A host of challenges

St Carles de La Rapita, April 21, 2010

Volcanic dust from Iceland which caused a flight ban for five days meant that we arrived at St Carles de la Rapita marina two days later than planned – however we did well considering the disruption throughout Europe and the thousands of people who could not fly home after their Easter holidays.

Moonshadow was waiting for us up on land when we arrived at 5.30pm – in time to have a brief tidy below deck and sort out some fresh bedding for the night. We had dinner at the marina bar and hit the deck at 9.30pm.
Next morning the enormity of the task of getting Moonshadow ship-shape again really hit us. Anders' first task was to get the bikes up and running so we could cycle into town for supplies. He spent many hours changing chains, oiling and fixing brakes while I cleaned the hull side ready for polishing.
The boat was covered in a fine layer of sand and fine threads were dangling down from the shrouds where the wind generator had given up its battle with the winter storms. Both the wind generator and the radar had been damaged, but fortunately we had been able to claim the cost on insurance. Two Spanish guys from the local engineering firm Tallis Cornet had been prompt to start the work, but by mid afternoon a rain shower stopped them in their tracks and they were quick to disappear. Fortunately, they completed the job by mid morning the next day.
We are slowly getting into the swing of things. I am learning to live and move about in my restricted galley, instead of my spacious kitchen at home. It's quite an art, balancing pans and dishes on minute surfaces while serving up dinner with dexterity.
Movement on deck is equally challenging as I discovered today. I managed to inadvertently tip a bucket of dirty water over the captain who was working on the hull side beneath me! It wasn't intentional, and fortunately Anders saw the funny side of it!
The boatyard is an interesting place. Boats are being cleaned diligently by their owners - a sort of Sunday afternoon washing the car syndrome – since we have never ever done this we are a bit shocked by the gleaming examples all around us!
Apart from giving Moonshadow a brief wash and polish we have abandoned the fine details and concentrated on the urgent work in order to get her into the water as soon as possible.
With the anti-fouling of the hull completed we were lifted into the water the next morning and towed to the reception pontoon as our engine had not yet been commissioned. It was great to be re-united with the sea but before we knew it there were more challenges.
Anders was miraculously sorting engine jobs through a very small access hole he had cut in the cockpit locker. As always one job continued to lead to another. A broken oil cooler bracket had been welded at home and the task of refitting it led to the discovery of damaged threads for the fixing screws on the manifold. So it was out with the manifold, re-threading of screw holes, which was accomplished rather shoddily by the local engineering company, and refitting the whole thing.
To add to our challenges, neither the manual or the automatic bilge pumps appeared to be working. The manual pump sprung into life after a strip down and the automatic pump's refusal to work was put down to a run down engine battery. 100 Euros later we had a new battery but still the automatic bilge pump refuses to work!
We are now in our tenth day of labour and our biggest challenge yet lies ahead.
After refilling oil, replacing re-conditioned injectors and new filters we were all ready to hear the dulcet sounds of our engine firing .
No such luck! Is this the point when we abandon ship, jump in the sea and head back to Wales?