Back Aboard and Counting Blessings

It's been a weird time to be living in the USA and having a cruising sailboat in Europe: and so we were quite pleasantly surprised after 26 months of forced dereliction to find our stranded Adventuress in very good shape. True she was beyond dirty on deck: filthy would be more accurate. But although she was quite dusty down below she suffered no damage belowdecks.

We arrived and set to work. The cleaning was arduous but uneventful. There were two things that had caused us to worry: the water tank, and the diesel tank. Happily the water tank and pipes were soon emptied, cleaned, rinsed, and are now in good shape. The diesel was another story: and we will post separately about that: in a nutshell, the diesel was unusable, "uncleaneable", and we had to ditch it and start again.

So now we will sail her back to the USA. Nancy will fly home: her knee and arthritic wrists are not suitable for a long ocean passage; but she will rejoin the ship in the Islands and sail back to Punta Gorda in leisurely coastal sailing mode.

John has three excellent sailors joining him for the passage: in order of signing up:

Werner Brouwer, our Dutch sailing friend, engineer and boatbuilder: Werner is in the middle of building his second boat - a 40 footer whose steel hull he shipped in to his yard: in Holland we met him and Ad, and daughter Anne, on S/V Arwen, his first beauty that was 46 feet.

Jim O'Shea, who with wife Laurie has been living aboard and sailing the US Eastern Seabord on Kismet, an Island Packet 350 for many years.Jim has the advantage of having an identical sailing set up on Kismet as we have on Adventuress, just a bit smaller.

Dan Gray: who rescued a Cabo Rico 38 SV Windweaver, has been sailing also the Eastern Seabord part time with his wife Betsy; and part time at his home in New Hampshire. Dan and Betsy are regulars at the Annapolis Boat Show, where they help with the Lats and Atts booth for Bob Bitchin.

Ok so that's enough intro: here is what you came here to look at!

Admiral Nancy in her element! At the helm (in charge!) and in the pink!

OK so this is NOT about sailing: this is about anchoring. There's this gismo on the bow called a windlass, and it uses a sturdy electric motor to pick up the anchor chain and anchor. The ship's engineer is here servicing the windlass, and about time too!

How the devil do you get aboard when you are a*se - sorry, I mean STERN - to the dock? Well, you use a "passarelle", and if you are silly you buy for 2,000 Euros a custom stainless/kevlar jobby that tells the world you are a silly sailor! But John and Nancy use a rarely seen passarelle: it's a ramp to drive your dirt motor-bike up into a trailer to get it home! (105 Euros, delivered, to Gibraltar!)

So here's a pic to illustrate and celebrate Nancy's Bread on the Water! Thanks, Hayden, for a great Baking recipe for sailors!

                                         

It almost goes without saying that we had a long time to think about what we should change on the boat when we were finally allowed back into Spain. A Boom Brake is used to prevent an accidental jibe and the mast falling down (!) when we are sailing downwind. (Of course, the 3,500nm plus voyage back to the USA down the Trade winds will be downwind.) So here's a pic of our old Dutchman boom brake (top) and our new much beefier Dutchman boom brake. But don't despair: in this blog post there's not much technical stuff about sailing!

Just take a look at the green pea soup into which JFK is daring to immerse himself - and he is not even wearing a Wuhan Flu mask! This was after motoring a couple of miles from the Los Nietos Club, where the skipper just had to get in and take a look at the keel. The bits he could see were yukky ugly!

But he does clean up well.

Uh oh: I feel another technical sailing term coming along: this downwind point of sail is called "Wing on Wing" - and for this you do want a sturdy boom brake!

Nancy is a sailor and can you tell how happy she is to be back on her sailboat?

Here we go with a proud owner boat pic!

Looking west at a sunset....or East at a sunrise?  Clue; we are sailing South, and looking to Port.

And this chap, so I am told, is called a "Rock Star" among sailboat racers: he likes to sail as close to the rocks as he dares!

No prizes for guessing this one; leaving Cabo de Gato at 0720. That's right: sunrise astern.

Nancy the Brave is a demon for the up-close selfies!

And now we celebrate civilisation with a Cafe con Leiche. Tastes divine.

Squid anyone?  These are whole small Calamari and they are reeeally good!

So which end goes in first?

Nancy is practising for the USA Olympic Synchronised Shrimp-Peeling team.

So here we are, not a cloud in the sky, flat water, and sailing almost dead downwind with just the front sail (Jib) unfurled.

Now here's a thing: Nancy relaxing after devouring a Turbot - I believe for the very first time.

And just on the edge of the Old Town is a French style patisserie/boulangerie: we adopted it for brunches.

What a delightful surprise: the old part of the City of Estepona is magical.

In this ancient part of Estepona there are many lovely sights, and here is one of them....

                            

.....and when in Spain, why not enjoy a sensational Lasagne at a classic old Italian restaurant?
 

                                       

And then you burn off about 18 calories riding your stowaway folding bike back to the ship.

So we are now heading over to Gib for a couple of days: then we will reurn to Estepona Marina, which we have adopted as our "home port" before our Transatlantic Passage starting about November 20. Nancy has rightly decided to fly home to USA: and my passagemaking sailors Werner, Jim, and Dan will arrive here in Spain November 17 and 18.

October 23, 2021: Estepona Marina, Spain  36.41N  005.15W