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???