Tenerife getting ready to go

“28:01.207N 16:36.289W”

Still 2,470 Miles since leaving Sandwich

30^th  December 2022

After our Christmas dinner and a good night’s sleep the daily routine quickly re-established itself. Petr left us on the morning of the 28^th and Jan moved 20 meters up the pontoon onto another boat later on the same day. He was quite lucky finding a French charter company that offered him a bed on a boat in return for his maintenance efforts on their yachts. That left Norma and myself one whole day before Hannah moved aboard and we started the process of getting ready for sea again. I decided the 29^th would be a maintenance day and the first problem to solve was a big one in that our engine bilge was filling with water at an alarming rate. Yes, we were slowly sinking at our mooring. I had several suspects in mind including, the stern gland, the saltwater deck pump, the old freezer cooling coil inside one of the sea cocks and the big manual Whale bilge pump. I went round each in turn and eventually eliminated each one except for the bilge pump. I found that as the outlet is at the water line any damage or failure on the pump internal valves could allow water to backfill into the boat as she rolled in a seaway and that was exactly what was happening. I have now closed the seacock thereby blocking any further ingress of water and that is the problem fixed for a while at least. I have a secondary manual bilge pump and an electric one, so we are still as well covered as most yachts in that department. In fact, I think that the next time that we are lifted out I will remove that waterline seacock, (stupid place to put a bilge pump outlet anyway) and glass over the hole. That will be one less possible source of leakage for the future, it will also give us a bit more storage space below the floor in the starboard cabin once I have consigned the Whale pump to the skip.

I also made a webbing strap for the main topping lift boom attachment as the old one rattled in a seaway and one for the gybe preventer on the mizzen. Another little job that needed to be done was to fit a shock absorber onto the main sail kicking strap. Again, in a seaway the old system rattled and banged too much for my sanity. Now with a rubber shock absorber I’m hoping that this will be cured, time will tell. Below I have serviced all of the seacocks, cleaned the water maker filters and given the engine a right old going over. As I was now in full on fix everything mode, I also made new restraining lines for the fishing rods and a new wooden rail in the aft heads which replaces the horrible net that we used to keep the shampoo bottles and potions in place on the shelf. 

Norma has meanwhile been sorting the boat out and producing the mother of all shopping lists for the next leg of our journey. We did manage a farewell lunch with Jan at the pancake restaurant on the seafront. The food was very good, but the service was chaotic resulting in a 4-hour meal. Actually, it was quite good fun in a Basil Fawlty kind of way and to be honest we had nothing else to do at that time but sit back and enjoy the floor show.

Hannah has already fitted in with the Spectra routine. Today Norma and Hannah went for a marathon shopping trip to stock the boat up for the next crossing. We now have every nook and cranny on the boat stuffed with foodstuff and only the last quick shop for fresh fruit etc and we will be ready for the big off. As of 2100 tonight we have a full crew again with the arrival of Shaun and Rob. Unfortunately, they were unable to get the exit stamps on their passports at the airport and will now have to travel to Santa Cruz tomorrow to get stamped out. Norma and Hannah don’t need to as they have Irish and Belgium passports respectively and I don’t need a stamp out as I wasn’t stamped in. It is very hard to get clear advice on what you have to do, basically everyone is keen to say they can’t stamp the passports but while insisting that they need to be stamped have no clear advice as to who will stamp them. Hopefully the marina at Santa Cruz will have the answer as that is the official port of entry/exit, tomorrow will reveal all.

If Shaun and Rob get back in time tomorrow, we may well leave then as there is nothing holding us back apart from the passports. If the guys get back in time and are still fresh and happy, I think that is what we will do.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings.