Some wise person said: 'cruising is doing boat maintenance in exotic places' and by God, he/she was spot on.

If I may say so myself, we did a quite thorough job on Röde Orm before we left Sweden. In addition to this, we carry a lot of spares. Engine speres, tools, material to do at least provisional repairs at sea or in 'out of the way' places.

And still -after a mere 1600 miles and a couple of months on the move, we have not only found a couple of more things to put on the 'to do'-list but also a simple breakdown where we where without spares.

We have 2 manual bilge pumps on board and repair kits (gaskets and valves) for both. The same goes or the head(toilet in 'landlubberish). We've also got three footpumps for water on board. In the galley (kitchen in landlubberish) on each for fresh- and seawater respectively and another fresh water pump i the head. I was certain we had repair kits for those too. Not so, I discoverd after digging everything stored in three cockpit lockers out. Almost one cubic meter of 'stuff'.

Thats the reason we will have to stay two more nights in La Coruna in an uncomfortable anchorage with wakes from ferries, freighters, fishong vessels and tug boats around the clock.

The bonus is obviously that we'll have time to see a bit more of the town. We are reluctant to leave the boat unattended for more than a couple of hours in the morning though. In the afternoon there is usually a fresh Force 5-6 and the depth is over 20 meters gproviding a less than satisfactory scope on the anchor rode. We've got 60 meters of chain +40 meters of line out. More than that is not possible since the boat could swing too close to the channel.

And the other repairs, wonders the observant reader...?

The wooden members at the stern of the boat, where the windvane is arrached, need to be reinforced, since they are not providing a solid enough base for tha attachment points of the wind vane gear. (This is the mechanical self-steering device). The most important crew member onboard, probably. The vane also needs new lines, since the old ones are staring to show signs of chafe. This little project, together with some electrical installations (newly bought cabin lights) will wait until we reach Lisboa. We will stay there for a while anyway since Isabelle's PC has broke down despite a new hard drive i n the UK, and we will also investigate the price level there for ordering a dodger(sprayhood) Since we will be mostly coast hopping on our way down there we'll do fine withour using the wind vane more than occassionally.

There's always something to tend too, thus no risk for boredom