Our trip to Sardinia was horrible! I’d picked a good weather window in that the wind was good – but I didn’t realize we had wind against current – so we had lumpy seas all the way. Just to add to the mix, we suddenly smelled smoke! Initially I thought something awful was happening with the new Lithium battery bank, but in the end it turned out to be a cabin fan! (4 months later, the cabin fan is working fine and hasn’t given us any further frights.

We’ve been looking forward to Sardinia for nearly 20 years when we first laid plans for a hiking holiday there – unfortunately various things conspired against us and we were left rather deflated by our visit. Most notably, we found that the Italian welcome to boats was somewhat lacking – in that there were strict restrictions as to where you can anchor and where you can land a dinghy – sometimes having to carry it up the beach and into a carpark! The Italian anchorages were full of both boats and swimmers – but that didn’t stop idiots from powering through the crowded anchorage at full speed making huge wakes. I wonder how many swimmers get killed or maimed each year? It was also frustrating that the Italians just don’t follow the navigational rules – motoring through marine parks designated as “sailing only” – or even “no boats at all”… Granted we had timed our visit poorly – the height of the season and height of temperature! It wasn’t just the Italians – it was all sorts of nationalities, all in chartered boats.

We spent nearly 3 weeks in Sardinia – on the northern and then the north west coast. There are many islands on the Smerelda coastline, making for interesting sailing and anchoring possibilities.

The first of the Magdelena islands we visited had a lovely anchorage – but crowded. Never-the-less, we enjoyed staying there for a couple of nights and even braved the heat for an early morning walk. (Our exercise these days is pretty much restricted to swimming.)

When we arrived in the larger town of Olbia, we were able to rent a car to visit the interior – towards the high mountains.

And to a very interesting village (Orgosolo) with all sorts of political and humorous street paintings.

Olbia, a nice town with interesting center (including carousel) also allows yachts to tie up to the town quay for free for up to 2 nights which was a bonus – and allowed us to haul out the old spinnaker and start cutting it up in order to make a much needed sun shade for the boat.

We met with friends Otti and Rossi on Enya – a lovely German couple who we’d met in Lagos. We cruised around with them for a few days which was fun and attempted to paddle-board with them.

We’ll come back to Sardinia (to the southern end) when we come out of the Med next year – hopefully we’ll be able to come at a better time of year (when perhaps there aren’t as many mad boaters around!)…

Our next chosen location was to be the Aeolian Islands – I wanted to see the lava flowing off the active volcano of Stromboli – but the wind was constantly against, so we changed our plan and headed for an island neither of us had heard of before – Ponsa – just off the coast of Italy, opposite Naples.

Mallorca

Our sail from Ibiza to Mallorca was boisterous! Hard on the wind (quite a lot of it!) and lumpy. We sailed in company with Innamorata (who left us behind) and Rockhopper of London (who we left behind!). It was a long day, but we managed it, arriving at Santa Ponce, a well protected, but not very inspiring bay on the west coast.

It was May 3^rd. Clive and Aileen would be meeting us around June 10^th in Palma and looking after Toodle-oo! for 10 days while we fly off to Cancun for Stephanie and Chris’ destination wedding – so we had a little more than a month to explore. Better take a walk!

We found a very nice little anchorage at Ses Illetes, fairly close to Palma and on the bus route and we stayed there for a week – and later in the month came back there again. It’s a small anchorage that gets crowded every day with day-trippers seeking out the sun and swimming, anchoring far too close – but not creating any danger – everyone always quite respectful.

The bus was made use of – to provision and to have a look around Palma – what a nice city! Fantastic cathedral – very tall with super stained glass.

A car rental allowed us to tour the island and we drove into the mountains over passes clogged with cyclists to the lovely town of Soller. We got rather lost in Soller’s winding narrow streets and didn’t realize that we were missing a festival at Port Soller just 15 minutes further north. When we finally arrived there, the festival had just finished and all we saw was the aftermath with folks dressed in period costumes from when the Spanish were battling the Moors… everyone painted up in soot from the fierce battles! At least we could still get a drink!

