Progress...

Much has been accomplished since the last post, but it's amazing how fast the days are cranking by.

The motor finally was rousted from it's hiding spot but not without alot of help from a great local import and customs company called Redwood that was brought into the game to sort it all out.  From what we are guessing it was all just part of the common hissyfit between Spain and the Brits that has been going on for eons. But let's not get into that now.

We also moved the boat over to the seawall from the dock today in prep for the heavy lifting. The guy with the Hyab (crane truck) stopped by for a look and seems to think it won't be a problem. He is good to go, first thing Monday morning. I still have to paint the transmission.

The engine bunks got a second coat of mousy grey on them and are looking quite nice. I managed to stuff my brush up fairly high under various mounted hardware bits, floorboards and plumbing and seemed to get more of it on the timbers than myself, but it was a tough call.  The only thing I couldn't get was the very bottom due to a slight trickle of water coming from the back. Richard says we'll dive back there later and look around to see about sealing things up. He is not too worried about it.

We even got in a much needed run into the square for provisions. We had a list of hardware needed for the motor, I ran out of bilge paint, got a couple of loaves of frenchie bread, fresh fruit, but most of all I was almost out of the Coke-light for my rummers! Our little cart was quite loaded that day. More on the town reports later...


The biggest chatter on the dock today was from an early morning incident. Richard and I were prepping the tender for the big move when a guy came down the ramp and asked for a favor. It seems he was up on the seawall chatting on the phone and the strap on his backpack broke and it fell in the water. He needed our help in retrieving it but said it was still floating. We untied the inflatable and he hopped in with Richard and they started around the long dock to the other side. I walked towards the seawall to see if I could see it. Sure enough it was floating about half-pack. Staring at it closely I saw it was sinking and yelled at them to hurry it up, but there was no way for them to hear me. It was more of a mental message I guess. I walked to a section of the dock that has a finger between a couple of boats and out to sum things up. Yup. It's going down. Now there is only a quarter pack above water. I remember thinking, "one of us is going swimming" and turned around to find only me on the dock. After a quick pocket check for anything that couldn't get wet, I did a nice push off dive off the end any lifeguard would be happy about and met the pack as it was about 2 feet under the surface. That thing was heavy! I went back up and latched onto a mooring line with this thing as high as I could get it till the boat came around and handed it off.

I saved the pack but unfortunately not most of it's contents. Inside was this guys nice Canon digital SLR with zoom, Mac laptop, and iPod among other things. He at least was talking on his phone and it wasn't in there too. I'm pretty sure the electronic stuff was toast. He also had his wallet and passport in there too so I did not go swimming for nothing. It probably would have been a while before the divers came around and found it. We thought it was odd that the guy didn't even think about going in after the pack himself. Geez! I probably would have been over the edge so fast and hit the water before the pack!

Ironically- one of the items in my pocket during the swim was also my little Olympus. I knew it was there but was not concerned. Since it is waterproof, I can still take pictures. I briefly thought about taking a pic of him hosing his computer off (not something you see every day) but I thought this was hitting him while he was down and thought best to leave him in his moment.