We arrived in Ferreira with a short list of important projects from the shakedown from Sao Vicente and a strong desire to get our asses in some sea water. James needed to recoup his strength and energy after that brutal underway illness but a little labor is good for a body, right?
First things first: jump (the fuck) in the water! I (James) after setting that hook dove in and it was like all was well in the ‘Verse once again. The water was warm, clear and highly salted so we floated until the wrinkles were obvious. We rinsed, stared at shit, and slept like the exhausted sailors we were.
We started early the next morning with the head because there’s nothing good about a malfunctioning marine toilet. I mean, our head is a tiny space with barely enough room to do your thing much less deal with a repair while underway so it was good to latch open the hatch, spread out the tools, and go to work.
These Twist’n’Lock heads are inexpensive and, while the bowl and base are ceramic, everything else that isn’t a gasket is made of plastic. Anytime the intake water stops flowing, there’s a set of possible reasons. Usually, we start from the hull and work our way in. Since we’d just cleared the throughhull from the outside when cleaning the bottom in Mindelo, I began with the right-angle fitting attached to the seacock. I worked up to where the hose meets the pump and, while the water was stanky and foul, it was free-flowing, so not the problem.
I disassembled the pump and found these (above) goose barnacles wedged under the intake flapper valve, keeping the pump from being able to create suction. Those three little shits were the cause of a whole bunch of freak-out! I started putting it back together but the head has no fan and I was running dangerously hot for a guy barely getting over a stomach flu. I (Dena) finished putting it back together but gave him the honor of priming and pumping it clear.
I (James) was thrilled to do the honors!
We moved on from there to things we’d noticed once we got underway. With the sun behind the mainsail, I (Dena again) had seen a suspiciously thin spot within what looked like a rope burn. I don’t know if it was from the reef ties or the sail ties, but somehow we chafed the sail low down near the foot. The weak spot was only revealed when full sail so it wasn’t a vulnerability in high winds but there’s no reason to ignore a potential hole. I flaked the sail to one side and hunted down what I’d seen between Sao Vicente and Brava.
The chafed area was about a centimeter and a half long but the actual hole was barely a pinprick. I cut some sail tape into two circles and used a dinner plate as a flat surface for rubbing the tape onto the sail cloth.
I’d also noticed that, with two reefs in and the sail let all the way out, the inside edge of the second batten down rubs on a shroud. Sure enough, there’s some wear there. It’s heavily reinforced but we’ll need to keep an eye out.
This sail’s design has been disappointing, to say the least.
At some point between Praia and Mindelo, we lost our mainsail telltales too. They’re thin pieces of plasticky ribbon sewn into the leech to help you know whether your sail is trimmed correctly. I was deeply unhappy about the idea of trying to sew seine twine in their places but I also want that trim assist. When I looked at the spot they’d been sewn, I realized I could use the batten pockets for attaching the twine rather than poking holes in the sail.
While Dena was inventing new and exciting ways to observe our sail trim I took on rewiring the starboard 12 volt solar array.
While on the way to Brava, I noticed that the butt-connectors joining the panels to the solar support tower were so corroded that they were green on the outside of the connector itself. I did a history check on our blue-tooth observation software and, sure enough, there was a history of degradation. It was subtle but totally clear. One of the great things about anchoring in one place for while is that you can ultimately glean metrics from your data sources. Mindelo was about as steady as it gets as far as the weather was concerned. So when our daily digital solar and wind energy intake observations showed a slow drop in our solar power intake on the starboard side 12 volt panel array, that obviously denoted corrosion.
Science fucking rocks, dude!
I clipped and pulled the old heat-shrink butt-connectors and replaced them with new ones but also added a second level of heat-shrink as a redundancy then fixed the wire in the safety zone with a drip coil. When I checked our data source after turning the system back on, we had gained about 10% on solar collection. It’s important to note that we are in a totally different place on the chart so the increase in power intake can’t be substantiated at this point. That ain’t science…yet.
The last project involved the Monitor and the heat of the day was upon us. While sitting under the fans belowdecks, I (Dena) realized that our anniversary was only days away. Surrounded by crystal blue water, wanting to do some snorkeling as well as the projects on the docket, wishing we had internet access in order to get an updated forecast (we were well past the trustworthy point of the one I’d screen-recorded a week prior)…
We decided to stay put in paradise. But to make it really feel worthwhile, we’d need to try to get internet.
At the base of the cliff, an equipment shed and fish cleaning station squat behind the boats that are pulled up on the rocks every day. Above, far above, is the village of Tantum and the word was that a trail links the two. We made a plan to climb the cliff the next day after doing the LoveBot work in the morning’s cool air. Instead, we went snorkeling in the clear blue water of Ferreira.
Somehow, meaning most likely due to human error and maybe because I was using a current parts diagram instead of the one from the original manual, we left a single washer out when we put LoveBot back together way back in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. The gap you can see below, between the black bushing and the copper retaining ring (c-clip), is enough space to allow slop in the very beginning of the self-steering process. That piece is moved by the air vane and the copper ring would have chiseled a divot into the plastic bushing that would have made the whole thing more and more sloppy over time.
Instead, we fixed that shit.