With the dramatic north coast offering much more appeal, we sailed around the western tip of Mallorca towards Soller, stopping in the magical bay of Cala Deya and enjoyed a walk up to the village the following morning. Soller itself was a challenge in that the holding is rubbish – taking us 4 attempts to get hooked. However, having a laundry, we made good use of the town.

Menorca

We had a light wind sail/motor over to Menorca, arriving at one of our favorite anchorages at Algaiarens which sported a couple of lovely relaxing beaches and a nice walk to cala Morell – a very very small anchorage with a small village surrounding it – along with prehistoric cave dwellings.

We carried on along the north coast of Menorca as far as Addaia where we waited out some heavy weather with Innamorata, taking advantage of the bus service to take us into the capital, Mahon for some provisioning.

We took a super walk – which turned rather sour… We were following a Komoot App route and were 3/4 done when we met a fellow who asked us where we’d come from. He got all shirty, told us we were on private property and forced us to return the way we’d come! As we backtracked we checked that there wasn’t a single sign indicating private property… Great walk though!

We back-tracked along the northern coast of Menorca and then the northern coast of Mallorca again – noticing that the tourist season appeared to be getting underway with more and more boats crowding into the anchorages. Even so, we didn’t have any of the issues we’d heard about from friends relating horror stories of incompetent sailors anchoring dangerously close to other boats.

We arrived back in Ses Illetes where Clive joined us and managed a light wind sail the following day to a close-by anchorage so that Clive could learn some of the intricacies of Toodle-oo! and the following day made our way into Palma for our first Med-Mooring with ‘Slime Lines’ experience. We lived to tell the tale!

10 days off the boat passed very quickly as we had a great time in Cancun at Stephanie’s wedding.

On our return, sadly we hardly spent any time at all with Clive and Aileen – just one night – then they were off back to California. Unfortunately, they’d really not had a chance to sail Toodle-oo! as the winds had disappeared, but I think they had a decent time exploring Palma.

We left Palma and once again, headed around to the north coast of Mallorca experiencing some of the weirdest winds as we came around the western point – with winds gusting 25 knots from the south followed by 25 north seconds later! The boat was all over the place and in the end we opted to simply drop the sails and motor, finding an isolated anchorage just west of Soller.

We continued in to Soller the following day and once again experienced anchoring difficulties – this time getting the chain caught. . Fortunately, Jamie from Grateful assisted us by diving on the anchor to diagnose  what was going on – the chain had managed to fall between two rocks and was trapped. He then directed us so that we could align the boat in such a way that the chain could clear the rocks and we were free. Jamie and Nicki came aboard that evening for some well deserved refreshments!

With no wind in the forecast we decided to take advantage and visit some very remote spots on the north coast that are close to Soller – Cala Calobra is the most dramatic with high cliffs all around and promising an interesting hike up a gorge. Turned out that due to recent(?) rain, the hike was not tenable – so we got as far as we could (not very) and turned tail.

Our last sail in Mallorca took us to the north eastern tip of the island – as close as we could get to Menorca, Cala Figuera. There’s nothing here and it’s rocky so getting the anchor set was once again problematic.

We sailed to the south coast of Menorca stopping overnight at a nice sandy anchorage before moving onto Mahon, which turned out to be impossible to anchor at – way too crowded and goopy mud such that getting a decent grip was impossible, so we moved on to  Cala Vellana – a gem of a place that we enjoyed for our last few days in Spain.

I’ve got an excuse this time for not writing the blog – and getting 3-4 months behind… My new ASUS computer died. The screen doesn’t display anything – so it’s rather difficult to operate! It’s new and under warranty – which sounds good, but in practice when sailing, it’s a little difficult as we never know where we’ll be or when. It broke while in the Balearics (Spain) and we were about to head to Sardinia (Italy) – but not knowing how long it would take to fix, I could see us having moved onto Greece by the time they shipped it back. ASUS can’t manage picking it up in one country and dropping it off in another. I decided to work through ASUS UK since at least I have an address there… (thanks Bro!)

