Tuesday 3rd November (Lini’s Journal)

Brindabella's Web Diary
Simon Williams
Sat 7 Nov 2009 11:10

 

   Woh! So that’s what a whole night’s sleep feels like! It took me a while to actually come round. Simon announced he was going to scrub the boat and closed all the hatches, so I thought it best to get on with some chores myself. Emptying out the saucepan cupboard I set about fixing up some straps to hold the silicone bun tins in place at the back, but my arms were too short to reach. Plan two – Velcro: What did we do without the stuff? It took a while and necessitated a crawl inside the cupboard on my back but job complete. Fixing strap plates for the Velcro straps I’d made before departure inside the main galley cupboard was a physical impossibility for me and I’m now faced with the big decision of whether to waste valuable storage space or ask Si to help knowing he’ll have a real fight with it and get very cross. His arms would be long enough to reach but he probably wouldn’t be able to see inside. I have two weeks to think about this one.

   The harbour is a busy little place with immaculately painted fishing boats to one side and small local boats to the other. A car ferry for Gran Canaria comes in daily along the breakwater and sailing boats come and go in the centre section. Our neighbours are a charter boat and two, half day trips went out today, each with half a dozen excited Germans. Behind us sits ‘Subcat’, a catamaran with a centre submarine section taking a coach load of visitors at a time for an underwater experience. Several dive boats went out this morning and by the slipway a coach load of very excited school children arrived and had a day on the water canoeing and sailing. Half a dozen jet skis practiced circling a buoy behind us then disappeared out of the harbour. J

  The marina in Las Palmas has 220 boats arriving soon, charges for electricity and water on the pontoons and the laundry is expensive. I thought it best to get ahead with the laundry now. Off came the sheets, up came the rugs, out came the dirties and by lunch time I’d washed everything in sight. It was a good drying day as Si would say and washing flew horizontally around the boat. We were going to go to the beach this afternoon but jobs went from one to the next with Si sorting the ends of ropes and setting up the intruder alarm and me finishing the mozi cover for the companion way and attaching Velcro to the sliding cover to fix it and the canvas cover I made for big seas breaking over our stern. I dug out the mozi cover Si bought for over the bed and tried to see how we’d fix it, then did a spot of baking and made an apple pie, quiches for dinner tomorrow and savoury biscuits with the pastry off-cuts to have with guacamole tonight.

   There was great excitement on our pontoon this evening when a fishing boat behind us returned with two ENORMOUS fish. They had a job finding somewhere high enough to set up the spring balance to weigh them. I was greatly envious after another failed attempt with my hand line yesterday. It took the skipper well into the evening to fillet them on the pontoon. Si picked up the fishing book!

   Heavy cloud and humid air came in tonight. I hope a change of weather isn’t on its way with an anchorage planned for tomorrow night.