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STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PRESS

DRAMATIC (!!)RESCUE  OFF MOROCCAN COAST .... READ ALL ABOUT IT ..... LATER
 You'll just have to wait a bit .......


You can race to the interesting bit if you want but I'm going to do this blog in order of places ... and so ...



The outboard mended, stores on board led to an uneventful trip to Lexios which is not the most salubrious anchorage 'twixt an oil refinery, container port and a half built cruise ship terminal.  The main entertainment was the local sailing school who appear to bundle a shed load of kids in an oversize dinghy and let them loose on unsuspecting visitors.  We were the centre of attraction and the kids aimed for us whilst shouting 'Hello, we love you'  Of course!

And onto..
CASCAIS

Cascais is a delightful stopover despite its look of a tourist town.  The architecture in the old part makes one forgive the McDonalds ,Zara and the like.  Freshly laundered clothes also raise one's spirit!
Feedback has suggested that more pics need to be included so Larry - these are for you!

Palm trees give an exotic feel.

The beautifully tiled streets are not the easiest to walk on!

Typical Portuguese architecture and colour.

This is the original castle.

The best live music so far ..

 31ST JULY 
SINES - PRONOUNCED SINGE (apparently) 
We visited Sines 10 years ago on our trip to the Mediterranean.  The marina operated out of 2 Portakabins - one where you did the paperwork and one that served as the showers.  Now it has a new multi purpose building but strangely the weather is still only in Portuguese.
The bay and beach are in full use.  There is  a newish museum which blends the history of the area with archaeology, myth and social history plus space dedicated to its most famous son, Vasco de Gama.  It also boasts a branch of Barclays bank.

Memories abound for us here, centered around one of those days 'out of time' - meaning - we were too drunk to remember.  It began one afternoon when we were innocently sitting in the cockpit and a young couple rowed past us from the bay and asked if they could join us.  As they had a bottle of wine, we welcomed them aboard and got out the crisps.  We exchanged stories and drank another bottle ( I have to say that in general we are well behaved, sober citizens)   It was decided that we would go out to eat.  I have no recollection of getting to the restaurant,, but we had a lovely meal and wobbled home.  The point to this story is that a year later, we met an Australian couple who had also met this young couple 'Oh, you mean Mariah II' and apparently our names popped up in conversation.  Yet another 'small world moment ....'
Sines also ranks as civilised because it has now got a Lidl.  At one time the watchword on civilisation was a shop selling the Daily Mail,  Would you believe that Kelibiah in Tunisia sells it!

From Sines we had to decide which way to go.  We were always going to go to Madeira but then Brian, the master of the options mentioned Morocco.  That idea held quite a lot of appeal - different culture, landscape, blah, blah.  Also the idea of sailing straight for the Canaries came up.  Arguments for and against were banded about ....

The calm .....

And so on Aug 4th we set out for the Canaries .....  although it would seem that someone or something had a more cunning plan ......

A journey of perhaps 5 days, supposedly straightforward sailing as the winds and sea should be going the same way ....

Everything was fine.  The weather was fine, the sailing was fine.  Then 3 days later the wind died and the engine was switched on.  Then the oil pressure light went on along with that irritating high pitched alarm.  Engine off, engine on  oooh nooooo!  Engine off, change oil filter, fiddle about, switch on ...oooh, definitely noooo.  Oh well, lets sail ....  there came lots of wind ....  But our solar panels and wind gen didn't appear to be doing the business ...oooh and thrice ooooh!
Gradually everything went down - autohelm, GPS, radio, and eventually lights. The wind also kept dying so we were effectively drifting on the current.  We thought we had reached the northern tip of the Canaries but when the lights went and we had been 2 nights on the wheel we decided a Pan Pan was the order of the day.

At 5-30am on Thursday 8th August I put together a call and fired up the handheld VHF.  'All ships, all ships, all ships  ....'  The rest of the day saw some erratic and rather bizarre radio contact with Arrecife Radio and Palma Radio.  No one seemed to be telling anyone the information I was constantly relaying back to them.  We were never given a position despite them asking us to put on our EPIRB and despite my constantly asking for an update.  Falmouth knew more than we did as they put in a call to Brian's son!

It was when Arrecife relayed a request from Rabat asking us if we could anchor where we were that we were seriously confused ...  Rabat? Anchor? In the middle of the sea?  