To make things more complex, ASUS UK found the idea of picking it up in one place and returning it to another impossible – so I had to ship the thing from Sardinia to my brother in England, so that ASUS could arrange to have it collected from him and then they returned it to him a couple of weeks later. He finally came out to Greece to visit us in late September… I’d been 3 months without… He arrived, I tried it – same problem!!! No screen display. Arrrrgh!

I contacted ASUS again, and since we were in Greece for several weeks, chose to work with ASUS Greece who were able to coordinate picking it up from the island of Sifnos and delivering to another island – Kos… They’ve now fixed it (fingers crossed) and shipped it to Kos – where we will arrive in late October… The courier will hold it for us – but only for limited time – until October 18th, which is 3 days before we plan to arrive!

Since I had told ASUS we wouldn’t be in Kos until October 21^st, I’ve put the onus back on them – but who knows if it’ll be waiting for me when we get there – or if it’ll be in transit to or from Athens…

Meanwhile, it’s all a bit of a hoax since I’m now writing the blog using Laurie’s computer – which I could have done all along…

Look for some catch-up episodes in the near future…

We departed Cartagena for Formentera late morning, planning for a midday arrival. The passage was a mixed bag of light wind, motoring and downwind sailing with Spinnaker or wing on wing with Genoa or Code Zero. We arrived at 14:15 after 141NM for an average speed of just 5.3kts.

We anchored right off the beach in beautiful clear blue water, next to Steve and Carol on Innamorata II so we’ve got playmates!

It was nice taking the dinghy to the beach the following day – it’s so much easier with the small dinghy and ‘lightweight’ engine compared to the old rib. Steve and Carol joined us for a walk around the big lagoon filled with salt ponds where Formentera produces their highly sought after pink salt.

Sadly the wind was changing direction to the north such that a change in venue was called for. Additionally, some heavy weather was also due, so we decided to head over to the south side of Ibiza – to an anchorage adjacent to Ibiza City – Cala Talamanca. Meanwhile, Innamorata decided to go straight into Marina de Botafoc which was offering very favorable €22 slip rates. We should have done the same because Talamanca was very rolly – so the following morning we headed in and dealt with Slime Line Med Mooring for our first time. Messy but not too difficult.

The town is interesting in that the old town is perched up a cliff – quite the citadel. Unfortunately, it’s expensive – tappas lunch with a bottle of red – €75. That evening, 3 gins and 2 sangrias another €75! I guess we’re in the playground for the rich and famous!

We departed Ibiza in style – screwing up the getaway and then executing a 450 degree turn in a really narrow fairway populated with million dollar boats! Fortunately, the only damage was sweaty armpits and fluttering hearts!

We headed back to Formentera on a sunny but brisk day (temperatures here are really struggling!) and picked a very quiet and picturesque eastern anchorage – from which we took a very interesting bike ride to the lighthouse at the end of the island.

We returned to Ibiza and headed clockwise around it stopping initially on the south coast at an anchorage where unfortunately there was lots of heavy construction going on, then we moved on to Sant Antoni – a large but spectacularly ugly town! Ibiza was turning out to be a bit of a disappointment… We finally made it onto the north coast where things have changed dramatically. We anchored with Sargo in Cala Sant Miguel – a very nice little anchorage which we had to ourselves. Despite the huge hotel (and another being built) there were hardly any folks about this early in the season.

We moved onto what has become our favorite anchorage – Portinatx. It’s another small anchorage made even smaller due to the restrictions of sea grass – which is all over the place in the Balearics and we’re not allowed to anchor in it. As a result the anchorage is tiny – able to hand 3 or 4 boats – though by evening there were 9 boats in place – some anchored in the weed…

We took a lovely and rather unexpected clifftop walk to the lighthouse (tallest in the Balearics) and changed our minds about Ibiza.

Tomorrow we are off again – heading for Mallorca about 65 NM to the north east.

