The stressful haul out and living on the boatyard (#8)

We arrived at the Marina of Portimão around noon and we got help docking the boat so everything went smooth, no need for stress here. After arriving it was cleaning time! Get the salt off the boat, scrub the deck, wash the windows, tidy up the flybridge, ...

Since we were only staying for one day in the Marina I also did all the laundry while we were connected to the shore power.

Time flies when you’re busy. It was evening before we knew it and turned out we were very tired from sailing the previous days, we went to bed around 7:30 p.m. Unfortunately there was a lot of noise in the marina so we didn’t sleep very well. But since we went to bed very early we were able to get up early the next morning. And we were ready before noon to sail to Lagos, which would take us about an hour. We needed to go to Lagos to get the boat hauled out so the sail drive could get repaired.

Sailing to Lagos …

The trip to Lagos was amazing! The weather was great and the sea was calm. We got to enjoy our lunch on the front of the boat while admiring the coast of Portugal with its beautiful beaches and caves in between the rocks and cliffs.

When we arrived at the marina in Lagos it turned out we had gotten a little too relaxed. When docking the boat we forgot to put out the fenders. Luckily there was some protection at the pontoon and we only made a tiny scratch. But you can imagine all of a sudden there was a lot of stress. Because there was not enough space at the waiting pontoon we had to dock at the gas station first. We asked the sailing boat at the waiting pontoon to move a little but they refused so we had to make some phone calls to be able to go to the shipyard earlier.

The haul out ...

By the time we arrived at the boatyard the wind picked up a lot. It was a challenging situation to dock the boat in a narrow space, close to another boat and with wind gusts up to 20 knots. After a few tries and the help of almost all of the boatyard staff pulling ropes, we got her on the hydraulic lift. But just as she was out of the water, we heard a huge bang, saw smoke coming out of the trailer and oil was spraying everywhere. This was going to take a lot longer than we expected. We waited for the trailer to get repaired and meanwhile they also started working on our broken sail drive. Turns out we didn’t catch a fishing line but there was a default in the shaft.

So it‚ would be a warranty claim. Which was a good thing because we wouldn’t have to pay for all of it but... that also meant that it would take a lot longer because the spare parts had to be ordered in the Netherlands and it would take some days for them to get delivered to Portugal.

Living on the hard ...

So we would be living on the hard for a while, which meant climbing up and down a ladder to get on and off the boat, which was especially difficult with the dog. And another disadvantage was that we have no grey water tank so we couldn’t use any water because it would just flow out from under the boat. Luckily there were new, clean toilet and bathroom facilities at Sopromar.

Since we would be there for a while it was time to give the children the promised Halloween party. Liam and Sky made some scary decorations and we went grocery shopping for the necessary supplies for their scary menu. This was even more challenging this time because everything had to get up the ladder to get it on board. But the Halloween party was a lot of fun and afterwards, we watched the movie ‘A nightmare before Christmas’ before going to bed.

As the days passed we discovered that some of our friends we met in Porto were here in Lagos in the Marina. We met for drinks and the kids got to play together and went to the beach a few times while the weather was still good.

We had hoped to be back in the water before the weekend but the parts hadn’t arrived yet. And sadly it was a rainy weekend. We managed to do some boat works in between the rain showers. Like finally putting the (name) stickers up. It worked out very well, I love the result!!

We were already getting used to life on the boatyard. The kids knew every corner of it by now and even Nova felt confident enough to sneak off the boat to go terrorise the shipyard parrots or take a walk on her own. We had stairs now so she could get off alone.

After the weekend the weather improved again and we could keep ourselves busy with the daily tasks, schoolwork, cleaning and going to the beach.

We rented a car for a few days to stock up on food and to pick up a package in Portimao. Another week went by and we were still on the hard.

Going up the mast ...

We did manage to do an important boat job in the meantime. We had noticed that our main halyard was shaved and needed to be fixed. Not that much work but it meant going up in the mast to loosen the halyard on the top. I knew before we bought the boat that this would be my job, but I have been anxious ever since for the moment to come because I’m afraid of heights. But I got myself together and put on a harness so Sven could pull me up. It was scary but I managed it. I took me a long time to get the pin out because I didn’t have the correct tools but I refused to go down again without succeeding in this task. And I did it... and I’m actually very proud of myself!

We had to cut off a piece of the line to make a new splice. And since we had never done this before and it’s quite important that it will hold firmly, we first practised on two other lines, which worked well. Splicing the main halyard was a lot more difficult tough, we think because this line has already had a lot of tension on it before from being used. It took some brute force, a hammer and a winch but Sven managed to pull it through. He decided he would go up to re-attach the halyard in the mast and I was confident that I would be able to get him up and down safely. When he was all the way up he dropped the pin and had to come down again to get it.

After we had the job done turned out Sven knocked of a plastic cap so I went back up one more time to put it back in place. After all this we deserved a break so went for a walk in the centre of Lagos and had an amazing Portuguese dinner.

While we were staying on the boatyard someone noticed that our rudder was a bit loose, so that got repaired too and after the following weekend the parts to repair both of our sail drives (turns out the starboard one had the same problem) had arrived. So on Monday after staying on the boatyard for 14 days we were finally ready to get back into the water as soon as the tide was high enough. Luckily it went a lot smoother than the haul out. It was sooo great to finally be back in the water!! Because it became dark soon during those winter days we spent the night at the Sopromar dock so we could leave the next morning.

Our next stop would be Vilamoura where we had an appointment on Friday to take off the mast and fix the loose tubes inside. This meant we still had a few days to relax and explore the surroundings.

So next week you’ll read all about our dinghy excursion to the extraordinary caves of Ponta de Piedade in Lagos and the stunning anchorage between the sandbanks in Alvor.

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