Day 7

Ariana
Tue 26 May 2009 16:28
Day 7
 
Had hoped to relay our departure from Bayona today but may have to stay another night as our mainsail is being repaired after suffering some damage crossing Biscay. Andreas has just left in a taxi to get it, but we've also taken the opportunity of getting a Volvo mechanic on board to service the engine and check out the wiring, as we get constant alarms for overheating, low battery and electrical failure. After a while we just ignored them, but the noise is getting on our nerves a bit so hopefully the loose wire he found will fix the problem.
 
We're also waiting for the laundry to be finished after siesta time. Claus was not allowed to do it this time after his episode in Camaret when he took it all out of the washing machine and put it in the dryer.....which turned out to be another washing machine. Two hours and 7 Euros later he appeared with some VERY clean but slightly damp clothes. Anyway, at this moment he's doing his passage plan to Vilamoura as it's his turn to skipper us. Current forecast is for a force 6 tonight then dropping to almost nothing, so looks like we're going to need that engine.
 
The fishing gear has been replaced, since after catching the monster 14" mackerel, we couldn't figure out why we were hooking fish which then dropped off before we got it into the boat. Hauling it in just before coming into port we discovered that the hooks had corroded to almost nothing after 3 days in the water, so now we've got some serious heavy duty spinners and line like a mooring rope! There's supposed to be some great tuna fishing off the Portuguese coast.
 
We'll update the position indicator on the blog site, but for those of you who have Google Earth, it's 42 deg 07'.23N, 008 deg 50'.62W.
 
As we have wifi email in the marina, Andreas is going to try and upload our photos so far, as inserting them into the blog didn't work. We'll confirm if successful.
 
The crew