More Boat Maintenance

My 30-minute exercise session starts at 6:30 am. The bedroom is dark, the blankets are toasty and I have to wrench myself out of bed and up into the attic. Thirty minutes later, I'm a new man ready to face the world.

Then I drove to Peniche determined to deal with the heat exchanger once and for all.

Fishermen working on their nets

OK, so here is the heat exchanger in its original place hanging from a bunch of wires which I "engineered" last summer while at anchor in Alcoutim. Daydreaming

The boat's entrails exposed.  The heat exchanger hangs over the transmission attached by a series of wires. Don't you love my Chinese imitation Crocs.

Disconnected the hoses (one was so tight I had to cut it off) and took the end lids off. Although the intake section did not have any impeller pieces as I had suspected, it contained clusters of fibrous material. The water intake holes were encrusted and reduced in size.

The cleaned heat exchanger. Must learn how to take photographs. If the light were shining on the end you'd see what's inside instead of seeing a black hole. 

It was now about 11:30 and I was ready to visit the hardware store to look for clamps to attach the exchanger to the plywood panel beside the engine.

Checked my emails first and, sure enough, I sat staring at a translation due before 6:00.

When I finished the translation I sent it off, packed up and went home, just in time to see the fishermen loading their nets back onto the boat.

Notice how high the tide rose by comparing this picture with the first one

Kidnapped Dragon Tree

Killer translations always start with a phone call and end with my head spinning. When it's over, I'm left with a mental hangover from the constant gruelling concentration late into the night and again early in the morning. I need a drink!

I got a nasty one on Wednesday. That means I missed my boat day (Thursday), got insufficient sleep two nights in row and now, Friday, I feel like I've been trampled by a rodeo bull. But it's over.

After lunch I took a long walk to Paimogo under an amazing sunny sky and came back feeling as though I could do it all over again.Walking will cure just about anything.

It's such a magnificent sunny day that I decided to sit in the yard for a while. Our garden has various brushes and trees, but there is one that is special. It's special because we brought it from the Azores in our hand luggage nearly two years ago while visiting this wine museum on Pico Island.

Grandpa dragon tree on Pico Island

At the time I was about to translate/revise all the nine official guidebooks for the Azores, so I thought a trip there would come in handy.

Anyway, while we were at the wine museum, we found a cluster of small dragon trees and decided to bring one home. Since they can live for up to a 1,000 years, I thought it would be an incentive to live to a ripe old age watching it grow.

It was about 6 inches long, but look at it now (the one in the middle between the rocks).

Infant dragon tree kidnapped in the Azores

Now, I know what you're thinking, "that doesn't look like a dragon tree at all." In the beginning I too began to suspect that we'd been swindled, even though we didn't pay anything for it. But, according to dragon tree aficionados, they only start to branch out after about 10 years and grow very slowly.

Moral of the story, I hope I live long enough to at least sit in its shade some day.

Fort of Paimogo

Ruins on the way to Peniche. Once the home of wealthy landowners.

It's Thursday, my boat day.

I got to the marina at about 10:30 in the morning and mucked about doing nothing. Let's see, set up the laptop, the heater and the battery charger. By the time I finished doing that and some more mucking around it was lunch time.

Ever since the wind generator died, I've been charging the batteries with a regular car battery charger once per week while I'm at the boat.

I had a vague notion of reading somewhere that cheap battery chargers are no good for boats because of stray current eating up your precious metals aboard. Hum, better establish whether that's a fact or a myth.

Got the bible out, "Boatowner's Mechanical and Electrical Manual" by Nigel Calder and made myself comfortable in the sunny pilot house settee. Now that's what boating is all about!

After confirming that cheap chargers are not a good idea and while reading merely for fun somebody knocked on the hull.

It was Carlos, the harbour master, and the insurance adjuster who came to look at the gouges in the gel coat and the totally ruined windvane. (I was rammed by another sailboat)

The young friendly adjuster took some pictures, stared at the windvane for a moment and asked, "what does this do exactly?"

I'm a pro at explaining the ingenious and yet simple engineering of a windvane and he was quite impressed. Not with my explanation, with the windvane.

He left with a handshake and a smile. I'll see what comes of this, the bill is not cheap.

