36:08.940N 5:21.304W

Today was day 3 of bobbing around on our mooring. The wind was due to change direction this morning but didn’t. The problem is the marina is exposed to the bay, hence when an westerly wind blows across the bay and straight onto the marina there are no barriers to stop swell. We are now expert at doing a simple back flip summersault from the paserelle onto the pier. Imagine a spring board bouncing 3 feet up and down that you walk along; that’s how we get off the boat.

Today it was Stephen’s turn to perform acrobatics and leave the boat. He went hunting for some serious warps for the boat. In the med they often use metal rings and we have had several days or our warps made of rope rubbing against the metal rings. Hence after looking at how other boats solve the problem we came up with a new solution. Anne invoked her splicing and whipping skills again this time on 28mm rope; apparently it’s much harder on thicker rope. We are still looking for some springs to help take the strain off the rope even more.

Stephen also did the trip to the boat yard to chase them about ordering the spares. We need new seals for the gearbox and new instruments (the ones we purchased had a software bug and that results in the speed changing at random from knots to km/h). It looks like we will be here at least another week waiting for bits to arrive.

He then stopped off at Morrisons on the way back to stock up on items we can’t seem to find in Europe or if we do find them are very expensive (baked beans & pesto were high on the list)  As Morrisons is the only supermarket in Gibraltar, every day is like a busy Saturday, The turnover of food is stunning and the staff clearly can’t refill the shelves quick enough.

During Stephens excursions ashore Anne worked on some more canvas work, unfortunately not very successfully. The cover she was making for the base of the mast fitted around the top but not the bottom, so it needs a bit of adjustment.

The good news was tonight the wind shifted and we stopped bouncing – it felt strange not to be rocking. The cats started getting more active and we had a drink or two to celebrate. The forecast is for easterly winds over the next week so hopefully we will be ok now.

Our new style warp (ours is the one towards the bottom of the photo).

With the chain we now have “metal against metal”.

The plastic insert will be replaced with a stainless one once we find one.