Not as it sounds

Mithril
Dawn A Cooper
Sun 1 Nov 2009 19:21

Leixos  41:11:129N  008:42:294

 

Its two thirty in the morning we have just arrived from Bayona, a seventy mile trip that has taken us about 18 hours. We left at eight in the morning and headed out into the Atlantic swell. 

 

The engine is a 85hp New Holland. Made by Ford and marinised by Lancing marine. Its is pretty big located in the centre of the boat and lovingly maintained by yours truly. It has two water separators and two fuel filters and an oil filter, all of which need cleaning/changing on a regular basis. Oh yes also two water intake filters that need cleaning after every excursion. Even though primarily we are sailing the engine get a lot of use and is essential getting in and out of harbor. I haven’t given it a name but it is my new best friend, looks after me most of the time but needs a lot of maintenance. Sometimes I just stare at it. Did I tell you it is blue all over and gets very hot, on top of which it has four fuel tanks that feed it. We carry 800 liters of diesel and this potentially will  go 800 miles.

 

Anyhow I cant get to sleep, cos when you have been at the helm most of the time you get into this groove of persuading yourself not too be sleepy and remain alert.  It takes me ages to  drop off after a night passage. Its like having drunk lots of coffee but haven’t.

Bringing the boat into the marina was trick, this is a big industrial port and about three miles out the radar picked up three islands which I hadn’t seen on the map. Closer inspection (ie Dawn) revealed that they were actually super tankers. On top there were large swells behind us which makes steering interesting as the waves push your back end out. And then a large dredger appeared to come in at the same time. All in all it was a bit scary, but then a nice Irish face appeared on dock (Paul) to take our warps and welcome us to Leixos



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