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Persistent Lady - Tuesday, June 17 2014



Just finished cleaning up the galley. Sherrin made an apple coffee cake during her morning watch and today is my day for KP duty. So far she is doing a great job of ‘using every pot in the kitchen’ as Poppa used to accuse Kris of, back in the day. Just kidding dear, only making a little joke, no harm intended, just trying to provide a little levity for the reading audience (I know she can do more damage than that if she is provoked!).

There may be no better way to start your day than a cup of coffee, a little coffee cake, and the sea breeze blowing through the cockpit. Well, two out of three is not bad. No sea breeze, just the sound of the diesel engine pushing us along at 6 knots toward our destination. Chris Parker really nailed it when he cautioned us to reserve enough fuel to motor the last two days; no wind at all, the sea is just a series of ripples, flat horizon, no ups and downs, just a flat plane.

Jake has now convinced me that we have plenty of fuel, no need to be concerned (after the third time he read the tank and got a good answer, even I have to say we are probably OK on fuel). Just don’t want to be stranded again 35 miles from our destination with no wind; we were lucky enough to get another sailboat to tow us in to the Azores, don’t want to repeat that in Gibraltar. He and I took a look at the anchor windlass; both of us know a little about electrics and we thought we would trace the wires and probably find the problem. No luck, we traced the wires and found all the controls that would raise or lower the anchor, but no power source for the windlass. So we determined that the windlass and the bow thruster must share the same power cable; kind of makes sense, you would not typically use both at the same time and the cable for these things is very expensive. Since they are next to each other in the bow, makes sense to share the power run. Unfortunately, although we could find the cable for the thruster, we saw no way to switch it over to the windlass, and unpacking the entire forepeak to inspect is just too much to do underway if you don’t really need to, which we don’t. We are coming into a marina, so won’t need to anchor and will get it taken care of by the yard staff.

We figure to arrive at the entrance to the straits about 4:00 or 5:00 AM Thursday. It is very light by 5 and that will give us adequate light to enter the straits and come into the marina during their normal business hours in broad daylight. It will be Med style mooring, where you back down to the dock and either drop an anchor to keep you off the quay or take a couple mooring lines and make them fast to your bow. The marinas we are looking at coming into all have lines to take so we won’t need to anchor (we could anchor manually, we have done that a few times, but a lot of effort). The problem with the Med moor is that you have to back about 4 – 5 boat lengths and take the mooring lines to your bow at the same time. The lines are usually tied to a float in the water and you grab them with the boat hook as you back past them. Not nearly as easy as it sounds, and on top of that a full keel boat does not back well at all. Mine ‘walks’ to Starboard as it backs and there is usually not much room between boats as you back in; requires lots of fenders. There is also the issue of picking up both port and starboard side lines with only one boat hook. The Med moor usually provides a lot of entertainment to those on shore. Better get used to it, they don’t call it the Med Moor for no reason!!!

Don’t forget about our website, ‘jimandsherrin.com’ it will be updated with pictures and more blogs soon after we arrive in Gibraltar.

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