Meakin on Two Easy - Meakin on Two Easy

Wednesday, June 25^th 2008

Trains Boats Planes and a Stork

I am happy to announce the safe arrival of my (Pam’s) first grand daughter, Clara Moldrop Nielsen who, after a (9 month and) 8 day delay was born on 2^nd May 2008 at 14.30 weighing a very healthy 8lbs 2ozs. Her daddy was like a dog with two tales and I guess her mummy was relieved, especially as the midwives were on strike and Martine had a very uncomfortable final few weeks.

Keith and I then set about booking flights to Denmark and took 2EZ, as arranged, to Bruce’s yard in Faro. Quite a cheap berth only 30 euros a week, with rough and ready facilities, but a convenient place to leave the boat for a few weeks. We had the train station behind us, the airport in front of us boats all around and storks flying overhead. When Clara was late showing up I told Liam I would point one in the right direction!

We’d had some quite horrible weather the previous month with huge winds and waves, 50 knots of wind some days, we had been tied up on the fishermen’s pontoon in Olhao riding out the storms, one night a wave came over the top of the pontoon, over the top of 2EZ and landed on the other side, at least a 25 foot distance, I dread to think how high the wave was, we snapped 4 mooring lines that night.

We planned our trip to Denmark via Seville to catch up on the places we’d missed when we went with Martin and Linda in February. I was amazed when I opened a book from my library on the bus to find the main character was called Clara, and even more spooked to find our hotel in Seville was off Rua Santa Clara!

We spent 3 days in Seville, visiting the Royal gardens of Alcazares, which were built for the Spanish Royal family and added to over the centuries, including Moorish, Arabian and Baroque influences. There was a display of Ottoman calligraphy going from the 9^th century until the fall of the Ottoman Empire which was mid 19^th century. The intricate work of the scribes was magnificent with beautiful flowers and patterns which surrounded the writings. Each new ruler of the Ottoman had their individual signature on a scroll which was huge. The gardens were fabulous with blooms of many colours and hidden gardens at every turn. Despite being in the centre of a bustling city, we could hear only the sound of birds singing.

Our flight to Denmark was via Valencia and we had a 5 hour wait in the airport for our connection. The weather in Portugal and Spain had been quite cool until the moment we walked from the airport to the plane when some Danish people mentioned they had been in Spain for 10 days and had been waiting to feel the heat on their faces. I didn’t like to disappoint them by telling them it was the heat from the planes’ jets!

We arrived at Billund airport, only 29 km from Vejle and hired a car. Liam rode out on his motorbike to meet us and guide us in and took us to meet his adorable beautiful daughter who doesn’t scream like a banshee, but bleats like a little lamb. I now had 5 days to soak up every available moment with her. I soon regained my pram pushing skills and find it hard to believe it is almost 30 years since I last pushed a pram! The time passed so quickly, we had a BBQ at Martine’s sister’s house. Martine’s mum took us for dinner and we just spent lots of lovely time with Liam, Martine and Clara. We stayed in a really nice lodge just half a kilometre from their apartment, and went to see their new apartment that they have just moved in to.

Our return flight to Portugal was via London Gatwick and our day started at 4am, baring in mind that Denmark is an hour ahead of the UK that made it 3am and we woke up to frost on the car……brrrrrr. In fact it had been hotter in Denmark than Spain during our stay. Our 5 hour stop over at LGW became 10 hours as our flight had been cancelled. Our friend Susan, who looks after all our post and important matters, came to see us at Gatwick between appointments and brought a bag of post for us to check whilst we had a picnic lunch with our delayed flight voucher and a good gossip. We finally arrived back on the boat at 22.00hrs, a long day.

Once back on the boat we thought we’d only stay another week, as we were on neaped tides and not even floating at high tide. Our berth was only just a snug fit between two pontoons (!) really just some stakes of wood with a walk way which became a plank of wood then a small tree trunk chopped in half, to get to the shore. When we were at low tide the pontoon was 6 feet higher than our decks, it took some climbing to get off the boat. Another catamaran was berthed behind us a day before we left for Denmark, the people not returning until 20^th June and it being too windy for us to have swapped places.

We noticed that our bilge pumps kept running every ten minutes and couldn’t understand where all the water was coming from. Then we discovered that the starboard side hull had landed on a log of wood at right angles to the hull, right where a transducer poked through the hull. It had pushed it out of its seating and was letting water in. It was six days before we floated enough to be able to leave. The owner of the boatyard man handled the other catamaran out of our way with the use of ropes and we set off down the very winding channel back to Olhao. Although it is only 3kms away on land, it is 10kms via the winding channel and took us 3 hours.

We beached the boat so that Keith could reseat the instrument, however due to the soft sand he couldn’t reach it. So we asked permission from the IPTM Port Authority to settle 2EZ on a concrete ramp. Once Keith could fully see under the boat, with the aid of a mirror, we discovered a metre and a half crack right on the bottom of the hull. Seemingly that hull had taken the full weight of the boat every time we bumped up and down with the tides. Keith did a quick repair job and we left on the next high tide at 2.30am.

We rang our insurers who told us to go straight to the nearest port that could lift us out of the water, to have the damage professionally repaired. So, here we are again in Portimao, after a 10 hour sail back against the prevailing wind, our bilge pumps running almost constantly. I’m reminded of the German navigator saying to his Captain, ‘We are sinking, we are sinking…..’ ‘Ah’ he replied, ‘vot are you sinking…’

We’re on the very VERY hot concrete, 45c at mid day which goes from 12.00 to 18.00 then the mosquitoes arrive! Under instruction Keith drilled a series of holes in the bottom of the hulls and around half a ton of water poured out. It would seem that we also took a lot of weight on the rudders and skegs and therefore took water in both hulls.

We were told it would take a month to dry out, our insurers (who have been marvellous – Navigators & General plug plug) said that was too much time out of our cruising year and to get some heaters on it. We told them, heaters it didn’t need! So, we’ve scrapped all the antifouling off and the repair of the crack which went right through the hull to the inside, which we discovered when we took the water tank out, is almost finished.

We’re drinking about 6 litres of water every other day thank goodness Lidls is close by! We’re hoping to start the antifouling on Thursday (27^th June) and then be back afloat the following week. One good thing has come out of this I always thought our starboard side hull was overloaded (mostly with Keith’s tools) as it always sat below the waterline by quite a bit. So I decided to measure from the rubbing strake down and found it is actually 5cms lower than the portside hull, and on the hulls under the bridge deck a full 17cms, no wonder we always had a dirty waterline that side. The water line has been lifted twice by previous owners, and I raised it by 5cms in 2006, but only measured up from the last line. When she’s finished 2EZ will have a nice blue boot line to match the lines at the top and hopefully we will be rid of the growth on the sides.

Then we plan to have a shake down sail to Alvor, (never say you’ll never go somewhere again, you never know) and if alls well we’ll make our sail plans into the Med bound for Tunisia, our berth has been reserved, and I’m informed by Mick and Jo from Orizabo, that a hero’s welcome awaits!

Posted by pam

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