Wednesday 5th - lovely day for a walk. At Praia da Luz

The week started slow, hit a few bumps in the middle but has ended on a high. The slow start was self-inflicted too much fun on Saturday (and a large part of Sunday morning). The lows involved some deck painting that went wrong with the paint running and creeping on the vertical sections. The highs are a hurrah for having started on the jobs we've been doing a good job of procrastinating over.


Making the dinghy chaps pattern

Although it wasn't until Friday that I finally started pattern making for the dinghy chaps, so far it's going better than expected. Having never made anything so complex before, I was pretty nervous about getting going. I'd read over and over the useful documents I'd found on the net (this was the best), planned it out in my head a hundred times but was still reluctant to make that first real move. I had a glitch when I tried to use a bed sheet for pattern material as it just wouldn't stay in place on the dinghy tubes and kept wrinkling up. The link mentioned above suggested using a clear, vinyl type fabric but all I had was the window material I had left over from replacing the cockpit canopy windows earlier this year. I hunted around Lagos for something similar, but no joy, so window material it had to be. I had got it at a good price so didn't feel too bad about using it. It proved to be a good move as it clung to the dinghy tubes well and being see through made it easy to cut around the dinghy fittings such as the inflate valves and hand holds.


The fridge compressor is going to move here

Colin got going with the fridge fix. At the moment our compressor is under the galley sink, next to the freezer box. The compressor gets pretty warm which then creates a heat load against the freezer and also for the fridge box which is at the other side of the galley cupboard. His plan is to move the compressor underneath the nav station seat where there already was a bit of a space against the hull. We'll lose a bit of drawer space as they'll need to be shortened but that means we are forced into a clear out - hurrah! He'll make holes into the oilies cupboard behind the seat and a 12v computer fan will help blow warm air over our oilies and keep that cupboard dry. Colin visited an industrial refridgeration shop in Portimao last week who provided a cylinder of refridgerant gas and the filler pipes for it so we can now top up gas by ourselves, which is a great move. You can't buy the gas in the UK (other than mixed with oils and gunk for topping up car air con) without being qualified (whatever that means) but it's fine in the rest of Europe. The Portimao shop can also provide plastic sheeting for making a new fridge box liner and a DIY shop has sheets of insulation, so far it all looks good in terms of sourcing materials.


Shortened drawers

It's not all been work! On Wednesday I joined the Lagos Strollers for a 10 mile walk along the coast from Burphau, through Luz and back to Lagos. It was a beautiful day for a walk; blue, cloudless skies and warm. The views along the coast were stunning although there were moments of mild peril thrown in to break up the idil where the path passed right close to the crumbly cliff edge.