JP got up to work on the water level sender, and applied more fibreglass to bring the level up to the O-ring. After breakfast, this had dried, so the sender was replaced in the tank, and silicone applied around the flange for good measure. Having improved one, JP removed the sender from the second tank and gave that the same treatment with wet and dry. We put the instrument back in the helm's panel, and started to put the boat back together again. JP improvised a replacement for the lost bimini pole, using a section of the broken boat hook - never throw anything away as you never know when it might come in handy. By one o'clock, we were ready to cast off and motored around to the fuelling berth where the chip credit card worked in the machine, unlike the French ones. Spanish diesel is substantially cheaper than that in France, but still over twice as much as the British diesel for boats. The wind was blowing from the North West, about 15 knots. We were both a little jittery putting out after our last experience, and it seemed strange after 4 days in harbour. We dropped a reef in, opened a bottle of wine, and had lunch of cheese and tomato rolls prepared by JP, using French bread from the freezer resuscitated in the oven. Mo fancied a sleep, so went below, while JP kept an eye on things while reading. The current seemed to carry us inshore and combined with the wind heading us from time to time and beginning to drop, it seemed that we would be very late in to Lequitio unless we motored. We arrived, and anchored along side a German boat, but JP realised how small and exposed to the north west the harbour was, and we felt we had been fortunate not to be there while the gales blew themselves out. After supper, again of courgette, we were working on the journal when we heard an eyrie crackling noise, like an electrical discharge. We rushed about the boat looking for a possible cause without any luck: everywhere we looked, the noise was sure to be. On shore, there was loud celtic music. JP considered disconnecting the batteries, but decided against this as we were in a dodgy anchorage. Some time after the music stopped, gone midnight, we gave up our search, and went to bed with our pillows over our heads.
JP awoke about 0500, and immediately tuned in to the crackling noise! He did a quick patrol, but could find nothing amiss. He went back to bed, but about 0600 could stand it no longer, and negotiated with Mo an early start. We had a bite of cereal before we set off, but we were away from our anchorage by 0800. Once out in deep water we paused for Mo to listen for our mysterious ghost, and she was sure he was still with us. The light wind was blowing off-shore, so we expected it to be a doddle or motor initially, but we were hardly out of the harbour when the wind re-appeared from the west, whence it had probably been coming all the time. We painstakingly took out the reef we had had in yesterday, and hoisted the full main, but as we came out of the lee of Cabo de Santa Catalina it became apparent that we needed the reef back in! Mo offered to take a watch to allow JP to sleep, and had made good progress towards the major hurdle, Cabo Machichaco when the wind came up, and a heavy rain squall enveloped us, and the nearby Isla Izaro. We took another reef in and reduced the jib to cope with the 28 knots of wind. Tacking in towards the land, we researched Bermeo, a large fishing port nearby, as a possible place to await an improvement in the weather. As we did so, a clearance came and the wind dropped a notch, encouraging us to continue as we were half way to our objective. Once out of the lee of Machichaco, however, the going got very difficult, and we put on the engine to try to make better progress. Once again, the current seemed to be against us, and the tacking angle as we zig-zagged round the corner and up the next leg was much less than the 90 degrees we would have liked. The clouds cleared and the sun came out, which cheered us up a little bit, but it was about 1700 hours when we finally made the waypoint outside Bilbao. As we took the main in and ran down the harbour with engine and jib, the engine began to run unevenly, losing revs, then picking up again. We wondered if this related to the smell of diesel in the aft cabin that Ian Couper had mentioned, or whether JP had still not got the fuel feed line and filter airtight. Or was it from the investigation into the failed generator fuel feed? We dropped anchor off the yacht club and started to relax with the bacon butties that Mo had promised for a mid-morning snack. We had managed just one cuppa soup, and a cup of tea and biscuit en-route. No wonder JP is losing weight! We had kept the bikes on deck, as we had not expected extreme conditions, so Mo set about washing them down with freshwater, while JP tried to nap in the sun. JP had found some streaks of diesel on the Rompatorium (aft cabin) floor, and was wondering how they had got there, when the realisation dawned. Under the foam mattress, fortunately, we had some ventilation mats, but these and some of one of the mattresses were covered in diesel, which was also creeping up the sidewall of the cabin. Taking everything out of the cabin, we found Mike's old admiralty charts under the bunk also soaking in diesel, but luckily nothing in the lockers underneath or the other bedding stacked in the cabin were affected. JP soon found the source of the diesel: one of the spare fuel cans in the lazarette had tipped up, the air vent was loose, and about a gallon of diesel was missing. On a port tack, the fuel had been leaking out, and flowing forward (and downwards, as the boat gets wider), and found its way through the seal into the aft cabin. We reflected on how one piece of carelessness, perhaps working under pressure, leads to further problems. Knackered, Mo skipped supper altogether, and JP made do with an overripe avocado and some cheese and toasties, but the cheese was now so smelly that he decided that it could join the diesel infested rubbish bucket. An early bed, to sleep if the music blaring over the harbour, and our so far absent friend from last night, permit.
