Category Archives: Cruising Life

Describes an experience regarding the boating lifestyle of our travel.

Passage to Gibraltar Days 3-5

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Day 3

It was another relatively warm, sunny and beautiful day. At 1000, all was still status quo. The only change was that sometimes the wind would move to starboard aft corner for a while, but it usually stayed on the port aft corner. The wind speeds are consistently between 7 29 knots apparent, though they sometimes sit for a while at the higher end of the spectrum, and sometimes stay at lower end of spectrum for a while.

The waves were still big and lumbering, coming at us in long intervals, hitting primarily from the port aft quarter, which makes that terrible corkscrew motion. The waves definitely feel worse when the wind kicks around to the starboard, and the seas become mildly confused. It is still hard to Continue reading →

Stabilizers, Fuel, and Chores in Gibraltar

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Eric is starting to stress out about the Atlantic crossing. We were originally going to be here for only three days, leaving us lots of time in the Canaries to get things ready for the big crossing. Now, thanks to the stabilizer delay, it looks like we will only have a few days in the Canaries to get things ready. The “to do” list is long, and sadly, most of it is last minute stuff.

So, needless to say, yesterday and today have been chore days. The biggest and most important news is that ABT repair technician came today at about noon for the stabilizers. He was done by 1400. We now have a new hydraulic cylinder actuator. This time we Continue reading →

Day 3 of the Water Pump Saga

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We are happy to report that today was sunny with calm winds. The marina is calmer, which is nice. We like calm days.

Eric went to the marina office as soon as it opened, where a Spanish speaker was on duty and happy to help. Yay. He called and found out that the distributor did carry the part, but absolutely would not sell to us direct. We had to go through a retail store, and they didn’t volunteer any information as to what store we might be able to find their product in. Our nice translator didn’t seem to want to call back to press them on the retail store locations.

Yesterday, the clerk at the Gibraltar chandlery suggested that we go to a nearby chandlery in Spain, just a 15 minute away, and ask them to order it for us. They would be able to get it sent from Barcelona via overnight express with no customs issues. Now that we knew the distributor had the part in stock, we were happy to make the trip. We got directions, which were go out to the road, turn left, walk over the airstrip and you are at the border. Catch a taxi to the chandlery on the other side. We were kind of dubious, but the directions were accurate. You really do walk across the airstrip. Or drive across, if you are in a car. When a plane needs to land or take off, they just close the road for a few minutes. Seeing the wide open strip explains why the other day, we heard several announcements over a loudspeaker demanding that the car parked on the runway be moved now.

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One more block from the runway is the border. Crossing the border was Continue reading →

Water Pump Failure in Gibraltar

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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 →

Entering Gibraltar

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By 0200, we decided the wind was confused. It would pick up for a while, then die down for a while. It changed direction often, rotating from starboard to port and back. It was afraid to commit. Seas had picked up some more, but it was still nice ride overall.

By 0230, the seas really picked up out of nowhere and it started to get a little bit rough. If it were head seas, we would definitely be well into the “uncomfortable” category, but since they were following seas, and it was tolerable, but not fun. The stabilizers were Continue reading →