This morning we got confirmation that ABT has shipped the broken part to their repair person in Mallorca. He will fly out to Gibraltar to fix the stabilizer next week after the part arrives. ABT has been great to work with.
Last night he found the number for the Shurflo manufacturer in England on the internet. He and called first thing this morning. They told him they only sell in bulk to distributors and gave him the number to their distributors in the UK and Spain. The UK distributor said to call the Spanish distributor in Barcelona. We tried, but they don’t speak English and we don’t speak enough Spanish to carry on a conversation. We went to the marina office to see if someone could call for us. No one on duty spoke Spanish, and they said to come back later.
Eric went back to the chandlery to buy different hose clamps, hoping maybe he could find ones that would fit better. He went to work on trying to beef up the connection so that the water pump we have is usable, this time using the new clamps and plumber’s tape. We are sad to report it is still leaking slightly. Here is a picture of his craftsmanship.
While Eric worked on the pump, Christi washed the boat (using the marina’s spigot). It was a windy day to start with, and while she was out there the wind picked up dramatically. Christi only got the boat about half way washed before the wind got too out of control to do and she had to stop. The wind has also switched directions, and we are definitely rocking much more than we were yesterday, but at least we aren’t smashed up against the dock anymore. Kosmos was putting so much pressure on the fenders that we feared they would pop.
While Eric was waiting for the cement to dry, he stopped by the marina office and was happy to find there was a Spanish speaker on duty. Yay! He pointed out that it was siesta time in Spain and the distributor would be closed. He told us to come back after 1600. Eric went back to calling stores for the part, still with no success. At 1600 he returned, as instructed, and the only Spanish speaker was gone. Sigh.
In the evening we went into town to do some more shopping. We bought a new camera. We’re sure you’ve noticed that for the last 2 ½ months all the pictures have been blurry, so the new camera is long overdue. It’s the third camera we have killed since we left on our journey. We are excited about this new one because it is a “durable camera” that can supposedly be dropped from 6 feet (2 meters) and stepped on by a 220 lb (100 K) person and still work. A camera that could survive us sounds too good to be true. We also went back to heaven, er, Mark’s and Spencer’s and got more groceries.
We went to dinner at an Indian food restaurant. The Indian food we had in Mallorca had been so good that we were craving more. This place didn’t disappoint. We got an appetizer called Harylai Paneer Tikka, which the menu describes as “Indian cottage cheese cubes and sweet peppers marinated with pickling spices & green herbs, baked in a tandoor oven.” Eric loved it. The peppers were cut into small pieces, and they were good, but there weren’t a lot of them. It was mostly cheese. Christi thought the cheese cubes were kind of rubbery, more like plain tofu in taste than cheese. We also got naan bread baked with coconut and raisins. It is sweet, but not overly so, and delicious.
We’ll take a moment to make some random observations. In Gibraltar, most everyone is bilingual, and we are amused because everyone speaks to each other in Spanglish. They intermix words from both languages, so a sentence sounds like “Hola! How estas today?”
The currency in Gibraltar is the Gibraltar Pound Sterling, which is exactly the same value as the British Pound Sterling, and it is apparently good only in Gibraltar and no where else. We think it is silly that this tiny little place has a separate currency. Gibraltar seems to think it is silly, too. They are happy to take Euro and English pounds. To them, money is money.
Gibraltar has the most visible Jewish community we have seen outside the US. We know that many places we have been to have thriving Jewish communities, but they aren’t particularly visible. Here many men wear yamulkas, there are Jewish delis and bakeries, and there is a general sense that the Jews are an integral part if the community. We have been really excited to be able to get good, cheap bagels. You can’t imagine what a luxury item bagels are. We have seen them only a handful of times around the world, and they are generally very expensive and not very good. We went to a restaurant in Malta that charged $9.00 USD for a bagel and cream cheese.
The EU has banned smoking in indoor public facilities. How well that is enforced varies from place to place, but it generally isn’t too smoky throughout most of Europe. Except for Spain and Gibraltar. The Spanish have no regard for the smoking ban at all. Every indoor table will have smokers at it.
We have complained a few times about small beverage sizes in Europe and Turkey. To be clear, Turkey serves non-alcoholic drinks in tiny glasses, like 6 ounces or possibly less. In most of the European countries we have been to, glasses are typically 8 ounces or so. In both places, if you order a bottle of water, you get a 16 ounce bottle, and if you specify large, you will get a liter bottle. Not in Gibraltar. A regular bottle of water is approximately 6 ounces and a large, if they stock large bottles, is 16 ounces. But the beers come in big glasses. It is kind of sad that we have to order 4 “regular” bottles of water to equal one beer. It shows what they value here.