Going ashore was a daunting prospect because the dinghy was so nicely, neatly, firmly stowed on the foredeck and the so-called praia (meaning beach) comprised a huge amount of fairly large surf-rounded rocks. We opted to fill our waterproof laundry bag with James’ backpack containing our tech and clothes and towels and shoes, then strap two type-1 PFDs in a configuration that would keep it afloat and keep the more-vulnerable mouth out of the water. We would swim in.
We’d barely gotten in the water when a fishing boat cruised on past and stopped. The guys aboard immediately made all the gestures of offer and said things that seemed to invite us to accept a ride to the praia. We took them up on it, of course!
On arrival, I (Dena) jumped out too early and everyone on the beach thought I was a goner. In my red bikini, I showed them! I also showed them this wonderful, useful, decorated, and unshaven body so there was a great deal of distraction while the whole lot of fishers cooperated on getting a different boat up the ever-shifting, always-maintained hint of a slipway. Then it was time for “our” boat, the one James was still on, to ram the rocky shore. He jumped off at the right time and assisted in heaving the heavy wooden fishing vessel up the roiling praia to a tide-safe distance. The boat’s name: Obrigato Signorha!
I’m going to make a rare self-effacing confession here. When we were packing for our “waterproof” swim ashore, we somehow forgot to pack socks and…wait for it…water!
That’s right, we were going to climb a mountain and go on an unknown interwebs search at the top of said mountain without a drop of water or a single pair of socks between us.
Then it was time to climb that fucking mountain. From the fishing camp to the village of Tantum, it is 228m or rather 748ft of gravel and rock vertical climb. Let me (James) tell you, this puts most black diamond trails in the States to shame in a big way. The switchbacks are few and tight and the inclines are brutal! We did it way too fast at first but the further we went the smarter we got, with lots of shaded rests along the way.
About halfway up, Dena asked me if I wanted to throw in the towel and head back down but looking back at the progress we’d already made just made me even more head strong (stupid) so we opted to continue on.
Now one of the best things about reading adventure stories is the fact that you, dear reader, don’t have to (get to) experience the rotten fruits of our mistakes you just get to cheer, or sigh in disbelief, with our successes. Right?
We made it of course. It was by far one of the hardest climes I’ve ever done in my (James’) life and we were being passed by fishers the whole way. They just powered right up that cliff like, oh, maybe like they’d done it a few hundred times? We followed the trail of blood spots from the dorado they’d cleaned at the station down below. All the rest of the fish traveled in plastic shopping bags or the kinds of bins folks usually put on top of their heads.
At the top, the children started making themselves seen. This is a wary batch compared to some places we’ve been. The people, in general, have a sober air about them so it’s satisfying to have one of my (Dena’s) smiles reciprocated enthusiastically. This time, I got my fix from an early-middle-aged mustachioed man who went from dubious solemnity to gleeful grin with an energetic reply to my “bom dia!”
An incredibly grateful pair of strangers were brought a large metal container full of water at the mention of agua. We tried to correct the misunderstanding and explain that we were looking for the mercado so we could buy water, but the severe man didn’t even look at us as we refreshed ourselves with his household’s excellent drinking water. Finally, another spectator got us to the market (closed) and then we found the one open space that wasn’t a school: the bar.
No wifi signals appeared on my phone. The exhilaration of topping the cliff and the relief of sweet fresh water gave way to disappointment that we wouldn’t be getting internet and therefore would be in the dark about weather. We bought three mixers from the barkeep, downed two, and saved one for the descent.
As we passed the homes on the way to the cliffside, James commented that one of the antennae on a house looked like wifi. I fired up my tech and realized that there was a wifi signal from somewhere. Some folks were hanging out in front of a house across from that one and I showed them my screen with an interrogative air. One guy yells at another guy who hollers over to a neighbor who disappears. He showed up a floor down and exited the house in order to type in the password for me and presto! Internet access!
I did the bare minimum of communication and then tried an app I’d downloaded that does esims for lots of countries. I could, indeed, get one from them at the rate of (gulp) $10 per gig. Biting that bullet was a no-brainer, and we’ve been able to check the weather from the boat ever since.
Then we set off for home, still sock-less but slightly more hydrated and totally successful within our original expectations.
But there was a mountain decent and a bay swim between us and our successes.
The decent to the praia was a podiacal nightmare. I (James) burned with every step down the steep incline and switching rocks and the sun beat down on us like a Sergio Leone gun-fight scene. I could almost hear Morricone’s whistle and ‘hoo-ha’ with every step. But we made it.
Now all we had to do was swim the 607ft back out to our boat at anchor against the tide and swell. Now granted, that’s only 185 meters but please consider what our day had given us up to that point. We donned our gear, we re-secured our “waterproofed” rig, and got back in the cool clear Bravian brine.
Now, Dena is a much stronger swimmer than I have ever been, so she took the lead and the luggage strap while I backstroked and dog paddled all the way back to Cetacea. I cramped my way up the boarding ladder, pulled our float aboard, and just sat there panting as Dena dried off in the cockpit.
We did it! Not only did we make it back to the boat but when we opened our packs we discovered that it was perfectly dry within.
We set out that day to climb a mountain for some internet and totally succeeded even without socks or water. Stupid, no doubt, but we did it and without any injuries to anything but a smidgen of dignity that we didn’t even have to tell you about!
