Captains Blog 15

Three bread, two tomatoes and some old cheese

And so, time had caught up with the crew of Gianti after 6 months messing about in Lagos. We’d soon be heading towards Gibraltar and beyond to start the next stage of our journey.

No more would Captain Mac loose himself at the local gym with such characters as Mr Sneer, Disco Ray the Dutch DJ, Sweaty Sven or the girl built around an arse. No more unnecessary visits to the Hyper China to buy bits of tat that might be useful at some future point, or not. No more holding your breath as you walk past the salted fish section of the local Pingo Doce. No more being asked if I’d like a boat trip to the Grottos or whether I’d “like a smoke”, which increased in frequency as I’d become hairier. And thankfully, no more listening to Charlie Chaplin’s 1920’s music as he swings his cane and raises his hat from the end of the bridge at the marina day after day after day.

The opportunity to crack on with jobs on the boat has not been missed. A full breakdown is shown at the end, but highlights include constructing the new battery enclosure in the aft cabin, brand new spray dodgers, hatch covers for the coach roof, life raft platform and best of all the Captain’s new flopper stopper! (untested)

There have been lots of comings and goings during our stay and we’ve met so many great people from all over the world. Some have crossed the Atlantic, some have simply visited and some have gone or are going into the Med. We have made good friends with many of them and will definitely keep in touch. We’ve had family and friends visit us in Lagos and we hope that this continues as we travel onwards.

We have learnt from our experience in Lagos that the weather can be fickle at times although never so bad that the shorts have to go away. We’ve learned that 6 months in one place is too long and wherever we do end up as winter approaches it won’t be for so long. Maybe we’ll take a holiday from our holiday next winter! The first mate has learnt to sew and has put her new skill to full effect producing a life raft cover and mossi nets as well as the spray dodgers and hatch covers. And Rodney, the young seagull learned that if you catch a fish that’s too big in a marina, you will fly into the side of the pontoon, daze yourself and lose the fish.

And what of the Swedish Secret Service? Well, they moved on a week ago and are now back in Spain and are fine and dandy. We should be following as soon as the weather improves a little, hopefully no later than Monday! Oh, and just to clarify, the title is taken from a text message Erling sent me regarding some items he wanted on the boat, when they returned from Sweden.

Hopefully normality will now resume and I’ll be able to provide more frequent and less bland blogs from this point on.

Adios

Captain Mac

https://youtu.be/-kVL9kNJ4k0 A short video with some great drone footage .. courtesy of Paul 😀

Completed boat Jobs:

Full engine service ✅

Outboard engine service ✅

Winches cleaned and serviced x 4 ✅

Lofrans Windlass service ✅

New cockpit rope bags ✅

New top guard rails and plastic removed from remaining ✅

Gelcoat repairs (splits and scratches) ✅

Complete boat polish and wax ✅

Construct battery enclosure and re-configure battery provision (320 Amp hours) ✅

New spray dodgers ✅

New hatch covers ✅

New mosquito nets for hatches and companionway ✅

New spice rack! ✅

Inverter permanently installed ✅

Keel bolts cleaned and painted ✅

Deck shower repaired and new enclosure fitted ✅

New insert made for between Bimini and sprayhood ✅

New system to adjust headsail sheet cars from cockpit ✅

Permanent preventers rigged ✅

New stereo installed ✅

Sails cleaned and treated ✅

Rigging adjusted ✅

Life raft platform constructed ✅

New life raft cover ✅

All lockers restowed for ease of use ✅

Construct a flopper stopper (helps control the boat pitching in heavy swell) ✅

New pilot guides for the Med purchased ✅