Buying Boat Supplies in Europe is Like Buying Food in an Airport

Another short day of sewing and another hatch cover completed! Things are coming along well and there actually seems to be a finite checklist of things to do on the boat before leaving for the Canaries. Hopefully there will be enough time to do some tourist-y activities here on the Algarve before casting off but who knows how these things will go on-board. As we've seen already, plans and checklists are anything but predictable or set in stone on a boat (much more likely that they're written in sand on a beach somewhere below the high tide line). More later...

Now In Lagos After a Long Night

I arrived in Lagos a couple of hours ago suffering from a slight lack of sleep. "Why?" you ask? I'll explain:

Yesterday we had the spinnaker flying for most of the afternoon and were enjoying a nice, calm sail from Oeiras to Lagos. Right around that reading was making my eyelids slightly heavy the boat heeled over much further than normal. I jumped up and saw that the wind indicator was showing the wind increasing to over 20 knots and it was moving abnormally fast from astern of the boat toward the bow. I eased the spinnaker; we got the boat under control and I headed up on deck to douse the spinnaker and bag it.

While I was up on deck the engine began having serious trouble and slowly died (Bonus!). After getting the sails adjusted for this change of scenario I headed below to check fuel filters and whatever else may have caused the engine to just suddenly stop running. This troubleshooting process went on for a couple of hours during which I had to take occasional breaks in the cockpit just to get some fresh air, cool off, and get out of a rolling engine room. After changing out all four of the primary Racor filters the engine still would not pump fuel; it was cranking but the fuel rail would not bleed air and squirt fuel like it normally should do if it is receiving fuel from the lift pump.

Since the lift pump is on the engine and hidden behind an oil filter I tried to weed out any other options before getting down to taking the oil filter off so that I could access the lift pump and replace it (and yes, we did have a spare for it). After making sure that the primary pump near the filters was functioning I was about out of ideas. I took another break, pulled out a diesel mechanics book as well as the engine operator's manual and came up with no new ideas. At this point it was time to bite the bullet and start working on replacing the lift pump.

Once I found the new lift pump -- no easy task -- I removed the oil filter on the side of the engine and went to work removing the old lift pump. The pump came off slowly but reasonably easily. I looked at the diaphragm inside the pump and couldn't see anything wrong with it but a pin-hole can make it cease functioning and I couldn't see the entire diaphragm anyway.

Another break and probably an hour or so later I finally had the lift pump installed on the side of the engine with the proper hoses on the suction and discharge side of it...the engine still would not bleed the air out of the fuel system or maybe it still wasn't getting any fuel at all, I was getting quite frustrated. Finally I decided to crack the hose that runs from the lift pump to the fuel rail and was greeted with a hiss just as if I had open a soda bottle that someone had shaken up. Apparently after replacing the lift pump the air bubble in the upper hose would not push through into the fuel system and bleed out of the opened fuel line! After tightening the hose once again the engine cranked to life in a spray of diesel fuel as I tightened the nut back down on the fuel line that I had opened.

I think that if cars and houses had the consistent problems that boats have and were just as remote when they happened as boats usually are...there would be a lot more people living like the Amish.

"That car has how many parts? And I might have to fix them where? While the whole car is moving?...Nah, I like my horse and buggy, thanks!"

Bye Bye Oeiras

Today we are heading out of Oeiras, Portugal and headed South to Lagos, Portugal. The trip should only be about a day's worth of sailing and while we're out I will try to manage a post or two to my Sailblog. The weather looks like it should be decent although it has gotten quite chilly here in Portugal as of late.

Bad Bad Blogger

I really need to put a new post up very soon but things have been busy recently and the best I can do is link to Picasa where I have uploaded a few hundred new photos.

Quick Post

Just wanted to post a couple of photos from today. I finally finished installing the Phifertex window screens on the windows in the pilothouse of the boat. They will be especially helpful once we get back to the Caribbean as they allow one to see out of the windows but also block over sixty percent of the sunlight from getting in and heating up the boat. Now that this project is complete I will probably get back to work sewing some more hatchcovers and getting ready to install those. Here are the pictures:

Another Trip to Sintra

Today I went back to Sintra, a town Northwest of Lisbon where several old aristocratic estates and palaces are located. The first time I was there I got to see part of Quinta da Regaleira (one of the old estates) but missed getting to see the “initiatic well” that is said to be the highlight of the property. This time I started out by going to an old national palace called Palacio da Pena which is one of the other attractions situated in the UNESCO World Heritage Site that is Sintra.

The Palacio da Pena is partially made up of a chapel from the middle ages that also served as a monastery through the 17^th Century. In 1755 the Monastery was damaged – like so many of the other historical structures in and around Lisbon – by a large earthquake that also re-routed the Rio Tejo quite drastically. After the damage the monastery was left in its damaged state for over eighty years before the extinction of the religious orders in 1834 and the eventual purchase of the property by Don Fernando II in 1838. In the years between 1842 and 1854 Don Fernando II, Dona Maria II and Baron Von Eschwege restored the monastery and added a much larger structure that he dubbed the “new palace” section of the property. In 1889 the palace and surrounding park was acquired by the state. Between 1910 and 1912, after the formation of the republic, the entire property was converted into a museum. UNESCO declared the Sintra Hills, including Palacaio da Pena, the first “Cultural Landscape” in Europe as well as a World Heritage Site. That should bring you up to speed on the property, now here are some of the pictures that I took while touring the palace (Also, more Palacio pictures here and the Quinta da Regaleira pictures have been added here):

A Day at Castelo de Sao Jorge in Lisbon

I'm beginning this post at 1am local time on Saturday morning, October 17. I have included this information because I assume that by the time I am able to post this to the web I will have a second post ready and the chronology could get slightly confusing. Anyway, I spent all day today (Friday) in Lisbon and got to do some real, honest-to-goodness sight-seeing.

I will not go too much into the history of Lisbon, partially because I have not memorized it and partially because it might bore some people to tears, but in the middle of the city there is a castle, the Castelo Sao Jorge, and it was captured a long time ago from the Moors after a five-month siege. After the siege it remained the center of wealth and power for the city for quite some time before being replaced by other royal residences and government buildings. This castle is where I spent the majority of my day walking around, taking pictures, and perusing the exhibits.

The castle, as one might expect, is located at the highest point of the city and provides a commanding viewpoint from which to take in the surrounding buildings as well as the Rio Tejo. The palace is made up of an outer wall which surrounds the entire complex, a middle wall which surrounds the old village, and then the castle itself sits in the middle of the entire complex. Although heavily restored the entire complex is quite impressive and provides a number of things to see while inside.

Outside the walls there are twisting and turning streets that canvas the surrounding hills. One could easily imagine that these streets are almost exactly as they were several hundred years ago despite the car traffic. Since I said that I would not get into the detailed history of the Castelo Sao Jorge I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking, there are some below and there are many more posted on my Picasa Album from today. Tomorrow (or actually today) I am headed back to Sintra to see Palacio de Pena, the old national palace in that town!