We had a relatively short stop in Gibraltar, but did do some important victualling, had a great steak dinner, bought some pretty dresses (for Laurie!) and got to the top of The Rock – albeit via cable car – to visit the apes.

Our onward journey was expected to be a pretty light wind affair which proved to be the case – unfortunately in spades! We had a buddy boat on this trip – Dan and Alison on Equus, a Taswell 43. We left the anchorage in La Linea in the early afternoon and both made a stop at the fuel dock in Gibraltar to take advantage of the cheap(?!) ($5.11/US Gallon) diesel before heading on for a 2 overnight passage to Cartagena.

Initially we had decent wind – though from the direction in which we wanted to sail – but we carried on until the wind died and we started motoring… That continued for hours 🙁 Finally the wind picked up – after dark – and in darkness we were setting a poled out genoa and preventing the main for a rolly wing on wing sail. Not comfortable.

In the early morning the wind shifted direction and then increased, catching Laurie in an accidental (but prevented) half gybe. She woke me, and in an attempt to free a stuck clutch on the preventer, I managed to screw up and we completed the other half of the accidental gybe!

Late the next morning, Laurie suggested we switch to the spinnaker and what a good idea that turned out to be and we had a wonderfully long spinnaker run with speeds in the high 7 and 8 knots area, right up until it was getting dark. We had fallen behind Equus during the night, but ended up screaming past them with the spinnaker.

We changed sail to the genoa again for the nighttime hours and I ended up having to reef down heavily (2 reefs in main, handkerchief Genoa) to drop our speed from mid 9 knots to mid 7’s! Sadly, shortly after midnight, the wind evaporated and we were back to motoring! In the early morning hours the wind had returned but we’d be very close hauled – so we sailed with main and inner jib, struggling to hold our course for a direct shot to Cartagena… We arrived at 10:00am and took a slip, getting tremendous help from the marinaro.

Cartagena is getting ready for the Easter celebrations – which includes numerous elaborate processions through town, and making the town center a really vibrant place to be.

We’ve had a lovely stay here, but the islands are beckoning and a sort-of weather window approaches us tomorrow, so we’re going to take advantage – even though it may mean adding more hours to the engine… Both of us are anxious to get back to some island hopping and sitting to anchor in some remote spot. (Is that possible in the Balearics?)

We left! We are finally out of Lagos – that sounds awful as Lagos is a very nice town and the marina is great – it’s just that we’ve been here too long – time to leave! (though we did get a nice walk to Luz in – and a quick kart race at the Kartodrome! 🙂 )

And so we did… we moved Toodle-oo! to the waiting pontoon (the other side of the bridge that only begins opening at 9:00am) and spent the night there along with Dietmar in s/v Mermaid so that we could get an early start while the tide is high. A sand bar has developed at the entrance to Lagos Marina, reducing depth by about 1.5M (!) so we could only really comfortably leave within 2 hours of high tide – which was at 6:00am…

We departed at 7:40am and saw 3.1M minimum depth (we need 2.0) and set after catching Mermaid who had left at 7:00am. Winds were very light, so Mermaid had a distinct advantage as a much lighter boat, but Toodle-oo! didn’t disappoint and we pretty much kept up until the windier weather kicked in – at which point we were significantly faster.

Destination Gibraltar. We had a long enough weather window to be able to plan a direct overnight passage, albeit with very moderate wind. Our “other” concern was that Orca are present here and have taken to literally attacking the rudders of sailboats – until they are rendered inoperable. They have damaged numerous boats – all sail – well over 50 last year. Everyone therefore has some sort of Orca plan as they sail around the Portuguese and Spanish coasts… Lots of folk are buying Pingers designed to ward them off (nobody knows if they actually work…), ours plan was: following sight of – or presence of – Orcas, to drop all sails, start the engine and engage reverse – most likely in a tight circle. This way, the black and white beasts will have to swim past or at least in close proximity to our spinning propeller. We can also dispense bleach down the galley sink – and failing that, have a small supply of diesel that we’re prepared to pollute the sea with in order to attempt to safeguard our home. (Sorry earth!)

