36:57.522 N
008:45.725 E23/07/10
13:30
Now the water maker is playing up. Steve changed the Salinity probe but
that’s not the problem. We don’t know what it is yet.
We’ve just been passed a half a mile off by a 128 meter
tanker bound for Samsun and named
EYLEN.
Samsun is on
the Black Sea in
Turkey, which is
an area we hope to cruise to someday soon, so maybe we’ll see EYLEN
again.
16:15
There was just enough wind to start sailing at 14:45. We were doing 6 knots or so but it seems
to be fading away and our speed is now under 5 knots. It’s a pleasant break from the damned
engine.
Steve adjusted a watermaker potentiometer in the control box under Demetri’s bed
and it seemed to work until he put the box cover back on. The box is fan cooled but for some
reason at the moment it only wants to work with the case off. Anyway we’re
making water again. It’s so muggy showers are an absolute essential.
24/07/10
03:00
About 6 this afternoon I realized that all the many blips
on the radar had all disappeared and we’re now practically alone. We sailed for
a couple of hours around dinner time.
It was nice to eat sans engine.
The wind died again around 10:30. At
01:00 we suddenly got NNE Force
5 and are now sailing again. The wind is pushing us a little closer to
Algeria than I
had planned.
09:30
Last night we sailed a few hours, motored a few hours,
sailed a few hours and are now motoring again. We’re crossing the last bay in
Algeria and the
sea is on the Port Quarter and is very sloppy. I have just been contacted by the
Algerian Coast Guard and it took some time to convey the information that the
Yacht is British, registered in Southampton with 3 Brits on board coming from
Gibraltar bound for Tabarca in
Tunisia. He had a problem with the word
“British.” He finally said do you
mean “English” and was quite relieved when I said “Yes by Jove.”
Last night I was bitten by an Algerian mosquito. In the
evening we were deafened by a small chorus of hitch hiker crickets. Last time we
passed by the Spanish coast we had a similar invasion, it remains to be seen how
serious this one is.
16:15
We
arrived at 13:30. There was no dock space so Demetri and I
went ashore in the dinghy to do the formalities while Steve hovered. It took forever, we returned to the boat
two hours later with two customs men who went through absolutely
everything. And took another 45
minutes. One of them had the cheek
to ask for a bottle of whisky but the other regarded it as bad form so we
escaped the bribe, it wasn’t as though they were doing us any favours. We eventually wound up rafted up to an
an 
