Most of the day was spent preparing the saloon sole for its final coat of varnish and a walk to the large Hiperdino supermarket, firstly to purchase a few provisions we needed, but, more importantly, to see what was available for our final provisioning exercise once Justine and Paul arrive. While Roy tackled the floor, Elaine restarted her detailed research into County Donegal.
A bit of unwelcome excitement for the day, though, was Elaine’s watch that kept calling the emergency services while she was alone onboard. No matter what she did to cancel the calls, it kept dialling until she removed it from her arm, apologising profusely to the responder on the other end of the phone calls. It was subsequently discovered that the button to control the emergency calls had got stuck for some unknown reason, much to Elaine’s relief, though, knowing that her watch wasn’t picking up some or other health issue she wasn’t unaware of.
A fun dinner outing with Lost Abbey (Lu and Jeff) and their son, whom we’d met in Gibraltar, wrapped up the day with plenty of laughter.
Yesterday saw the test area of the saloon floor show positive results, following which Roy replaced the last of the burners on the stove, something he was unable to do when we returned from the US in March because only some of the parts arrived before we returned to Turkiye. The outstanding bits eventually arrived and Keenan was able to ship them to Gibraltar, affording us the opportunity to finish an outstanding upgrade.
Elaine finished her detailed research of County Donegal, in particular, the southern areas of the county and was delighted to find that the areas we liked had nothing sinister we would have to contend with. Afterwards she started her analysis of County Leitrim.
A midday coffee break at the Sailor’s Bay café helped break up the day, although this was cut short when literally every table around us lit cigarettes, all of whom were sitting upwind of the non-smokers. This has become a major bugbear, mainly because the smoke affects Elaine really badly, resulting in her coughing for days.
Since we were already out and about anyway, we also took the opportunity to collect our helmstation weatherguard, after receiving notification that the repairs had been completed.
Back onboard a flurry of activity ensued to wash the weatherguard and the other sunshades, before re-installing them all.
It’s fair to say, though, that Paw Paw remains an obstacle course unfortunately, forcing us to climb over or walk around all sorts of stuff scattered around her decks, cockpit and saloon, as well as having to push stuff out of the way to make space on any working surface, including the cockpit table; shore power cables, the hosepipe, the new propane bottle, a gaping hole in the sole, since the cover over the emergency hatch was used as the test area and needed to dry, emergency water jerry cans, petrol jerry cans, the shopping trolley, plastic containers full of our provisions for the crossing, etc. Hopefully at some point this will all be stowed properly and we can bring some order and liveable space back to our lives.
Today we could take a wee break from the chaotic scene after Roy finished the last big job on Paw Paw; varnishing the saloon sole, following which we walked the short distance to our hotel, where we stayed overnight to allow the sole to dry, stopping for a coffee, once again, at the Sailor’s Bay café, but sitting at the first table upwind of everyone. That ensured that anyone smoking would be downwind of us and alleviated the issue we’ve had with smokers.
After checking into the hotel, we visited the hotel’s swimming pool, perched right on the top of the circular building, sporting fabulous panoramic views of the surrounding seascapes, before taking a short walk to the nearby plaza, where we enjoyed a light lunch at the Nuevo Rio restaurant, then walked to Playa de Las Canteras, where we whiled away the rest of the afternoon at the Madre del Amor Hermoso on the promenade, delighted to find the restaurant actually had a non-smoking area outside and from where we could enjoy the beautiful views of the bay and the long sandy beach.
Our day was wrapped up with a delicious dinner at the hotel restaurant, situated on the 23rd floor of the 25 storey building, where we got to enjoy the night views of the beautiful surroundings.
