We're off again.
Mustique
Fin McGurran
Fri 9 Nov 2007 18:39
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Leg two of this journey has eventually started
(thank god), and we are on our way to Las Palmas!
Personally, I arrived back in Gibraltar on the 28th
October, in order to get the boat ready for the journey south - and just as well
that I did, as I encountered a number of problems that seem to take forever to
get sorted. I HATE GIBRALTAR! and thats official.
Firstly, the boat was absolutely filthy both inside
and outside - in spite of spending a whole day cleaning here when we left here
there. Gib is nothing more that one big building site, and the dust and
grime that this generates seeped in everywhere. So, once I had gotten her
clean again, I set about checking systems. On the first day, I blew all
the boats electrics - eventually this got traced back to a corroded electrical
joint behind the fuse panel. Took a little finding, but eventually managed
to get that rewired and replaced; then checked the engine, only to find that the
main starter switch had seized, and no, one could not be located in
Gibraltar. So, I had to spend a fortune on the phone back to the UK to
find one and have it sent to me via courier. Once I got that fixed
and working, then blew the 12 volt charging supply and again, had to locate that
and have it rewired. And to add insult to injury, as we were leaving the
pontoon this morning, found that I could not get the gear box to select drive -
we were going no-where. I nearly cried at the prospect of spending one
more minute in that hellhole that is Gibraltar. So, into the engine
compartment I went to trace the problem and eventually found it to be a sticky
cable end at the end of the morse control cable (accelator cable), where it
joins the gear box - got that sorted and left - we are now about 40 miles away
from Gib and just exiting the straits.
Sounds like I was pretty busy, but in actual fact,
this all took place over about 10 days with really long periods of just waiting
for stuff to arrive. During that time, I found Gib to be an awful place -
I honestly can find nothing to recommend the place, and I am so glad to be out
of there.
Will add more later as I'm cooking
tonght!
Fin
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