Friday was a “rest” day in beautiful Soller and started with a wonderful walk along the seafront.
As you know, there’s always a boat job or two to get done and this was no exception. Skipper Nigel had spotted some water in the engine compartment on one of his daily checks and was monitoring it carefully. Our stop in the marina enabled us to fully clean the area and try to see what was going on. At this point it is worth saying that we had had a full engine service by the mechanics who installed the engine before departing Cartagena. It was not great news when we ran the engine and found the drips to be coming from the impeller housing. This is not something we could fix ourselves without a workshop (well, when I say ourselves I mean Skipper Nigel – engines are not my strong point) – we called the local Yanmar dealer and amazingly fifteen minutes later Juanjo the mechanic turned up. He agreed with Skipper Nigel’s diagnosis and took the whole thing back to his workshop to look at. This rather left us twiddling our thumbs a bit – not sure if it could be fixed or not. A few hours later he returned with our fully re-furbished impeller unit (and associated bill to pay !) and yes the problem was fixed. I headed off for an afternoon swim with only the weather on our minds as it was looking stormy.
As we enjoyed a relaxing evening aboard we heard what sounded like a mariachi band – it was loud, then quieter, then louder. We thought they must be wandering between the hotels and were commenting on how the music took over the whole bay. We then realised they were on a boat – and they were coming towards us – how wonderful.
Saturday morning came and we ran the engine to double check all was good with the fix …… only it wasn’t…..there were still drips of water – so no departure day for us til at least Monday when we could get the mechanic back again – how frustrating. Still – we could think of much worse places to be held up 😉
Sunday morning was a stunner and I headed off up the hill towards the lighthouse – although storms are still forecast it was gorgeous and calm. There are so many active people here – especially cyclists and groups of hikers – there are of course runners and casual walkers too. I think it’s the most active place we have been so far – and all going on along the promenade past the many hotels where people are enjoying their breakfasts. It makes you quite hungry seeing all the delicious croissants and ensaimadas on people’s plates as you are exercising 😉
It was time for the laundry to be done too – so – off I went – Google maps told me it was a right turn at the ice cream shop 😉 I might just have to grab one while I am waiting, I thought ….. it was odd really, located in a super touristy street but it worked a treat and I put two washes on and wandered back to the boat.
On my way back to Gemini J, I luckily spotted a van from Mon Nautic (the mechanic’s company) – I spoke to the chap and asked if he knew JuanJo our mechanic – yes, it was the same company and he even knew what JuanJo had done – great, he would come immediately and check what was going on. This was quite the bonus since it was Sunday – he agreed that, yes, there was still a problem – his suggestion was that perhaps there’s an issue with the shaft within the unit. Once again it was taken from the boat and he said he would look at it first thing Monday morning. Great news from one perspective as we are now on their list for Monday morning jobs – Tommy the “new” mechanic said he’ll let us know …..
I went back and collected the washing and headed back to hang it out (why pay for the dryer when it’s bright sunshine) – then after all that we enjoyed a snack for lunch. We had no sooner eaten than the sky clouded over and great big splodges of rain came down – all over the almost dry washing !!! It was action stations to quickly grab it all before it got wet again – and no sooner had we got everything in than it stopped raining again and the sun came out.
We definitely needed a pick us up after the mornings activities so I just had to go back to the “turn right at the” ice cream shop…..
The afternoon brought more stormy looking weather although the rain did hold off for an evening wander. We were suffering a bit with the anticipation of what Monday would bring with news on the impeller housing problem …..
The next day we didn’t have to wait long, in fact I was out on my morning walk when Tommy the mechanic called to say it was a problem with the shaft as he had thought – we just had to decide – get a new kit to fix the shaft or just go all in and buy a whole new unit. Since a huge part of sailing life is having confidence in your engine it didn’t take us long to decide to just replace the whole thing with a new one. The main question we asked ourselves was if we could ever feel 100% happy with something that’s been taken apart and put back together by different engineers – the answer being no.
The walk I had had was stunning and it was a bit deflating to arrive back at Gemini J with this news – especially as the new part would not arrive until Wednesday……so we will be here a few days longer – not exactly our plan.
So – we find ourselves in a difficult situation as we are definitely running out of good weather windows for our onward trip and we certainly hadn’t planned to be a week in one place ……it is a little easier to accept because it is still stormy so we probably couldn’t be sailing anyway. In fact an hour after I arrived back at the boat another storm came and it rained torrentially.
In true Mediterranean style just a couple of hours later and the sun was shining again. It reminded us once again there could be worse places to be held up so we really can’t complain to be stuck here ….. especially not now we have found the ice cream shop 😉
The Adventures of Gemini J 