We've had a good couple of days here with yesterday being a particularly successful one. We caught the bus into town, wandered around the huge indoor market (fresh fruit, veg, bread, fish and meat from stalls all tended by grandmothers dressed in black) for some great (and amzing value)ingredients, did a supermarket dash for other essentials, collected our washing from the laundry and came back to the boat for lunch.
In the afternoon, a flurry of emails and Skype calls to the UK resulted in advice to find an internal fuse in the Sterling alternator controller. Sure enough, it had blown (probably when the alternator failed) so a 30c replacement sees the system restored to full health - marvellous. Equally satifactory was a conversation with the makers of our broken VHF radio aerial - they are sending a new unit free of charge to us.
Finally, Graham climbed into the cockpit locker to replace a broken fitting on the electric bilge pump. The fitting was one we thought we'd never track down in Spain but we were sent on a long walk in Vigo to find a brilliant plumbing / air conditioning wholesalers. We had a wonderful conversation with the guy at the desk (not a clue what he said) but he came up trumps and charged us 70c. So we now have two fully-functioning bilge pumps once again.
It's actually pretty good to be in a working fishing port as there's lots to see and, when the boats come back in in the evening, it becomes a real hive of activity. Looking at the long term forecasts it looks as though Tuesday might be good to set off for the crossing to Madeira. By then we will have probably exhausted the delights of Nazare but we'll use the time to start planning meals for the Atlantic crossing. That will be a challenge - producing meals for 4 people for around 21 days with no chance of stopping for a shop. Any (easy) menu ideas would be warmly welcomed!!
The positive is that there is at least a good chance to try the local wines :)
ReplyDeleteMik