Tenerife


PHOTO 1 The damaged rope cutter; and where is the anode? In the new year we had to start working immediately because the problem with the saildrive leaking oil and letting water in, had to be solved as soon as possible. We were anchored in the bay of Los Cristianos, where port and boat yard are properties of the fishermen. And they don't like yachts! They have already enough of them, particularly from the variety that never leaves; so they prefer to say “no” and “next month” than to help. It seems strange, especially when you notice that the boat yard is half empty. “Funny people,” our English friend Samantha said. She is the captain of the pirate ship (a "sailing bus") where we were allowed to moor alongside when winds were too strong to be safely at anchor without an engine. She also supported us in the communication with Ramón, the manager of the boat yard. Explaining to the Volvo Penta dealer which parts you need is no sinecure in Spanish area. People speak almost as good (poor) English as our communications manager Petra speaks Spanish. Kind of frustrating, but in the end problems were solved. On Monday we had contact by telephone, email and fax with Volvo Penta Santa Cruz, on Tuesday a representant of the company visited us, and this triggered Ramón to come into action. No more mañana, he arranged for a mechanic and lifted us out of the water. And even became helpful and supportive.	At anchor you have close contact with the other sailing yachties, but ashore you meet the live aboards who use their boat as a home. We were immediately inaugurated by Joop, who originates from Amsterdam and lives here already for 10 years. On Wednesday the mechanic arrived and within one and a half hours the saildrive was in the trunk of his car! Thursday was "Spanish Christmas", the feast of the Three Wise Men who came in on their camels. On Monday the saildrive was mounted again PHOTO 4. To protect the saildrive from the same problem in the future, we added some layers of epoxy tar and antifouling, and between layers also a special device to prevent mess in the propellor. PHOTO 5+6 It looks like shark's teeth, but we think they will do the job. We look forward to hear/see your reactions!!! We don't know if we will get a refund from the insurance company. We should have asked for a cost estimate and arranged for an expertise before starting with the repairs. In other words: we should have let the saildrive rot in the water during some time, so the seawater could do its destroying job, and then we should have gone with that same deterioriated engine to an other and more expensive harbour to be lifted ashore in order to have a completely new saildrive unit mounted. We understand now why boat insurances are so expensive.	This was of course a great opportunity to clean the boat below the waterline PHOTO 2 and apply new layers of antifouling. As everyone knows, in the Netherlands rules and regulations concerning environment are extremely strict; you are only allowed to paint highly expensive but non-active antifouling paint on your boat. Great news: things are really different over here! And on a fishermen's boat yard, they sell the most toxic antifouling paint for less than half the price you pay in Holland for the bad stuff. This is freedom: you can clean your boat without worrying about what to do with the foul water, you can sand and flex as much as you like, left overs of paint end up with domestic refuse... Ramón thinks people in Holland are really crazy using antifouling paint on a water basis. So Witte Raaf is now beautiful fisherboat's red below the waterline PHOTO 3. For the first time in his life after applying antifouling, JW suffered from skin irritations, which sounds really promising! Cleaning the hull, re-painting and polishing some large scratches, some work on the the rudder... A lot of work to do. Plus the usual things. It may be paradise here on the Canary islands with temperatures of 25°C, the area is vulcanic and the air apparently contains a lot of sulfur, so the silver cutlery needs to be polished at least twice a week. Everyone suffers from poverty at their own level.