The disco finally wound up at 0130, but we had a quiet night. We got up and had breakfast. JP then treated the rust on the bikes with Jenolite and gave the frames a coating of marine polish. He then set about the main task of the day, which was to fit the charge regulator, needed because the engine does not effectively charge the batteries. In order to do this, the alternator first had to be removed, and leads soldered to its brushes. After considerable difficulty, the alternator fixings were undone, a spacer bar manifesting itself by the noise it made jumping into the bowels of the engine bed. The alternator leads could then be disconnected in situ, and then it was barely extracted through the space occupied by the generator cover (having once more emptied Mo's dry store locker). This process took nearly a couple of hours. JP then took it in triumph to the cockpit table, in order to take it to pieces to get at the brushes. No such luck. Man from Yanmar has sprayed all over with grey paint: no way can any of the bolts be shifted, and two at least now have their heads wrecked and will have to be drilled out. Mo realised that no alternator meant no engine = no move anywhere and no power for freezer. Her arguments prevailed with JP and he set about replacing it before further damaging it. Not so fast! What had fallen off when undone was not so easily replaced, given that Dehler had provided practically no access to this essential equipment. Hours later, and after a tea break with energy giving fig biscuit, JP managed on the umpteenth attempt to get the retaining bolt through the spacer and into the relevant holes on the alternator bracket and engine. Mo stood stoically by, helping wherever she could, and doing much run, fetching and carrying, but mostly providing moral support and putting up with the colourful language. When the engine was finally running, however, it showed a tendency to cough and splutter, possibly when other boats went by. On one occasion, when it was doing this, JP turned up the throttle and it simply gave up and died. JP checked the fuel filter and had another go at bleeding air out of the system. It restarted, but on occasions sounded hesitant. JP shut it down, in order to quit while ahead. Mo meantime had been doing her Widow Twanky act, and had produced lots of washing drying on the safety lines. Totally exhausted, we had a drink, then supper, and fell into bed.
Debbie had very sweetly suggested we had a couple of days relaxation before they turned up! We had another reasonable night, the disco was not quite so loud. We had a bit of a lie in, and got up to boiled eggs and toasties. The batteries were now in a state of severe discharge, so JP resolved to have another go at resolving the engine problem. As usual, after a bit of bleeding, off it went again quite happily... for a while. In due course it became uneven, but we had got some ampere hours in, and tomorrow we are going into a marina, provided we can get there. The priority today had to be to get ourselves organised so that Debbie and Peter have some space for their stuff, but particularly Tom and Emma's equipment. However, we had been running our fresh stuff down to the bone, and we needed to get to the shops, so we launched the dinghy and put the large outboard on. We reasoned that if Fuga's engine let us down, we could always push her into the marina with the tender. Once more, we had been in a place, at anchor, for days without feeling the need to get off the boat! The first job was to dump the flong that had accumulated since leaving Hondarrabia, plus the soggy charts, the ruined under mattress air-flow matting and bits of ply that were also ruined. By the time we got to the shops, they were all about to close for the siesta, about three hours. We had a quick look around one supermarket, and managed to come away with some Fabreeze with which to mask the smell of diesel on the mattress and cabin wall lining, plus some bread, cold meat, and salad stuff for lunch. Mo resisted JP's desire to go and sit at an outside bar: we went back to the boat for lunch! First impressions of Las Arenas, at the entrance up river to Bilbao, were more favourable than we had thought from the water. It is not a pretty anchorage, with the port installations opposite as a backdrop, and marinas in front of the adjacent shore. There is an operational transporter bridge, recently restored, that ferries cars and people between the two sides. There are some lovely buildings, but unfortunately 60's architect has struck here too, and two quite ugly contraptions have been added to the seaward end of a line of lovely Basque-style buildings on the opposite bank of the river. We didn't find a decent supermarket. After lunch, JP cleaned up the cockpit, badly needed but spurred on by the necessity to get rid of the diesel that dripped off the matting and charts. Mo was re-organising her 'magic cupboard' under the wash basin in the heads, and we both then worked together to find places for the odds and sods that were normally stored in the Rompatorium. We got rid of some books that had either been read, or were of limited interest, and re-organised the cave locker space behind the saloon seating. When heeled, the back swings forward, and the contents can come tumbling out. Once this had been completed, and the engine space could be accessed, JP had a further go at the engine, working on the theory of an air leak upstream of the fuel pump: he was still not convinced that it was bleeding properly. There was briefly a false dawn, when the fuel feed line to the pump fell of in his hand: the jubilee clip was badly positioned and the pipe was barely hanging on. How it worked at all can only be imagined, and it was certainly an accident waiting to happen that happily had been prevented. However, nothing else was found, and no improvement. We had an e-mail from David Platon to say that he had been sending us mail, but we had not received it, and a message from Debbie saying that neither the bimini bar nor the generator fuel pump had turned up. Sent Mastervolt another mail to ask them to pull the stops out. We ran the engine again to put some charge in, albeit rather bumpily, and finally went to bed pretty exhausted as usual.
