In our experience, first in the Azores last summer and now in Spain, it seems that no good holiday opportunity is passed up and here in Almerimar it is no different.
Today, Sunday, and Monday most places are closed for what appears to be a very local, municipality only, festival.
Anyway, the key issue for us is that the plan was to do provisioning on Monday and cast off on Tuesday. Oops. Grocery stores all closed. Who knew?
There is a good little market that has some basic stuff so that will have to do. And, the good news is that they have excellent French baguettes that they bake there. With only one night underway before arriving in Cartagena I think we will survive.
With all the delays, our friends Jon and Kate decided to make the best of their time and decided to do a bit of exploring as they made their way here from Barcelona, stopping along the way. They are now in Grenada, no doubt enjoying some of the same places that we visited.
They will arrive Monday evening and we will shove off, weather permitting, on Tuesday morning for a straight overnight run to Cartagena.
Sadly, it looks like the run will be true to the “Motorterranean” as the forecast is for very light winds. As wind is generally from the east in this area and when it’s not, there’s no wind. I would prefer not to have our very first run of the season an overnight, but with all the delays we have to make some miles.
Yesterday I finally had the new winch installed. The rigger, Andy, has been great and I so wish that I had worked with him over the winter as many of the issues that didn’t get addressed, including measuring the sail correctly etc, etc, would have been done. Alas, at least I know who to recommend to keep an eye on boats for others. Live and learn.
After pulling off the top of the winch, the offending, and now broken, old winch.
The parts laid out for the new winch. Really shiny.
Andy fitting the new winch. Notice how shiny the interior parts are compared to the old one.
The new winch in place. Sadly, the electric motor is on back order so we will see where that ends up. Perhaps we can pick it up in Palma as that’s where the distributor is, I am told. Really shiny.
It is pretty amazing that the new winch is almost exactly the same size and shape as the original ones, now 20 years old. The only cosmetic difference is that the top of the old winch is black and the base is as well. Otherwise, they are the same. For now, I will use the winch as a manual one and when I have to hoist the mainsail, I will just route the line across the cockpit to the power winch. Not idea but will work fine.
The remaining winch that is still fine. Note the black disk on the top and the black base collar. Otherwise, the same.
I have also been talking about issues with my charger/inverter, which finally died completely two days ago. That meant, no battery charging or even shore power down below even when I am plugged in.
After a lot of back and forth with the electrician, who could not make time for me due to a very busy workload, to his credit, asked me to send photos and advised me on how to bypass shore power from the, now dead inverter, so that I could get shore power.
I sent this photo, along with details on what terminal was what, and he sent back details on what to do. To me, it just looked like a tangled mess and I was totally insecure about making the problem even worse.
Once I got his fairly clear instructions back, I was still unsure, given the possible damage if I did it wrong, so I went thru a lot of back and forth with Chat GPT, AI. I even shared the electrician’s instructions and got back from “they”, Chat GPT that is, that they also agreed with the electrician’s assessment.
However I was still unsure and asked to have a step by step schematic created by AI and this is what “they” came up with. Pretty remarkable and very easy to follow. I explained to “they” that I do better with visual instruction so that’s what I got.
The first part, what the goal was. And then how to confirm that the circuit was safe to work on.
Part two. The order and sequence of moving wires. Dead simple.
Part three. How to confirm that I had done it right and the process to power up the system.
I was still nervous but after asking “they” to compare the instructions from the electrician, confirming that they matched, I felt that I was on the right track and followed each step, held my breath and turned on the power. IT WORKED!!!
After all of the setbacks, I was really concerned that I would mess up but all and all, I DID IT.
Well, there’s only one day more for something to break before we leave. Dare I say that the “final touches” should run smoothly and we will be able to get out as planned?
Cartagena, here we come.
“Bob, don’t count your chickens before they hatch!”
I’m countin…