Fortunately, neither we nor Mermaid encountered the nasty beasties and several other boats that arrived here were beasty free too – sadly a French Catamaran not far from where we were was not so lucky and suffered debilitating rudder damage while we were on the overnight portion of our sail. Just the news of that made things tense aboard Toodle-oo! as we approached Gibraltar.

We arrived in Gib (actually La Linea, just north of Gib) after some 35 hours for a dismal average speed of 5.57knots and 25% engine use and we anchored close to Eqqus, friends on a Taswell 43 who had arrived an hour or so ahead of us.

The following day, we took the little dinghy with its electric motor in search of a place to park so that we could visit Gib. We did so, but got quite wet in the process! It’s going to take some time getting used to the new small dinghy!

A stop at the chandler for some essentials and then dress shopping for Laurie as she searches out some respectability for Stephanie’s wedding in June!

We are in Gibraltar for a short stop – having spent some time here last fall. We are waiting on a favorable weather window to take us to Cartagena – which looks to be approaching on Monday evening…

As is typical, the winter months in areas where the weather makes it rather daunting to continue sailing, we concentrate on getting various projects completed. Most of these are obviously boat related, but some are more cerebral… like Laurie getting her Portuguese citizenship! Yes, after a three plus year project (including learning Portuguese) her citizenship – and Passport – are both in hand! Well done Laurie!

On the boat front, we’re ‘done with’ (will it ever be finished actually?) the Lithium installation – including a new solar array above our bimini giving us a total capability of 680W. Fingers crossed we have the right balance between battery bank size and green energy supply to be able to run the boat including cooking with induction and heating the water…

While the new frame for the solar array was being prepared, we removed our bimini and Laurie made various repairs. It’s now 10 years old and beginning to fail, but still looks presentable enough.

I went up the mast to check on everything, replace some bits and bobs and noticed at the top of the mast that the genoa (big sail at the front) has some unusual wear at the top… We ended up taking the sail down and finding that a modification I had requested 3 or 4 years ago had been done in a less than optimal manner – leaving the headsail prone to parting company with the halyard – which you know would only happen at night at the most inopportune time. We handed it off to Antonio at Fofovelas for repairs (he’d already repaired both main and spinnaker), and the new repair looks much better.

All the routine stuff has been done – engine serviced and the leaking ‘Mixing Elbow’ fixed and a new one altogether procured and installed. The generator serviced, watermaker winterized and ready for use and for a bit of fun, I replaced all the head hoses (ewww!) and put in new heftier diverter valves as the previous ones had seized after just 3 years. We pulled out the anchor and it’s chain and cleaned all that, then painted marks along the rode at 10M intervals – so we know how much we’re deploying…

We’ve been washing and waxing and generally getting everything ready for the sailing to begin… but the weather is not cooperating. While the UK has been enjoying lovely weather, Portugal, Spain and the Med in general have had crap! Cold, windy, wet and worst of all the wind has brought Saharan sand and the rain dumped it all over us – and it’s a bugger to clean off!

So, while stuck here in Lagos, we went on a vacation! Three days in Seville – by car. Ok the weather wasn’t great, but we actually only had one wet day, so were able to get out and about to see the sights – and they are splendid – judge for yourselves…

The Cathedral:

Alcazar:

So…

We were going to leave Lagos in 2 days time (Tuesday) – destination Gibraltar about 26-30 hours from here. Navigationally, it’s a little complex in that during the winter months, the entrance to our marina has developed a sand bar – such that we can only get out when the tide is pretty high – but on Tuesday high tide is at 2pm… but you have to arrive at the Straights of Gibraltar at low tide in order to have a reasonable passage through it… Leaving here so late, would put us in the straits at the wrong time – so instead, we planned to just sail 8 miles on Tuesday to Portimao, anchor and then set off the following morning… But… our weather window is too short to allow all that – so we’ve just cancelled our plans and will now wait for the next weather window – which appears to be at least another week away…

Perhaps another vacation???