Thursday 15th July
JP was woken at 0430 by a mosquito dive bombing him, but was unable to engage him with the fat Jilly Cooper book that he is attempting to read. The devil disappears as soon as you switch on the light, and comes back as soon as you try to settle off. Mo was drawn in to this dispute, with no better luck. JP got up, deciding to try out some theories that we had developed the evening before. First of all he got at the fuel tank again, and pumped out the bottom jug full of diesel. Although cloudy, possibly due to the 'Fuel Set' additive which 'absorbs' any residual moisture, it looked fine, and there was no dirt or foul stuff. He had another go at bleeding, again inconclusively, and then disconnected the fuel feed line to the primary filter/separator. Finding a bit of tubing from the dehumidifier (that looked useful and was therefore saved - never, never throw anything away), he fixed this over the copper fitting and secured same with a jubilee clip. No way could he blow down it! Fuga comes well equipped, and having bikes on board one needs a bike pump. Another jubilee clip got a reasonable fit around the connector tube from the pump, and, hey presto! The blockage was sent back into the tank, no doubt to haunt us yet again in the future. JP had had at the back of his mind the experience with Golondrina, where a lump of silicone had got into the fuel tank, and every so often blocked the feed tube. The engine will draw fuel from the return line, up to the point where this comes clear of the fuel! For the time being, we have an engine again, but when we have run down the tank it will be necessary to pump it all out again to see if we can get it any cleaner. Needless to say the engine ran sweetly for over an hour at all revs from tick over to screaming pitch. When all this had been done, we were tidying up when we received a telephone call from Debbie to say they had landed at the airport, and which marina should they come to? We clarified that this was the new marina at Getxo rather than the old port at Las Arenas, and Debbie managed to communicate with the taxi driver by drawing pictures of boats! Hurriedly raising anchor, JP wondered why he was not getting much joy out of the winch, but put it down to the rather flattened batteries. Another phone call as we were motoring across confirmed that the family had arrived at the Capitainerie, so they had to hang on for us on shore. We moored up and went to meet them, and were going to have a drink and check in at the marina, but as no service was forthcoming we gave up and went back to the boat. There were complaints about a smell from the crew, which JP first dismissed, then to his horror found that the original anchor winch was in the process of melting its plastic cover, pouring oil over the forward deck locker, and creating a stench that was to hang around for days. JP had not noticed that the switch for the old winch had been accidentally knocked 'on', hence the reluctance of the new one to function properly. He cursed himself for not engineering the set up better back at Haslar when the winches were found to be operated differently and therefore incompatible with the planned installation. The whole disaster was probably made possible by the batteries being so flat that they could not raise enough current to blow the fuse. Certainly the 'circuit breaker' did not perform its function. Later, in testing whether the winch motor was burnt out, JP did manage to blow the link fuse at the distribution point aft, and not having a spare had to bodge it with a little copper wire soldered across to bridge the burnt bit in the middle. Back in the marina, we had lunch and afterwards while Peter and Debbie et al set off for the beach, JP went in search of a spare alternator and fuel pump for the generator.
Mo and JP then went up the hill to the town to find some supplies. Having lugged two gaz cylinders with them, they left these with the shop on discovering that they had run out of supplies, but more were expected tomorrow. JP got a Movistar pay as you go SIM card for his phone, and spent much of the evening trying to make this work with GPRS for internet access. Despite a large document sent to him by the helpful Laura, he didn't succeed and had to swap back to O2 for the time being.
