Nics Diary - Part 6

Nics Diary – Part 6 – 5.11.12

Places visited:

Majorca – Magaluf

Ibiza – Ibiza Town

Spain – Benidorm, Mar Menor, La Linea

Canaries – Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, Teneriffe

This diary entry covers Magaluf until leaving La Linea (15/9/12- 5/11/12). Apologies for the delay in this entry, but at the end I will give you a brief update as to where we are, and what we are planning just now.

My mum was on the boat with us for 3 weeks, and we arrived in Magaluf on the 15^th of September as my best friend Amanda and her boyfriend Steven were coming for a week’s holiday. We had a fab time. Amanda and Steven stayed in a hotel, but were welcomed on-board with a lovely bottle of champagne and some fabulous sunshine!

So nice to see you xxx

We had alot of fun going for early morning swims (so white Steven could avoid the sun), playing crazy golf, and even venturing out on a padelo. I enjoyed doing the different touristy things for the week. Poor Steven ended up in bed with food poisoning, so that was a little unfortunate. All in all though, we all had a fab week. It was so nice to catch up with Amanda and get all of the gossip for home.

crazy golfers

Steven and his tan!!

Poor Steven

amanda enjoying the pedalo

My mum left the same time as Steven and Amanda, and Stevie and I started to head towards La Linea to finally get our rudder bearings replaced. We arrived in La Linea on the 7^th October, and began arranging our lift out and other boat repairs. (Stevie has talked already talked about the work done on a previous blog entry).

The lift out was quite cool, and it was good to meet the underwater parts of the boat that I had never seen before. Boy was it in need of a good clean. I spent 2 days polishing the hull, and stevie antifouled the rest of the hull, and she looked great when we had finished. Unfortunately, as Stevie previously said, we found that there was play in the rudder shaft, so our 2 day lift out ended up being 8 days. It got pretty exhausting moving from hotel room, to another boat, the back to the hotel, and I was really happy when we finally got back into the water.

Please be careful with our wee boat!!

before

and after!!

We really enjoyed our 4 week stay on pontoon 12, where we had a lovely little community, and some really nice neighbours. We met an Australian couple Carlin and Mark, who joined us for a night in Gibraltar at the bingo and casino. I was really happy to win £100 in bingo, and Stevie celebrated by drinking much whisky. Unfortunately he woke the next morning to discover his passport missing. (After much debate and research, Stevie has decided to get a temporary passport that allows him entry to 5 different countries and we will wait for 6 weeks somewhere in the Carribean for a new one to be issued).

Won £100 at bingo - with the Aussies!!

We also met Aston, whose boat we rented for a little while when we were homeless, and who I practised some of my new hairdressing skills on!

thanks for being my guinea pig aston - I am getting good at this!!

Further along the pontoon were Eric and Sandra. Eric carried out some of the repairs to the boat, and we really appreciated his help and speed with dealing with Spanish welders. Sandra and I shared many bottles of red wine and enjoyed a great banter.

Eric & Sandra

Much of my time in La Linea was spent shopping for dry foods and many visits to Morrisons in Gibraltar in preparation for our Atlantic crossing. I would like to thank Has, the fridge man in Morrisons, who had seen me hovering around his ham department for a couple of weeks and helped me out alot. I was looking for the longest lasting dates on fresh ham, so that we could still eat some real meat on week 3 of our atlantic crossing.  Has said that he was happy to freeze all of the ham, gammon steaks and real bacon for me to take home frozen, and wedge in our tiny freezer for the long journey. So, our poor freezer is working overtime, but I am glad to not have to rely on too much tinned meat.

I carried around 20kg each trip, and must have done at least 10 trips, each one 4 miles each - was great fun - the border control was as crazy as I could imaging cycling in Bankok!!

At present we are in Teneriffe. We have 2 new crew members Iona and James. Both appear to be settling in well, and we are very happy for some extra help. 

Welcome aboard Iona and James - I hope you enjoy  the adventure as much as we do!!

Today we are all planning a big trip to Carrefour for all of our fresh products, fruit and veg etc. Tomorrow the plan is to leave for the Cape Verdes (approx. 6 days), then we will move on to our Atlantic crossing (hopefully around 18 days). We are all quite excited, and looking forward to Stage 2 of our adventure (The Atlantic and the Carribean).

Well, that’s about all for now, Love to all, miss you millions, and do not worry about us, we are now 4 sailors with plenty of experience between us!! xxx