“43:10.22N 9:12.906W”

972 Miles since leaving Sandwich

4^th September 2022

Chris leaves us, waiting on spare parts and the weather in Caramarinas

The mechanic arrived yesterday at lunchtime as promised and gave our freezer compressor a good hard stare and a poke with a screw driver for good measure before agreeing with me that it was indeed broken. With the aid of the nice man in the British boat next door who spoke excellent Spanish we concocted a cunning plan. The mechanic took lots of pictures and then went away to find a replacement compressor. His estimate was, phone La Caruna on Monday / Tuesday, fit the part of Wednesday and we should be good to go on Thursday. If that happens and it is a big IF, it will be perfect as the weather is pretty lousy right through to Thursday. Chris left us yesterday afternoon after a really good lunch ashore. Again, great company and super crew he is definitely a keeper along with Shaun for the Atlantic crossing. That leaves one potential crew slot. I say potential as we are not particularly fussed if we fill it or not as the 4 shift worked pretty well and so we will only take another person on board if they are definitely the right fit for Spectra. Having said that Norma checks out crew seekers every couple of days just in case. We may look at taking a couple of people on board for the trip over to Morrocco and then to the Canary Islands but that’s too far in the future for me to worry about at the moment.

As we are weatherbound, I have started catching up on the chores. My regular servicing is all up to date but I do have a couple of breakages to sort out. The first was the bow thruster which failed when we came into La Caruna. I fixed it at the time by giving the wires a good wiggle and tightening up the connectors, but I noticed some scorch marks on the cable and so made a mental note to sort that out when I had some down time.  Down time has definitely arrived and so this morning I stripped the positive cable out of the forward locker and found a bit of a horror story. Loose connector plus salty environment = corrosion = heat = burnt wire, loose connector and broken fuse. See pictures below. I had a spare fuse and terminal for the wire and spent the morning stripping everything out re-terminating the cable and then putting it all back together again. Lunchtime now and I have a working bow thruster, shame it is windy with driving rain so we have nowhere to go.

One very burnt and buggered cable with a decidedly broken 425 Amp fuse.

I still have to fix the topping lift attaching point on the end of the main boom and the kicking strap plate where it ripped out of the mast but not in the rain me thinks. That’s it on a boring day on the pontoon so I will

fill up the space with some pictures that I forgot to add earlier and call it quits for the day

Spectra dressed all over in Dover marina for the Queens platinum Jubilee

Steve and Paul wading in the mud in Newtown Creek

Betty Norma’s Mum how we like to remember her.

The mizzen stay sail comes out of the bag for the first time in 5 years on the way to Newtown Creek

Spain is out there somewhere. Thick fog for the last 30 miles into La Caruna

Terry and Carol keep the red flag flying over La Caruna as Spectra sails by.

Norma Knox Johston fully kitted out in this year’s sailing regalia.

Lighthouse and cooling fans on the headland before Muxia

Big street party by night and bagpipes during the day to sooth the hangover as the Caramaninas Fiesta kicks into gear.

Before rain stopped play.