Blog 9

John here again, thought it was about time I found the time to write a little! Living on the boat is so far fun and challenging. Having little or no break from the kids is both rewarding and exhausting. We are trying to do some kind of school with the Ellen most days which is generally going well and she does seem to be learning fast! Anna won't be left out and keeps demanding to do the alphabet just one more time! We're still in Torrevieja awaiting the mental workers who are going to make frames for our new solar panels. We have finally fitted the new anchor windlass which wasn't quite the take out the old and stick the new one in its place - it couldn't be sited on the same spot so we had to reinforce the deck with epoxy plugs and make up a new backing plate. The new windlass required 3 wires to the back unlike the old one which only had two! We managed to follow the wiring diagram and get most of the wires in place but got a bit confused about the switch part (as our old switch had different wires to the diagram!). Any way to cut a long and stressful story short a phone call with dad and a brain storm with a chap from another boat got it all sorted out. We have to still load on the new chain (I'm worried it might not all fit!), we'll find out tomorrow after the filling has dried out.

The learning curve of boat maintenance is not so much a curve as a mountain with overhanging precipices, but we seem to be slowly climbing it. It is nice to be applying myself to something much more practical and free from academia. I've even started reading for fun again novels not related to boats or social work! Fiction! Although the books with a bit of an interesting historical edge seem to be of most interest to me! We all miss our friends and family a lot especially during periods where the people we've met have moved (on or we have) and we haven't met any one new yet. Our little bubble can be great though with the kids really having the space and time to explore their imaginations!

I never thought I would say this, after the heavy bags of kids books we carried here, saying that we'll never read all these books, but we have got through them all now so many times that we are starting to look for some new ones. There is a English book shop here so we're stocking up. The poetry book 'when we were very young' (which you gave the kids Kate and Ru) is a current favourite, Anna shouts my one my one! Page 81! as she brings it over yet again with cries of read it read it. We can even do the whole book cover to cover in one sitting!

We're going to be staying here till the beginning of December, which isn't so bad as were making progress on the boat jobs and the price is good (cheapest so far), as we are being treated as a 12 meter monohull with 15% discount rather than a 14 meter catamaran, as far as boating goes no price is fixed it seems. This is certainly true of chandlery especially when there are competing shops near each other that you can use to assist in negotiations! The town has grown on me too, although it's quite a walk from the marina and further still to the nearest play park. Got to go shopping before it closes up for siesta, more to come sometime soon!

Sooner than I expected… We had a nice trip into town and the kids played happily by the fountains while we sat on our …ses. After a bit of shopping in the indoor market we returned to the boat and that's when things got exciting… Moored just opposite us is a brand new sun odyssey 42 which a few days ago had been manoeuvring in a slightly alarming way, sufficiently concerning that I had removed a spare fender and had left it to hand…. Today this was to come in handy… I was coming out from inside to see them gunning towards us at about 4 knots the terror clear in the helms eye's, his half rolled in main flapping in the wind. As he turned to miss us slamming his engine into full reverse as he was stopped by the mooring lines of some motor boats astern of us. Predictably he reversed into us the aforementioned fender preventing damage. His keel then caught up on the slime line which holds us off the pontoon bringing him to a stop again. As I drew this to his attention he asked me to come aboard his boat and steer! I wasn't prepared to jump the distance between us and he managed to drive away. As he spun around he again asked me to come aboard so I walked to the end of the pontoon where he nearly collected me (well he got within 10 meters) before he accelerated across the fortunately empty marina and crashed into a concrete quay. Lizzie and I had a short discussion and decided the kids would be ok while she dropped me off to them via dingy. This was quickly done and the kids remained happy!!

As I boarded their boat the skipper had left the wheel before I had even got over the guard rail the relief visible on his face. Fortunately their English was much better than my Spanish and I explained that I wished to take the boat out to make a couple of turns before docking and at my request a piece of tape was found to mark the centre of the wheel. This went fine and the boat turned pretty sharp although slipped sideways a lot in the turn, the skipper remarked that he had thought it would be like driving a car!

I turned to head in planning to bring the boat in port side too, however just before we reached the dock he said we needed to go stern to as his mother couldn't get off otherwise! I'll try…Fortunately this went fine the bow-thruster counteracting against the beam wind and the gathered crowd (including Liz and the girls) provided many hands to assist!

Once we were secure, we sorted out the jammed sail, caused by the halyard being loose the fore sail halyard was also loose! Apparently he has an expert coming tomorrow for some on boat tuition, thank goodness. Still no harm was done, I guess we all have to learn and I'm to the good one bottle of Champane!! A fine ending.