Apparently, radio contact can be sporadic in the space between Morocco and the Canaries.  We certainly found that to be true all day.  We drifted, we sailed west, we waited, I nagged on the radio,  Around 4pm I did my usual message and instantly the reply came that 2 Moroccan warships were on the look out for us and someone should be with us in 20 mins.  'Try to get in touch with them,' we were told.  'If they can't find you, we'll send a plane ....'  2 hours later, no sign of said ships.  More from Palma Radio, this time sounding very efficient.  'A plane will be with you in 35 mins.  Use flares if asked.  Pilot of said plane -  'I'll be with you in 20 mins'

Our UK friends will be familiar with the idea of waiting for a bus and then 3 turning up at once.  That theory seems to hold water in other situations as well.  About 8pm, as fog was beginning to descend and we knew we had about an hour of daylight, we heard a ships engine and fog horn.  Brian replied with our little squirty horn (it was surprisingly loud) and received an answering blast.  Lo and behold the ship appears and the plane flies out of the sun

Apologies for the poor quality ..

This was the carrying line.  It took quite a few goes to get this over

 Brian was magnificent, as the videos and pictures that the crew took would tell.  With Island Song bucking and heaving in the wash from the ship he single handedly hauled the lines on board and dragged them over the capstan.  I wish I could say I had a picture of that.  Goodness knows it would have been a real action shot, but it  didn't seem right.  There he was, tussling with heavy duty rope, hooked on by his feet (and I hope his safety line, but I can't be sure) on a heaving yacht.  I couldn't turn it into a spectator sport.

There followed 10 hours of towing with us having to take the wheel to keep her steady.  We still had no idea where we were and the place we were going didn't mean a thing.  Fog came down and it was only when it got light that we got into quieter waters and were transferred to a tug.  We had a last visit from some crew of the ship in their tiny dinghy.  They gave us food, water and a couple of fleet hats.  More pics were taken and they roared away.

As we neared the port we began to see where we'd pitched up.  Tan-Tan is a big fishing port with deep sea vessels that haven't seen a fish in a long time as well as local boats.  There was a reception committee waiting as we moored up against the tug.  All colours of uniform, hats and no hats, police, customs, immigration, plus the Harbour master descended on us.  Our passports were taken, the yacht searched and gradually some holes in the story were filled in from their perspective.  It became obvious that they were taking our presence very seriously.

In all the time we were there, we were treated with the utmost respect.  We think that the Captain of the ship arranged for a top Naval engineer to be there for us and he in turn brought in  top engineers and mechanics to come and sort out the repairs.  They spent the whole of one day fixing what turned out to be an electrical problem.

The fishermen were thoroughly entertained by us taking down and replacing our torn genoa ( didn't I mention that? )  We in turn were entertained by what can only be described as a dance whereby the boats moved in and out around us, coming for fuel and ice.


The following pictures show life going on within 50 metres and less of Island Song.

Close company in front!

Our tug manned by Hamid

 Boat repairs and associated activities in not so exotic places .....

This one rushed in for a haul out - she was sinking!

 

 However, it seemed to get forgotten that we might need food although it was recognised that we needed to let people know where we were.  We were let out of the port but only with a minder to make sure we were safe.  Tan - Tan is in wild west country.  It has the cheapest Internet cafe ever at about 50p for an hour although you spend half of that managing the Moroccan keyboard - all those wiggly bits ...  and the most basic of banking systems ...well.. no one has any money ....  No debit or credit card facilities in the bank which meant that paying for the jaunt was tricky.  There was limit on how much you could take out of the ATM in a week and we didn't want to be there for weeks ...

As well as it being a serious matter that we were there, it was also a serious matter to get us out and away.  If the Harbour Master could have blown away the fog himself, he would have.  It lifted on Tues evening and a rather port dirty boat and crew began the task of trying to locate the Canaries once more.   

LESSONS LEARNED
You need a back up GPS - I can't imagine how we missed that one!
Disable alarms and lights and carry on ........ Not serious ...

We sat and talked with the Harbour Master for a while and we all agreed that the people in every country are generally kind, helpful and will do all in their power to help.  We also agreed that the politicians in every country are a big problem ........

 WEDNESDAY 14TH AUGUST - AND SO ..... 
THE CANARIES

Wednesday afternoon and lo and behold, the promised land is on the horizon.  4-30pm sees us moored and 5-30pm sees us in the bar with an ice cold beer and tapas.  Puerto Calero is a 5 star marina  on Lanzarote, where a mortgage is obligatory.  I have lost count of the number of showers I've had.  Island Song and ourselves have been cleaned of Tan- Tan oil and detritus and we are beginning to relax.  Unfortunately for us, the tourists not going to Egypt are coming here and there are no hire cars to be had which means that we might not see the island much.

We have a plan but we're reluctant to even whisper it in case the someone or something decides otherwise ..... and switches on the washing machine of life ... oh dear ... I'm reading too much Douglas Adams ....