Last year’s sailing came to a relaxing end as we spent 3 weeks in Culatra with OCC boats Zahare (Tineke and Herbert) and also Wild Bird (Tim and Gayle). The beach at Culatra changes character dramatically with the weather – from gentle waves lapping the beach to full on rollers making our almost daily visits interesting contrasts.

The Bar

Stunning day on
Culatra

The Drink 🙂

Tineke and Herbert

Zahare crew Tineke and Herbert with daughter and her friend playing Bocci on the beach.

Olhão on the mainland turns out to be a lovely town with a super farmers market – especially on Saturdays when it’s twice the size and tasty Portuguese snacks are available! It’s a long dinghy ride from the anchorage – but a “short cut” at anything other than low water, makes it a doable 20 minute ride… (probably 40mins with the new outboard!)

We finally left because our batteries were in such poor shape that I was having to run the generator multiple times per day to keep up. We made a short overnight stop in Portimão where Innamorata was anchored with Steve and Carol aboard – who we’d last seen in Antigua 4 years ago! It was great getting together with them again and we hope to see them later this year in the Med.

Laurie gives out the goods at Halloween.

So here we are in Lagos, getting down to the various boat projects we inevitably face while laid up for a while. Portugal is challenging from a couple of perspectives… getting deliveries here is difficult – especially if it originates outside of Europe – in which case the items will be held up in customs for 2 to 3 months! Making things worse, often when ordering online from Portuguese websites, it turns out things are sourced from the UK… The other difficulty is that it’s extremely difficult to get responses from subcontractors. Everyone is very friendly, but get a task done by a given date is nigh on impossible. We’ve been waiting for 2 months for a stainless-steel fabricator to simply visit Toodle-oo! just to take a look at the project in hand!

Dressed for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving aboard Toodle-oo!

While we’ve been here, we’ve enjoyed some group walks to different locations with the Lagos Strollers and we’ve also enjoyed playing darts at the local Irish pub!

The group assembles

The group walks to different locales

Lovely views

Stunning coast

More…

Dormant vines

We rented a car with Stefan and Anne on Mokendeist to take a trip to Silves – the oldest fort on the Algarve – and it’s quite impressive. Nice town too!

Fort at Silves

Thirsty Sculpture

Intricate Ceiling

Street in Silves

Christmas found us in the US, but with elevated concerns all around about Covid, and several close to us being exposed, it rather limited our ability to get out and about to socialize. It was nice to have Abigail and Greg come spend Christmas with us – though perhaps next time we’d better find them a warmer bedroom than Neal’s uninsulated basement!

It was a white Christmas!!

Festive gathering

George, Valerie, Laurie and Steph

Christmas Dinner

The aftermath

As always, our return trip included lugging a large suitcase full of boat stuff back with us! So now the works begins…

Hopefully all projects will be sorted sooner rather than later so we can start this year’s cruising in March or early April into the Mediterranean. The hope is to get to the Balearics before the silly season – June to August – as the charter boats are something of a liability! Who knows where we’ll end up later in the year – you’ll just have to follow this – and hope I keep it up to date a little better!

My Lithium installation is complete! I ended up using all Victron kit – definitely not the cheapest, but with the information available on the web, theirs was the easiest to understand how to cobble together a comprehensive system. I also have numerous Victron folk knowledgeable about the Victron gear close by – and (though not close), Tim Chapman (currently cruising aboard Larus in New Zealand) was extremely helpful and steered me around very nicely.

Toodle-oo! was born a 110V AC / 12V DC boat, but the original owner installed a 220V Generator – along with 220V Watermaker, Water Heater and some outlets. He also added a 220V Shore power connection, making Toodle-oo! a very versatile boat for cruising within European waters. We had four 8D Lead Acid batteries, giving a nominal house bank of 900AH, which could be charged by 220VAC from shore or generator via 100A and 60A chargers in parallel, or by 110V Shore power via a 100A Inverter/Charger. A 260W solar array and a Silent(!)Wind turbine represented our ‘Green’ energy supply.

