Wintering in the sun

Santa has been up the mast for a week looking for the chimney, and we are still enjoying a majority of blue sky days albeit they are short. Still reaching mid teens centigrade, very comfortable.

We have been keeping ourselves busy socialising with the other liveaboards in between doing jobs on board. Yvonne has agreed to update on the people stuff in a separate post so I'll stick to the boat jobs stuff....
We have set about our lists, a mixture of maintenance, varnishing, cleaning etc but also improvements to the boat which we have found desirable for us to continue next year.
The main additions are; a holding tank for the forward heads, Solar panels, a WiFi booster system and new curtains throughout.
We are working our way through these without getting frustrated at the slow progress. We find that with Vat at 23% and a non competitive economy here it often cheaper to mail order items. All these projects are "self designed" using products from a variety of suppliers, so they have involved a slow process of procurement and development.

The boat did have an old holding tank system for the forward toilet but it was far too complex and smelly if used. We will need a holding tank going into the Mediterranean to comply with local law apart from anything else. The equipment for this more or less all came from Vetus in the UK, but they sent a pipe fitting with a wonky thread which needed replaced and also supplied a template which was 90% of the size detailed! Good fun sorting that out, but all complete and now working well. Yvonne has "her bathroom" back less one cupboard but redecorated and looking good.

Before we left I new that we would need additional battery charging capacity. We had upgraded the engine alternator charging system and rewired all circuits so that the current used can be monitored accurately. This has all worked well and we got through, but we needed to run the engine regularly which is wasteful and noisy when at anchor or sailing. The boat used to have a wind generator. Although this worked it was noisy, vibrated and proved unserviceable after only 4 years, so I hesitated to replace it, and I'm pleased I did.
Now with the experience of travelling and having spoken directly to cruisers who are actually using these systems on a daily basis I am certain that for hot sunny climates Solar is the way to go. The challenge is how to mount adequate solar panels on the boat so they don't get in the way and can be adjusted to face the sun, which is critical to their performance.
We are half way through this project. We opted to mount them on the aft rails so they will fold out the sides of the boat when in use. We have seen some dodgy arrangements along the way, so I decided that to do it properly we needed to replace the aft lifelines with stainless steel rails. This meant a welding job which involved taking the boat for the day to Lagos. This went well, but one of the Solar panels was smashed in the post which incurred a delay of almost a month. TNT eventually agreeing to pay for a replacement, which has now arrived safely. It will be end of January before that job is complete as I am still fabricating the mounting system and will need to pull the boat apart to run the wiring! I'll post a photo when finished - it's going to look really daft - but as long as it works!

Keeping in touch with the world with a WiFi connection is a major priority. A real luxury that we have got used to. It is however complicated when traveling; We thought we had it cracked at first. We use an Ipad with a data SIM card, so it's like a smart mobile phone, except that you can actually read it!
In France we purchased a TMN card which was costing about 20 Euro per month for unlimited access, magic! When we went to Spain we had to buy a different one from Orange- 30 Euro for two months, even better! However when we went to renew it for another month were told that deal was no longer available and we would need to take a contract. Instead we waited till in Portugal. Here Vodafone wouldn't give unlimited access only selling by the GB or by time. We bought a card and 2GB which only lasted a couple of days since as soon as we crossed back into Spain the roaming charge used up the credit in no time! When we bought some more credit we still found that it ran out very quickly, particularly using Skype.
It's a long story from there but we now have a prepaid Optimus card giving about an hour browsing for 1Euro, however it seems that time is accelerated when using Skype? Not sure if this is just in Spain and Portugal but it now seems impossible to get unlimited access without a local address, or setting up a contract. The advice we have been getting in the shops is very poor and contradictory. The staff behind the desks don't seem sure of their own offers. There is no way these guys are getting my bank details to charge me behind my back!
In the meantime we normally have WiFi when in Marinas and local cafés etc also offer it. However the quality of connection varies enormously. The problem is compounded by yachts which have boosters, almost everyone now does. They effectively steal the signal. So we are alongside yachts streaming the Sport and recording a film for later whilst we struggle to get an email.
In this case we've decided if you can't beat em join them! However the systems sold to yachties are many hundreds of pounds, I'm trying to manage sticking the components together based on advice from fellow cruisers. Currently waiting for a wee amplifier thing from China, and a pigtail wire from Amazon, if it all works it will be well under £100. I'll let you know how it goes...

The curtains on the boat are mainly the originals, coming up for 25 yr old. They had started to literally fall apart, sun and daily use I suppose. With the relatively large windows they are quite complicated, pleated with metal wires inside and sunproof lining, not something we felt we could do ourselves. We had been told by an expat living here of a Scottish lady who made curtains in Ferregudo just across the River. We tracked down Lynne originally from Biggar. On seeing our Troon Cruising Club flag she explained that she knew Jack Gairns and family, stalwarts of the club, small world!
Choosing material was not easy but Lynne did very well showing us hundreds of samples. We would not have thought to choose flowers but when it came to it....
Yvonne made the mistake of asking the girls what they thought and they were almost unanimous for once, Laura said "hideous", Gillian said "horrendous".
We await the result any day now with some trepidation!