Today was another cold, windy day with scattered showers.
In the morning, Eric upgraded the software on our website. And, of course, a host of things stopped working. So he wound up spending most of the day fixing the problems. When everything was finally working again, he Continue reading
Yesterday and today were chore days. Yesterday’s big task was installing the new 5.7 water pump. It was a quick and easy install. All worked great, and Eric and Colin were proud of themselves. Until an hour later when the pump died. After a quick troubleshoot, it was clear that the fuse connector was loose. With a quick squeeze of the pliers to make the connection tighter, the problem was instantly solved. They also cleaned the AC water maker. Today’s big project for the men was to change the oil on the main and repack the lazarette. Of course, the lazarette had to be unpacked to access the water pump. Eric also removed another smelly pad from the bildge, so hopefully our smell is gone for good now.
Christi has been doing spring cleaning. Knowing nothing will be cleaned for three weeks, she wants to get as everything as clean as possible before we go.
The other important thing is we went through all the emergency and safety gear on board. We made sure everyone knew exactly what we have and where it is located. This was a good review for Eric and Christi. Since we never use those things, it is easy to forget about them. We also reviewed emergency plans.
We are ashamed to admit that Continue reading
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 Continue reading
This morning, Christi went to wash the dishes. She turned on the sink and no water came out. Uh oh. After checking a few things, Eric deduced the water pump had died. Thank God it happened on shore and not out at sea. Here, it is an inconvenience. We can use the marina’s toilets and showers, and buy bottled water until it is fixed. And it is easy to fix when the boat isn’t moving. At sea, it would be a nightmare. Yes, there are ways to tap into the water tanks or watermakerbut it is awkward and tricky when the boat is moving. We’d have to give up showers until it was fixed. And, since the pump is in the lazarette, we wouldn’t be able to work easily on it unless the seas were calm enough that water wouldn’t be coming over the cockpit walls into the lazarette.
We decided to go out for breakfast, knowing we’d deal with the situation better on a full stomach. Ahhh, it is such a wonderful luxury to go out to breakfast. We think we mentioned this in Australia, but a traditional English breakfast is Continue reading
Continued from yesterday”¦ As we were getting ready to go out, we could hear a bunch of planes taking off and landing. And they were loud. This tiny airport can’t possibly have this much traffic, and certainly not big planes. Eric poked his head out and saw a new super high powered state of the art jet fighter doing acrobatics. It would take off, do trick in the air, then land, then repeat. Eric watched for a while. Here is a shot of the waterfront as we were leaving Kosmos to get some lunch.
Eric was delighted to see a Mexican restaurant on the boardwalk. He thought Mexican food was the ideal way to celebrate our passage completion. We are sad to report that Continue reading