Our Lithium project had several objectives:

• Replace our desperate Lead Acid bank
• Reduce battery bank size and weight
• Take advantage of considerably faster charging rates
• Provide inverted 220VAC from the batteries
• Increase our solar capability
• Don’t blow up the boat!

After countless iterations of schematics, I finally settled on something I liked and purchased the requisite hardware from a local supplier of Victron gear (Algarve Solar), then set about dismantling the old and installing the new.

While Laurie had hoped that the conversion would allow some additional storage space, I pretty much commandeered the whole area for all the new goodies which included:

• Two 200AH LiFePO₄ Victron Smart Batteries
• Lynx Battery Management System (BMS)
  • The Lynx is much more expensive than other BMS’s but it is a BMS, Battery Monitor and Electronic Contactor all rolled into one neat package – which then can connect directly to the Lynx Distribution fused bus-bar arrangement
• Two Lynx Distributors
• Battery Protects (one 220A for house loads, two 65A for wind generator and alternator)
• Multiplus II 3kW Inverter with 120A Charger
• Argofet – to manage the charging from the alternator to house and start battery banks
• Four MPPTs – 3 for each of the new solar panels I hope to purchase, one for the existing solar array
• Cerbo GX Control hub – the communication heart of the beast
• GX Touch – a small display unit (which turns out to have limited practical use since the iPhone can pretty much do it all!)
• Loads of battery cable and lugs

Here’s the wiring diagram used to construct the system:

The final schematic  (click to enlarge)

And we went from this:

Out with the Old!

To this:

In with the New! Click to make it bigger…

Pretty!

You’ll see that I’ve left space for a third battery – just in case! Tim Chapman was pretty adamant that all we’d need would be twice what we use during the night – as during the day the solar should be able to fill the gap… As you can see, the size of the battery bank is much reduced from the old!

The Magician assists

I can’t take credit for the neatness of the wiring – much as I’d like to! Stefan Ecke from s/v Mokendeist did all the 220V wiring and all the fiddly bits! He’s a magician!

Our hope is that with the faster charge rates and the new 220V inverter, we’ll be able to heat water and cook using our 220V Induction hob using the energy within the batteries – maybe that will take our power usage higher than the 400AH bank can cope with and the third battery may become a requirement. The whole thing still has to be tested and verified – and we’re currently somewhat hampered by the fact that I have been singly unable to entice the stainless-steel fabricator to come and have a look at what’s needed to mount three new solar panels above the bimini. It may just be that we postpone that project until a later date – which will actually give us time to evaluate if we really need that additional energy supply… (that’ll make Tim Chapman happy!)

If anyone has any specific questions about the installation, I’d be happy to steer them to someone that might be able to answer them! 😊

Now… back to some cruising posts!!!

Update: May 25, 2022. After cruising around for a couple of months…

I’ve ended up adding the third battery, bringing our bank to 600AH (12V) now. I did this because I was having to manage the whole thing so closely – with SOG going from 100% to 20% and back again all the time. Since adding the additional, our charge and discharge curves have been much more gentle.

The 680W solar array with the LFP’s has allowed us to – for the most part – do all cooking with the Induction hob and heat water via the batteries – noting that when we run the engine, we generate very hot water and that when the engine is run, we can utilize charge from the alternator if required. Also Laurie does utilize the propane from time to time – especially when the oven is called for.

Since adding the third battery we have not had to charge using the generator once and I have turned the alternators on maybe 50% of the time.

I do still manage the batteries closely, but I’m confident now that I could set it and leave it without worries about either over or under charging – and indeed we will shortly be off the boat for 10 days…

We left Cadiz and set off for the Guadiana River – which separates Spain and Portugal with the hope of picking up our new electric outboard and also meeting our friends Stefan and Anne on Mokendeist. Winds were reasonable to start with but quickly settled down until we were in light air, flying a spinnaker – but that didn’t last long and unfortunately we ended up motoring.

