Author: Paul and Claire

Ah well Friday night                   Kids can look after themselves               That’s my posing for tourists over for this week. Time for a beer…                   Too late gibbon!                        

Snap! So our ARC neighbour to our stern also blew out his brine hose on the watermaker which filled his bilges but with the downside that this flooded and wiped out a number of printed circuit boards mounted low down such as bow thruster controllers.

23 years post production we have just finished tapping the stanchion bases to secure the stantions and lifelines which hitherto have simply lifted off the port side. Drilling into 18mm stainless steel rod bases and tapping threads ran to about 1.5 to 2 hours each by 8 stanchions mainly due: the problem of getting enough pressure on the drill bit for it to cut the need to frequently run oil onto the drill bit careful thread tapping (one tap got a little tight and snapped off in the base so it had to be shattered bit by bit using a

No not sour cabbage and vodka with stories of the good old shipyard days but polishing the topsides with Autosol to make that steel gleam. Note the Levanter which is cloud forming at the top of the Rock being blown by the east wind which puts the town in to dark gloomy shadow.  

On Saturday we visited the bus pull in Gibraltar and it was difficult when ‘up close’ to these guys to see how robust they are. Pulling a bus looks very normal and standing alongside, because they are fit and well proportioned, the competitors look normal. But getting back home and looking at the pictures revealed the massive size of a world strongman. Pictured alongside UK’s strongman Terry Hollands his forearm is thicker than my leg! What we found amazing about the competitors is the time they spent with their fans, the public and with children posing for numerous photos and

Now we are three as we say a sad good bye to our eldest daughter who returns to the UK. It was planned that she would leave from the Canaries but the draw of the big city lights and our delay has tipped the balance in preference of going in search of independence. It all happens very quickly when you can walk 400 yards from home to the departure gate.    

Don’t know, but there is in La Linea…..all through a little misfortune which makes for one thing….a party. Via sailing blogs we got together with ARC yachts Adina, Millport II and friends. We are stuck with a blown exhaust, Adina with a blown gearbox and Millport II who helped tow Adina back to the pontoon with a blown weather window for the Canaries. We can see 8 days ahead and the winds are unfavourable so working boat or not we are all tethered to shore. So the crews got together over a few beers to swap tales of the ups

We wanted an engine sling for hoisting our 15hp outboard. Of course resources are resources and they are scarce so we keep almost everything that we find which is durable. In this caes we have carved up a couple of old Crewsaver lifejackets and deployed the parts to create the sling with easy on-off clips and adjustable ‘waistine’. The velcro fastenings were also re-used on our sail cover which needs new size 10 zips (when we find a supply). The old jacket fabric was headed for the bin when suddenly the potential for creating such things as courtesy flags was

For our friends on FantaSea! Sophie found this picture…