On Monday, after a well deserved sleep-in, we were back on weather watch looking for a weather window. Roy also started on his Pre-sail Checklist activities, including starting the generator, after checking the RACOR filter, to ensure it was working, backwashing the watermaker, filling the emergency water jerry cans and confirming the clearing out procedure for Gibraltar. In the process he happened to meet the cruisers off Lost Abbey, Lu and Jeff, who were tied to the marina wall in front of us, resulting in a dinner arrangement.
While Elaine got started on her Pre-sail Checklist activities, including charging all the electronic devices onboard, as well as those in the grab-bag and taking the opportunity to check everything in the grab-bag too, finalising our emergency contact list and adding these to our satellite phones, then compiling the draft floatplan, to mention a few activities, she discovered in the process that our secondary EPIRB had fallen apart. Curiosity got the better of Roy in deciding to strip it further, only to find that the new battery we paid to have replaced recently on our primary EPIRB, which cost us £189, was, in fact, nine CR123A batteries packed together, each costing only $2. What a ripoff!
Dinner was enjoyed with Lost Abbey at the Rendezvous Char Grill on the waterfront and turned out to be a fun evening with plenty of laughter. It was simply lovely to have the opportunity to socialise with fellow cruisers again.
After a great outing, Elaine completely forgot her methotrexate day again and was scrambling at 0400 yesterday morning for her tablets. Thankfully she went straight back to sleep, but woke up feeling absolutely dreadful; the worst side effect reaction to this medication in a long time and had no idea why. Regardless, that resulted in a very lazy day and doing as little as possible until the nausea passed. Feeling a little better as the day progressed and after a nap, though, she downloaded and backed up our latest photographs and rearranged our various marina bookings for an earlier arrival date, while Roy returned to Morrison’s in the hope of getting the fresh produce we needed to cook our passage meals. Although it was still Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard, with numerous empty shelves, he managed to scrap together what we needed and got the ingredients to prepare a delicious roast dinner.
After dinner, Roy had another flurry of activity and rigged the spinnaker sheets and guys, filled the water tanks, tied down the diesel jerry cans and stowed the emergency water jerry cans.
This morning he was up early to walk to La Linea de la Concepción in search of his favourite biscuits, but returned empty-handed, although he did find delicious, freshly baked bread rolls. While he was out, Elaine waved goodbye to Lost Abbey, but still feeling off, she enjoyed another lazy day and a nice long chat to her brother in South Africa, while Roy prepared our passage meals in the afternoon.