At about the halfway mark, I realized that our timing was such that we were going to approach the very shallow river entrance at low tide and since there was a bit of a swell running, feared the chance of bottoming out was too great, so we opted to divert to Mazagon – and listened to the poor engine drone on for another couple of hours.

Supposedly there’s an anchorage just outside the marina at Mazagon – but it was not obvious and would have been very shallow – and the dredging work being carried out there made it completely untenable anyway so we opted for the marina.

The marina is very large and appears a bit like: “If you build it, they will come” – except they didn’t! Capable of accommodating 650 boats, probably half the slips were empty.

Fancy filets on a skewer

We stayed a couple of nights in this sleepy marina so that we could investigate Mazagon – a small town with not a lot to offer – though we struck gold for lunch when we followed a recommendation to the restaurant ‘Cilantro’… The young man that owns it speaks great English – having lived in England while working with famous TV chef Jamie Oliver. We did our usual and ordered 4 tapas of his choosing and they were fabulous! He came out with each one and explained fully what we were about to eat – really spectacular and lunch including a bottle of nice red was just €40!

Korean inspire Shrimp

The following day we made our way to the Guadiana in light winds on a close reach. Unfortunately we were a little close to the wind to use the Code Zero, so switched to Genoa and were able to sail right up to the mouth of the river – this time arriving at high tide and without any depth issues. We opted to anchor for a couple of nights, but unfortunately the wind picked up resulting in very choppy waters – making the ride across to Villa Real in Toodle-pip! a very damp proposition, so we were stuck aboard.

Mokendeist joined us a couple of days later having come down the river from Alcoutim but with the continuing wind and sometimes counter currents setting up a very choppy sea, we both opted to make our way into Ayamonte marina.

Laurie through the gateway

Tapas with Stefan and Anne

We toured the small town and had a nice Tapas dinner with Stefan and Anne and then the following day, OCC Port Officer Peter Whitby and his wife Irene met us for lunch and drinks aboard Toodle-oo! What a delightful couple. All this socializing was making things feel rather more normal! I had arranged to have our new outboard sent to Peter’s house, but sadly its still stuck in customs, so we’ll have to wait until arriving in Lagos to receive it. However, Stefan was planning to head to Lagos imminently and lent us his new 6HP outboard – so that we could get around. How nice this cruising community is!

Villa Real

Pretty tiled house in Villa Real

We visited Villa Real over on the Portuguese side via the frequently running ferry – it’s a 10 minute ride and you arrive 50 minutes before you left! Despite being so close, Villa Real has a very different feel to Ayamonte and in rather better repair. The Portuguese really are a tidy lot!

To get up the Guadiana, first you must pass under a bridge – marked at 18M at mean tide. Our mast is 20M… So we’d waited for Springs and planned to go through at low water – which was conveniently timed at 10:30am! However, in true Toodle-oo! form and even though we’d planned to stay up the Guadiana for a couple or more weeks – we changed plan and instead of turning right out of the marina to head up the river, we turned left and out to sea! We left the Guadiana at low water Springs – gently ploughing the bottom a few times(!) and made our way to Culatra in Portugal – which is where we are currently, enjoying a very relaxing anchorage.

We have quite a few boat chores to attend to on Toodle-oo! this winter – so we’re making a start on some of them while we’re here in Culatra…

Dead batteries. Each one weighs about 100lbs!!

Unfortunately, our batteries are at the end of their life so we are planning on taking the opportunity to update to Lithium which will allow us to take advantage of it’s rapid charging capacity – and also reduce weight and free up some locker space. It’s a significant project that is taking quite a lot of planning.

Leaking salt water…

Our engine – which has seen altogether far too much activity this year has sprung a leak! Salt water is escaping from the exhaust elbow – leaving an interesting stalactite of salt! Hopefully she’ll get us to Lagos before a complete repair is required!

Laurie has started varnishing the interior woodwork – so it’s chaos inside now!

She also managed to complete her second knitted hat – the orange one is mine!

We’ll complete what we can while we’re here and then really get to them all in earnest when we arrive in Lagos in a few weeks time.

Another great sunset in Culatra