Spent a good 45 minutes planning on how to move the heat exchanger to another location beside the engine instead of over the transmission. Think I got it solved. On my way to the Algarve last year, the exchanger's bracket broke and the whole thing fell onto the transmission. No damage to the heat exchanger, but I suspect the transmission didn't like the extra heat much.

Ran the engine, dried the bilge and decided to leave early and visit the farm.

On the way, stopped by the fort just because I felt like it.

The old fort. Some dummies (politicians) ruined it by plastering the massive stone walls with yellow mortar. Really love the new Disneyland look of this fort built in 1674.

Here's how it looked prior to the facelift.

The original fort of Paimogo, as it was built

The fort once protected the bay of Paimogo from enemy ships.

At the farm, which is about 1 km from the fort.

Reminds me of the good old days when I actually farmed here for real.

The flat area below was once covered in greenhouses. The ocean is 300 m to the right

The jeep, a Suzuki Grand Vitara. Notice the fort in the background

Covilhã, Serra da Estrela and a Bad Restaurant

It was my birthday, the perfect excuse to leave town.

The mission was to visit mainland Portugal's tallest mountain, relax in the snow and and enjoy the subfreezing temperature. Appetizing!

When I used to live in Canada, I saw, felt and shovelled enough snow to last me forever, or even longer.

Ana, on the other hand, had only touched snow once. "Isn't once enough," I asked her, perplexed?

First, I took the jeep to a garage and put on new rugged front tires, added anti-freeze to the radiator (good thing because it was full of pure water) and changed the oil before driving 300 km to Serra da Estrela that rises 1,993 meters into the sky.

Ana prepared as though we were going to the North Pole: long underwear, extra-thick socks and even a heavy blanket just in case. "Canadians sit out on their decks drinking beer and tanning in -5º C," I told her.

She gave me the look, you know, the look that says "don't men ever grow up?" OK, we'll take the blanket.

To make a boring story short, after a 3-hour drive (I'm a slow driver and get better mileage that way), we found ourselves half way up the mountain feeling hungry. That's when a restaurant conveniently came into view.

Did I say restaurant? Sorry for misleading you, it was a tourist trap (which functions much like a fly trap). These establishments should be avoided and, even better, banned! They're the modern version of highway robbery. After dishing out sixty-three euros for one of the worst meals I can remember, we resumed our journey upward.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and I was beginning to sweat in my long underwear. We wound up the road not seeing a spec a snow, but the views were awesome.

When we reached the top, we saw everyone hunched over wearing hats, gloves and big coats. That's what it was like in Canada. It didn't look good.

I stepped out of the jeep and there was no doubt about it, this really was the North Pole. The wind whipping over the mountain top bit into my face like icy sandpaper, just like in Canada.

"This is amazing!" I shouted through the wind to Ana.

The peak of Serra da Estrela

Ana loving the cold, can't you tell?

View from our room at the charming Residencial Panorama in Covilhã

The Masochist Boat Owner

It's damn cold outside!!! As Hemmingway once said, "And then there was the bad weather."

A stiff breeze makes 10º C feel like ice. My apologies to anyone living in a seriously cold country. Hey, if I told you this picture was taken in the Caribbean, you'd believe me, wouldn't you?

Look closely at the fishing boat below and you'll see that it's called "Jamaica."

It's been a tough week. Got 3 hours sleep Tuesday night and been pushing the envelope for a week straight. Yes, even here on the boat, although it's nice and toasty with the heater on.

I'm ahead of the game now, so I can knock off for a while.

Had lunch, went for a walk along the pier and took these pictures. While walking, I had a brilliant thought: since I can't compete with all the exciting and fun sailing blogs written in exotic places around the world, why not take the opposite approach. You know, focus on being a masochist boat owner.

LOTS OF BOAT OWNERS COULD RELATE TO THAT! There must be thousands of sailors plugging away and dreaming about that fateful day when they are finally free to sail off somewhere, anywhere, as long as it's adventurous. Yeah, I'll say.

The problem is I've already done that. It's a bitch being stuck in the rut again.

Enough silly talk from a translator's fatigued mind. If any of your kids ever start talking about becoming a translator, send them off to the army before it's too late.

Jakatar, my Corbin 39, in the foreground with the large yellow fender

I think I'll go home now, get the fireplace roaring and fall asleep on the couch watching the news. Na, just kidding. Still got some work to do.