish gives 4.7. He lives – again!

The flu jab seems to have been a waste of time though. I was stuck down with a severe case of man flu over Christmas and New Year.

Only those who have lived through man flu can appreciate the heroic efforts I must have made to cook a full Christmas dinner, including Christmas pud. I didn’t get round to making mince pies until New Years day though. That did give the mincemeat a little extra maturing time – 800% extra.

Highlights of 2019?

1) Transporting a new double bed and mattress and wife to the house completely inside a Fiat Punto – just the normal hatchback version, with all widows and doors closed!

2) Successfully gluing 8 pieces of broken granite counter top (kitchen worktop) back into 1 piece. (there was no way I would have been able to match the colour)

Spanish windlass in action.

So, we now have a basic but working bedroom, and have stayed over a few nights, we have a fully functioning kitchen and bathroom, but still lots of very dusty jobs to do before we can take up residence.

I received my Portuguese “Carta de Condução” a few days before Christmas. It took just under 2 months to arrive, which is very fast compared to times reported by the expats in the Algarve. It does involve Portuguese IMT communicating with UK DVLA to cancel my UK licence before a Portuguese version can be issued.

This was something I had to do, for two reasons.

1) To legally hold a UK licence, I must have a UK address.

2) To legally drive in Portugal for longer than 3 months, I need either an EU licence which has to be registered with the Portuguese Authorities every 2 years, or a Portuguese licence.

As it was looking increasingly as though my UK EU licence would cease to be an EU licence, I jumped before I was pushed. Exchanging a non-EU licence for a Portuguese licence generally involves retaking a driving test, and a separate test for bikes, and a separate test for towing, which are only conducted in Portuguese.

I also renewed my passport online at the same time, which was processed very quickly. Perhaps because I waited 1 month to send my old passport back. However, DHL failed to deliver it on 3 occasions. I guess the driver just looked at the street name and thought “I know where that is” and went to the wrong street in the wrong town. I used the house address for the passport, because I had no idea how long it would take. I had to use the apartment address for the driving licence, because that is my registered address at IMT.

During the height of summer, we were surrounded by forest fires – not close enough to be scary, and we are far enough from the trees to satisfy our insurance company. There are, I think, about 12 water bombing planes in Portugal, and 4 of them were doing circuits and dumps (anyone?) loudly over our house for a few days.

There were some local road and expressway closures, and when reopened, evidence of major conflagrations on both sides, but as far as I am aware, locally, damage was restricted to vegetation.

Portugal is an odd country in many ways. Soon after we moved into the apartment, we found that there was a LIDL closer to us that the store that we had been visiting. So, we made that our local. Cheddar cheese from there is acceptable quality, and half the price of cheddar from the supermarkets. Man cannot live without cheese on toast! Also, IMHO, their croissants are superior to those purchased from E. LeClerk or Auchan. Anyway, I digress. Travelling to and from LIDL, we used to often pass a woman who appeared to be living in a Ford Transit (or similar) she seemed to spend most of her time sitting in a camping chair watching the traffic. I guessed this was the result of a breakup or a death. She was a fairly ordinary middle age specimen, somewhat overweight, and not well dressed.

When we drove to the beach though, we would sometimes pass aged grannies sitting on plastics stools, presumably abandoned by their families, who considered them too doddery to trudge through the pine forest collecting cones, firewood, mushrooms and stuff. This seemed to be common. It wasn’t until we traveled further afield, along roads more used by truckers, that the ladies sitting at the sides of the roads became younger, more provocatively dressed, and all seemed to have orange skin, like Donald Trump, or like original Star Trek aliens. Then the Euro cent dropped. Not sure about the grannies, however, we often pass an orange skinned granny, though it seems that she is only there when there is no competition. Holidays, Sundays – bad weather etc.

Pet Peeves.

1)Expressways!

There is not much wrong with the expressways as such, but the sliproads (on/off ramps) seem to have been added as an afterthought, or without any thought at all.

As an example, here are two junctions I use frequently.

The north/south expressway is the A1, the main (and only practical) route to drive between Lisbon and Porto. The east/west A25 expressway heads across the border, towards Madrid.

I approach this junction from the top right on a sharpish right hand bend, which prevents me from reaching a safe joining speed. The trees on my left prevent me from seeing approaching traffic, and the slip road is only 65m long, and even that requires use of the shoulder.

What makes it worse, is that 80m further on is the exit slip to join the A1 in both directions, so vehicles intending to take that route are unwilling to move into the adjacent lane to give joining traffic some space.

The next example is in the centre of Porto. Again, I approach from the top right. A 2 lane slip road, which becomes 1 lane. This section is always busy, that is at the time I use it. The slip road is from the A28 expressway which runs north from Porto, and I am joining the A1 again, which here forms part of the Porto inner ring. I have usually queued on the A28 for 20 minutes to get here. With bad timing, that can be much longer.

I am trying to match the speed of the traffic on the A1, while watching for cars merging from the right. The evil designers plan here, was to make this entry slip road also function as an exit slip road. So some vehicles on the A1 are slowing down to try to move onto the slip road, and other vehicles on the slip road have no intention of joining the A1, but are heading for the exit.

The final example is just stupidity. Again the A1. This pic has been rotated 90 degrees, so north is on the right. Heading south on a 3 lane expressway, you arrive at a junction. Conventional exit, 3 lanes continue. Just before the southbound traffic from the junction tries to join, the 3 lanes are reduced to 2, then the joining traffic has to squeeze onto an expressway which is suddenly 50% busier, and drivers who found themselves suddenly without a lane are trying to settle into their new spot and not worrying about joining traffic. Sometimes vehicles unable to find a gap are forced off the expressway and onto the slip road. The problem is not the reduction to two lanes, but where the reduction is located.

