Engine Trouble 1

We motored all the way due to no wind and it was safer in the thick fog. This unfortunately showed us that the engine was indeed broken, today it was worse than ever and the engine room and cabins were full of exhaust smoke, so much so that you could not even go inside the boat whilst the engine was on. On checking it whilst at sea, Simon could feel that exhaust fumes were escaping out the side of the engine. There was an obvious hole but it was still running perfectly so nothing could be done until we reached Muros. However plenty of time for some research, and after pestering the first of Michael Johnson’s Saturdays, Simon established that he needed to get hold of some chemical metal to seal the hole up (backed up by some former colleagues of Holly’s)

The fog didn’t lift during our passage and when we entered Muros we had absolutely no clue as to what the place looked like. As usual just when we needed something we had arrived on a Saturday evening so nothing was open until Monday. This seems to be a common occurrence lately. The misted had finally lifted by 11:30 am the following morning to uncover big rocky mountainous terrain surrounding a pretty fishing harbour. We were in a good location a stones throw from the supermarket and strip of shops/restaurants and to top of off nice marina showers & excellent wifi!

I had decided to be productive and finish the boat curtains I had started 12 months ago and this was when we were introduced to Michael Sweet. He bimbled up to the boat in his trade mark denim sunhat and man bag asking to pick our brains about weather updates through HF radio whilst crossing the Atlantic. We invited him aboard, as this was the first time (EVER!) that someone had actually come to US for some advice so we welcomed it as a nice change! Unfortunately our HF doesn’t work and we will be getting weather through a Inmarsat Satellite phone so didn’t really have the answer he was hoping for but we had a nice chat. As it was Sunday we decided to treat ourselves to Sunday lunch out, unable to pop down the Toby Carvery for a roast dinner we settled for Salad, chips, grilled prawns & steak which we thoroughly enjoyed. I finished the curtain whilst Simon napped all afternoon with one of his trademark ‘headaches’ and I did have to Gee myself up to do this as I was slightly disheartened after dropping my very very VERY expensive material scissors overboard. I figured I would have to get used to these new third world boat problems so just got on with it using a crap pair we had!

On Monday morning Simon cracked on with the engine repair and I started work on a BoatHobos flag for the Atlantic Crossing. All the people who are doing the Atlantic Rally Crossing (ARC) have a flag so why the hell shouldn’t we! (we though the ARC was a waste of money for what you get so didn’t bother with it, basically £1800 just to be part of a social thing seemed a lot). Simon sealed up the hole but we still needed to wait for the chemical metal to dry so we sucked up another night in the marina. We liked it here anyway and it was a pretty social marina so we didn’t mind staying. We ended up getting extremely drunk on the boat and Paul the Pisshead an English guy on the boat next to us came over to join in. He was retired but on the boat alone as his wife had no interest so he just decided to pop back and forth from the boat to home with the end goal of the Med. Holly was particularly wasted and spent most of the early hours flouncing in and out of bed to hug the toilet. This was mostly unsuccessful though as there isn’t enough floor space to do so, so she resided to sprawling herself half in the bathroom & half in the bedroom over a rather uncomfortable wooden divider! The following day we had the worst hangovers in NATO so decided the only thing for it was to recoperate in bed watching films on the laptop. The sun shinned gloriously the whole time we were here and we really enjoyed it but on Wednesday we dragged ourselves out of bed at 7:30 am for the moment of truth on the engine & to hopefully continue on our adventure.

Big Thanks to Michael Johnson and his uber engine expertise and giving up his Saturday night to talk ‘engines’….!!!

Coast of Death

You may have seen the ‘Coast of Death’ mentioned in previous posts but we haven’t had a chance to educate you, so here goes. Whilst we were stuck in Cedeira and getting drunk with Pete the Dutch and Kevin the boat hobo we got talking about the Northern Spanish coastline and our experience of it so far ….this is when they informed us of the ‘Coast of Death’!!!!!

It runs from Ribadeo all the way to Bayona and is basically North West Spain. This is the bit of coastline at the bottom left corner of the Bay of Biscay and we have noticed from our passage planning that any bad weather from the Atlantic seems to hit this corner. No wonder its the bloody coast of death, as it makes it the perfect location for rough seas, wind and lots of swell!

This is why a lot of people decide to sail straight across the Bay of Biscay instead of going through Western France and across Northern Spain, as they get to avoid the majority of this coastline. Therefore we now feel we have probably taken the more difficult route, however it was a choice we made as we wanted regular stops for Scrumpy to stretch his legs and we wanted to see as much as possible on our trip. We have absolutely no regret in our choice and we feel it has actually made us more experienced sailors. Others that we meet along the way believed the ‘swell’ was over exaggerated by those who avoided this route and it meant that lots of fellow yachties missed out on some very pretty Spanish ports. We now feel privileged and proud to have successfully defeated the ‘Coast of Death’ now that we are approaching Bayona…… and for all those non believers who said we’d never make it across the channel read it and weep into your desk jobs suckers!