Alvor is surrounded by sandbanks. With a boat one of the jobs is to scrub off the bottom and check the anodes. Anodes are sacrificial bits of metal that are fixed to the important metal parts of the boat. Metal in contact with sea water is prone to electrolysis which erodes the component. It’s therefore better to fit anodes, which erode first, than have your propeller eaten away! We have a few fitted, on the prop x2, the rudder skegs x2 (the bracket that holds the rudder) and on the fridges cooler plates – three of them. As the anodes were replaced by a diver in Vigo last winter it was time to check them again.
Not having beached Splice before this was a bit of an adventure. We had scouted a few possible areas in the dinghy having talked to other cat sailors moored here. Almost everyone is happy for other sailors to just dinghy up and ask questions and advice, it’s one of the good bits about this lifestyle. We went to look at one area near the entrance and found a French Cat dried out there. The owner was happy to share his experience and the place seemed suitable. We had checked all the tide times so knew when we should run ourselves on and approximately when we would float again.

We pulled up the anchor at about 10.30am on Wednesday and motored the mile or so to our spot. We had taken a GPS lat/long position with a handheld GPS so had been able to mark the position on our chart-plotter (like a marine Sat Nav) and she ran aground sweetly at about 1 knot (just over 1 mile per hour in land terms). Another ‘cat’ we know – John and a friend in ‘Sanuye’ – came out and beached next to us so there was opportunity to chat to the neighbours in between work! We had to wait an hour or so before the water receded enough to start work but then it was in the water with scrubbing brushes and we spent the next few hours ‘wiping our baby’s bottom’. This was mostly good news, the ‘Coppercoat’ antifoul we had put on in the UK was doing a good job and it was mostly brown slime with a few small barnacles though we did have a good crop on mussels clinging to the port rudder joint. Cleaning her hull will enable us to sail a bit faster as the water flow is smoother. We had lunch and then the water had dropped far enough to see the anodes under the hull. This was not so good. We have been having trouble with the main fridge and it was clear that this anode had been eaten away along with nearly all the cooling plate that serves the fridge – no wonder it won’t cool down well.
We finished the hull and waited for the tide to come back watching the kite surfers who scream back and forth across the lagoon in the afternoon winds which get up 20 knots. Chris had expected to float off at about 6.30 so at 6.10 we were stood at the helm talking through the manoeuvre when we suddenly realized we were drifting off the bank. A quick panic to get the engines on and haul in the stern anchor ensued! We were back in our anchor spot and ready to go ashore by 7.15pm. There is a somewhat dilapidated pontoon used as a dinghy dock by most boats, one end has the top of a sunken fishing boat sticking out of the water but there is space there to tie up and it’s close to the town. We had a beer in the Sports bar to check the emails on the Ipad and then Carolyn was happy to move to get away from the England U21 football on the TV’s. We chose an Italian restaurant that looked good, Chris was delighted when shown to the seat- the football was on here too! (Carolyn comment was not printable and England lost to Italy!) The meal was OK but the wine was nice and we dinghied back to the boat about 9.45pm in the dark with our head torch for a ‘nav light’. Small boats less than 7 meters show a single white light when moving at night. We also always wear our lifejackets when using the dinghy in anything other than flat calm daylight.

The fridge problem is likely to change our immediate plans a bit. We have a contact for a refrigeration guy in Lagos who returns from holiday on Friday so we will be hanging around the area and probably will have to lift the boat out of the water properly to replace the fridge plate. Humm....... owning a boat brings its problems!!

The photo shows the two cats on the beach in Alvor lagoon.