Finally, the cost. Almost all expressways have tolls. The quickest route from apartment to house (according to google) incurs a cost of €3.1 That is €31 per week if we go there and back on 5 days, and that is in the cheapest car class. When I rented a van to collect the kitchen, I racked up tolls of almost €200 over a weekend.

Pet Peeve 2 – Import duties.

Before we moved to Portugal, I bought a UK registered Left hand drive Freelander, thinking that I could just switch the registration to Portuguese when I arrived. Yes I could, but I would have to pay taxes of €12000. Used cars incur the same tax as new cars. Portugal has been told by the EU that this is illegal, but refuses to change. The cost of cars in Portugal is astronomical, so old cars are still valuable and are still kept running. If Portugal was forced to change, the price of used cars would collapse. Imports of goods from outside the EU have severe problems getting through Portuguese customs. They are frequently held up for months an incur significant charges, such that many people just refuse to pay.

I have just informed our landlord that we will leave in 2 months time, so that is how long we have to get everything ready. When we move in, there will still be a lot to do. I have a plan to fix the sagging wall (see blog). I found a problem with the river that runs through it (see blog) the stream exits the house though a tunnel in the wall. One day after heavy rain the previous day, the stream was insignificant, but the water was deep in the tunnel. I had no idea where the water goes when it flows out of the building, the exit is below ground level. I poked the hole with a sharp stick, and hit fairly solid stuff. Another job for the to do list. A few days later, heavy rain again, I wandered out to inspect it. Our tarmac driveway is on the other side of the wall, and there, a spring had sprung. Water was bubbling up through the tarmac driveway. I dug down to the stream where it exited the tunnel, and the was no indication of any other route that the water could take. There is no immediately obvious solution to this problem, so a bout of pondering is required. Sump and pump would probably be the easiest. If the water is raised by 1m I could pipe it to a drain, but I would much rather have a non-electromechanical solution if one can be found. I would never trust my boat to an automatic bilge pump. Though the house won’t sink, it could be damaged if a pumping system fails to operate.

The house has no heating yet, although we do have 3 portable electric heaters, and 2 portable gas heaters. I am flip flopping over systems – burning wood or pellets, oil, LPG, air conditioners, heat pump, …

Underfloor heating is not an option, the house has a mix of solid and wooden floors. I realise that in itself would not preclude underfloor heating, but it would complicate installation.

Wall insulation is not an option. The house is externally tiled, the walls are 60cm thick (that’s 2ft in old money), there is no cavity, and internal insulation would require drastic remodelling.

Double glazing is not an option, it would not suit the house, all the main house windows are 2m tall and 1m wide however, our internal shutters should achieve the same goal, if they can be made to seal effectively. However we did survive winter living on the boat in Preston with no effective heating – any attempt at heating resulted in torrents of condensation. However, the internal temperature never went below +3.

The last two years have been intense. I didn’t realise what the effect had been on me until I compared two virtually identical before and after photographs of myself.

Before…

And after.

I have similar pics showing the effects on the wife, but I doubt I would survive the consequences of including them here.

One theoretical benefit of the location of the house is the proximity of the only ski resort in Portugal – 2 hours drive. At virtually 2000m above sea level, snow should be guaranteed.

This is what it should look like.

And this is a live webcam feed.

We have only ventured up the mountain once – about 3 years ago, in late spring, and there was still deep snow in places sheltered from the sun.

I had marmalade on toast for breakfast this morning – homemade organic marmalade, made from homegrown oranges :-). Organic, because we have ignored the garden, not because I have strong pro-organics sentiment. This was just a trial run – our oranges are not traditional sevilles, much smaller and sweeter, I had to tweak the recipe – drastically reduced sugar, so just one test jar. Not quite Golden Shred, but better than acceptable. Not bad for my first attempt.

I had an appointment scheduled in Aveiro hospital on the 18th of January, which was about the time we would normally head back to China for lunar new year. I didn’t want to postpone, and I didn’t want to make any travel plans until I had the results - which as it transpired were OK. If it had not been for that procedure, we would have been in China now. Then, because of the Wuhan Coronavirus, I would probably have been shipped back, and the wife would not have been allowed to leave.

We have a local railway station - 2.6km from the house, but I could not find a timetable for the trains, because there are none. The route is interesting, because it follows the ground contours, even in the hilliest parts of the route. No deep straight cuttings, viaducts, bridges or embankments, though there are a couple of tunnels. It seems that a few years ago, some bad weather damaged part of the track, causing the company to impose a 30km/h speed limit. More bad weather dropped the speed limit to 10km/h, then to 0. The middle third of the line is closed, and that section includes our local station.

The eagle eyed amongst you might notice a red light on the right of the picture. We have on 3 occasions seen a train on the closed section of track. I guess there is only one maintenance depot. The exceptionally eagle eyed might notice that the track looks a little odd. That is because it is meter guage, 1.0m width. Normal tracks are 1.435m. Consequently, our line does not join with the national network. Our trains don’t fit on normal tracks, and normal trains don’t fit on our tracks. I believe that the railway company is unwilling to spend much money on repairs, and unfortunately the trains are not pretty - 2 car diesel electric, decorated in unimpressive graffiti, bought used for not much money from an East European country (Poland?) that had no further use for them.

As the Portuguese crow flies, it is 40km between the two extremities of the line, both coastal, but the track does head inland, and meanders from village to village, so the track length is much greater, almost 100km.

We tried the train once, from Aveiro to Sernada do Vouga, a little over 1 hour and 18 stations, followed by a stroll through the hills and forest to the house, a lot over 1 hour. We went back to Aveiro by bus.

It is January here - like everywhere else. We have bunches of narcissus and lilies in flower.

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