33:42N 8:58W motorsailing SW bout 7knots, wind on starboard very light.
Might make Marcel's wednesday am flight at this rate, but a night out in
Calero on Tuesday evening is looking unlikely.
Marcel caught a fish today, gold and blue dolphin fish, dorado, mahi-mahi I
think it's all the same thing. I filleted it and cooked the Famous Mojomo
Fish In Cider recipe, and Marcel was blown away. Hah! However, my hands
still stink of fish even after washing them four times.
Friends back in mainland Spain seem to be keeping up with this, and I've
been email/texted asking if we have "any gossip". Yeah right, we've got
loads of gossip out here in the middle of the sea. Actually there is a
teensy bit of gossip, about the small bird that arrived on the boat. Not
really gossip I spose, just that a tiny bird arrived, bout 3-4 inches long,
like a baby Robin cept yellow bits instead of red. It was fine with us but
frantically worried about the cruisy seabirds, much bigger, and went hopping
about madly if any appeared. Small Bird spent the afternoon hiding on a rail
under a fishing reel. I tried to feed it some biscuits, then some water,
and bits of fish, but it wouldn't eat. A few hours later it flew off to
another blimmin boat - big ship came past and off it went! The ungrateful
git! There again, I have heard from some very experienced sailing types that
it's not always a good idea to have birds on boats.
The liftout in Calero is to let us fit the new rudders. There's a slight
vibration from the starboard rudder and the manufacturers said the new
rudders would be free! So hurrah for Alliaura, who originally built Mojomo
about four years ago. I picked up the rudders in France in August, and
painted them in coppercoat when whilst in Gibraltar.
Mostly though, the boat is fine and ready to make a transatlantic trip
pretty much anytime. Okay, there's a few other bits and pieces I need to
do, such as fitting the new anchor lightbulb, replacing the vhf aerials,
fitting bumpstops to the dinghy so it can be carried on the foredeck,
recaulking the deck and table a bit, splitting the port engine/gearbox to
fix a gearbox oil leak, servicing the starboard wc which isn't working as
well as it might, replacing some taps and door handles which have gone manky
in damp sea air, replacing the less accessible anchor winch motor brushes, a
major water pump service on the generator, sorting out the boom shackles,
and the sailbag, perhaps upgrading the sound system a bit, and fitting
better reflective material for the saloon windows. Other than that,
absolutely nothing at all needs doing.
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