The family set off up the hill to explore the town of Algorta, above the Getxo marina complex, while JP and Mo busied themselves aboard Fuga. At lunch time, JP went over to the Volvo dealer/chandlers who had promised to get a fuel pump in, as well as ordering in a Hitachi alternator for the Yanmar. Back on Fuga, the fuel pump was wired in and the generator was back in business once more. After lunch, Tom was bursting for the beach, so they set off there, while Mo and JP returned up the hill to collect some further supplies and the two gaz bottles. JP was thrilled to find that the gas cost just €6.12, about a third of the UK price! As by now we had just about outstayed our welcome at the marina, we left and planned to motor over to the anchorage off the yacht club once more. On the way, JP wanted to go out into deeper water to dump the contents of the holding tank, but as we did so we encountered a procession of boats including a lifeboat, and escorted by a police launch. It wasn't too clear what was going on, but many of them were dressed with flags, and had loads of people on board. The procession appeared to meet up with a decorated rowing boat, then half returned to the shore opposite the yacht club, while the rest split up and went various ways, allowing Fuga to complete her mission. Later that evening, there was a splendid firework display from the opposite bank, and the disco was going well into the early hours.
JP dropped Peter and Tom off at a rather polluted beach, behind which they hoped to find some room for football, and to make their way to the swings and slides. JP returned to the yacht club to land, in order to fetch some supplies from the supermarket. Peter and Tom made their way back, and we had lunch before setting off for Castro Urdiales. There was no wind to sail, so we motored over the five miles from the outer entrance to the harbour. Once there, the pilot book was found to be correct in that we were chased off from anchoring near the private moorings. However, we were not pestered for any mooring fee.
As we had breakfast, crowds began to gather around the harbour, and rowing boats with crews of about 18 people began to set off from the shore. We had read about 'testosterone fuelled events' in the pilot, so decided to go and see for ourselves. Mo was in production mode in the galley, so stayed aboard Fuga, while JP ostensibly ferried the family across to the sea wall. Once there, JP was (easily) persuaded to stay and take some photographs. The races were run in four legs of approximately 1 mile, with a turn round a buoy at either end. There were three heats altogether, but the winner - a team from Bermeo, a fishing harbour about 30 miles away, was decided on time, rather than a race-off between the fastest boats.After lunch (JP getting ticked off by Mo for absenting himself for so long), the family went to the beach while JP and Mo went ashore to look around the church, dominating the harbour and town. Red shirted supporters of the local rowing team were still very much in evidence, and vocal to boot.
We set off early in the morning, to try to make some progress while Tom was still in good humour. There was again no wind, so we had to motor around Cabo Machichaco, but found a good lunch time anchorage off the village in the entrance to the river Mundaco. Waves were breaking on the bar of the river, showing why this was a favourite haunt of surfers. After lunch, the family were dropped off at the beach with the VHF. When it became thundery later, JP set off to find them but by this time they had made their way into the village Puerto de Mundaca. The port was extremely pretty, packed with small fishing boats. We were making ready to leave when a local motorboat came up to warn us that the anchorage was unsuitable in poor conditions - hardly necessary but nice of them to care. Afterwards, we made our way to Lequitio where we hunted for some deep enough water, it being just after spring tides. There were no other boats anchored, and we hoped we had got it right.
It was about 0100 when Peter woke and got up. JP was coming to, but had not yet realised why. We were bumping on the sandy bottom with the slight swell, and had drifted rather too close to the beacon marking nearby rocks, on which waves were breaking. We tried to motor away to find deeper water, but only succeeded in putting ourselves more firmly aground. It was no problem, as we had only grounded just before low water. JP mounted an anchor watch for a while, until we were again safely afloat. In the morning the generator, that Mo had used the previous evening, started then shut down again almost immediately. Pete and Tom went ashore by dinghy to get bread, and after breakfast we decided to move Fuga to the anchorage on the other side of Isla de San Nicolas, off the beach, where there would be deeper water. We did not really want to be aground at the next low tide. In the afternoon, JP, Mo and Debbie with Emma went ashore to look around the port, including the very lovely old church. The latter did not open until 1700, so we waited until it did. Tom and Peter went to the beach, which proved a great success, and Peter and Debbie had a brief snorkel off the rocky island, where they saw many varieties of fish. When the beach party had had enough, and we had all had a swim, we set off for Guetaria arriving at the anchorage outside the port. Although somewhat rolly we did have plenty of water, and of course it was free.
