Arrival Lanzarote Thursday 27th November 2014
Kaimin
John & Pam Clarke
Thu 4 Dec 2014 12:17
We flew out to Kaimin in Castelsardo, Sardinia 4th November with the intension of sailing to Antigua in the Caribbean for Christmas, calling at Estapone , Spain and Lanzarote en-ruite to take on fuel and food.
We had left instructions for solar panels, new batteries and an upgrade on our chart plotting system to be installed whilst we were in the U.K.
We arrived on Kaimin early evening 5th November having last slept on the night of the 3rd. We'd had a ridiculous early morning flight from London Gatwick on the 4th and had driven down during the night, so we were looking forward to an easy meal and an early night.
When we arrived on Kaimin we found the new batteries had arrived but not been fitted and were scattered all over the boat twelve of them the size used on lorries and weighing in excess of 20 kilos each. There was also all the boxes that the solar panels had arrived in all over the table and beds and because the electronic system was not complete the panels of the boat were out all over everywhere making it impossible to eat or go to bed until it had been tided. John and Denzil started taking out the old batteries each one had to be carried up onto the deck and then ashore and replaced with one of the new ones, whilst I tried to clear the beds so we could sleep.
I can tell you we slept like babies that night and awoke refreshed and ready to victual the boat. Ricky our electronics wizard arrived to finish off the chart plotter upgrade and I did several supermarket shops to get all the food on board. Malcolm our friend from Scotland arrived who was sailing with us to Estapona.
At last everything is ship shape and were ready to go. We leave at 10.30 am on Monday 10th November. 2014 but its not long before we realise our newly updated chart plotter is not showing our GPS we certainly do not want to sail across the Atlantic without knowing our position. We need to get this fixed straight away.