Hey, hey, very exciting we actually used our new boat, put the sails up and tacked and everything!  OK so we only went a few miles to Portimao and spent a single night at anchor now we are back in Lagos but that’s progress.  We are in the marina now rather than Sopromar yard because they finally kicked us off the waiting pontoon due to other boats needing the space.  Well after 3 months it was time!

 

It has been a week since I had my knee operation, turns out that I tore the miniscus cartilage so that kind of explains why it owched .  Anyway, crutches long behind me, I am mobile again and although it will take more time to get full strength and flexibility we are confident to get going now.  Except of course now we need to wait for some parts such is the life of a cruising yachtsman. 

 

I moved our watermaker because it had been installed in a stupid inaccessible place where to operate it one needed to lie down on ones back in the engine room, wiggle backwards through a slightly narrower than shoulder width hole to access the space beneath the swim platform, switch on the noisy water pumps and stretch to extreme far corner of the unit to adjust the pressure valve.  reverse the process to switch things off again.  Of course the previous owner probably didn’t have to contend with removing micro scooters and diving gear and spare bits of hose etc. before he could even see the machine but even so, puh.  So..  having uninstalled  and dragged it into the daylight I was able to see that it was still leaking after having been ‘refurbished’, seems that refurbished means cleaned in Portuguese.  Anyway, I’ve made a nice new home for it so that should reduce corrective adjustments at the chiropractor and now we just need a new gasket kit for the high pressure pump which will take some time, so we now wait for those parts.  Secondly we spotted another Salina in the marina a couple of weeks ago and he had a bimini around the helm station, it was always one of the weak points in the design of this boat as the helm is pretty exposed, this other one seemed to work pretty well so we decided to copy the idea.  So we took a ton of photos and have had a bimini frame built around the helm station, it’s done and now we need to wait for the canvas work which is why we are back in Lagos after our very brief escape – today the guy is coming to take a template and then we are off again avoiding marina fees until it is made.  OK so apparently now today is impossible,,, 55 euro totally wasted by coming here especially to get this measurement done,  grrr.. typical!  This is the first work we have had done outside of Sporomar and already there are problems.

 

So we finally had a test sail, off to Portimao we went and guess what, you can tack this catamaran!  Yeah we had to beat to windward to get there but it was a good test, 10 - 15 knots of wind and 1 metre sea was a decent start to our catamaran initiation.  The motion is weird, a little faster than on a monohull and seems a bit more hobby horsey or perhaps it’s the same but twice as often I am not decided on that yet.  Most notably there was none of whoa shit hold everyone the floor is 45 degrees and you have to use the loo on the starboard side right now and bugger I didn’t put the fruit away so now we have nine oranges rolling around and the floor looks like a pinball machine in crazy ball mode, and so the catamaran close hauled feeling is more of, well put it this way, a chap stick tube sat on it’s end on the bench for the whole trip, I think I might have a case of comma-itis so if you are reading this aloud you’ll be wanting a breath now.

 

We saw dolphins on our first outing and the girls all went up onto the trampoline to watch them playing on the bows, on the way back we saw a sea turtle, majestic little creatures they are, I recon that a sea turtle is the optimal example of a living creature at peace.

 

Asia, Aranya and Emily on dolphin watch.

 

One good thing has come of our extended stay, we have met another New Zealand cruising family with an eight year old, Emily.  So Emily has had a double sleep over already, been sailing with us and generally enjoying some kid time after a six week drought.  Our girls have not played with other girls since November so they are absolutely over the moon to have a new friend and hopefully we can work out some similar agenda for the summer to keep in touch. 

 

 

It takes a few days believe it or not for me to knock these things together, good news is that our watermaker parts have arrived and the mould has been made for the bimini.  So off to Portimao or Alvor for a couple of weeks now to properly test the gadgets, back for the bimini and then EAST EAST EAST!

Bimini mould done!