That Lanzagrotty time of year

You know how people can become creatures of habit? Well, we must be. When the chills and fog of winter descend, we feel the urge to head for a couple of weeks in the sun and the well known and loved areas of Lanzarote seem to have a magnetic attraction.

This year, things were a little different, Not the weather, scenery or the lovely coastal walks luckily:

The volcano (Timanfaya) was as spectacular as always and the coach driver who slowly winds you around the narrow track in the lava field was equally skillful:

We still love the dramatic coastline at El Golfo only this time there was no Morgan Aero 8 parked outside the restaurant. Pity, but the pictures from a coastline walk there are still worth sharing we think:

One unfortunate thing was that when we visited Arrecife, the capital, our liner curse was in operation. This time Ventura disgorged hordes of sweatshirt and baseball cap toting folks to fill up the pavements, cafes and generally give tourists a bad name:

Some of the liner's inmates were into taking pictures of their teddy bear in as many locations as possible:

Then they took another three pictures. Patrick, be happy that you are not subjected to such indignities. (Mainly because you are just too heavy to carry around of course). We did manage one picture of the waterfront area that wasn't completely full of liner folks so here it is:

Overwintering in Marina Rubicon? More than a little tempting but we have to visit the northern climes first.

So, we hear you ask, what was different this year? Well, for part of the holiday John and Irene (better known as the owners of Archie the cutest Lakeland terrier on the planet) were also around. Whilst visiting Cesar Manrique's house, the crew and Irene seemed to be in good spirits: 

Spirits? Well, actually Irene seemed more at home with sangria sitting in one of the smart marinas:

For the lady readers who are feeling cheated, we can assure you that John was in a similar mood:

We also discovered a cafe in Marina Rubicon that offered the best apple cake ever and at a great price when combined with a coffee:

It was kind of a reward for walking the 3 and a bit miles from the hotel to the marina.

Perhaps the sun and sangria were getting to the crew a little though. Another kiddies swing moment like in Bangor, only this time significantly warmer and higher: 

Still, the picture sums up the general mood of folks getting some Lanzagrotty winter sun. Of course, we then had to return to a grubby boat and the cleaning fun that involves.

Winter maintenance and pottering

When the days get shorter, wetter and windier, thoughts do turn to all those "little jobs" that are on the list but had no chance of being done during the cruising season. And then some new ones pop up of course....

Where to start is the question. Well, initially we wanted to fit an external breather to the vented loops. We loathe and detest the stupid plastic Jabsco things that were fitted in the factory:

Firstly because the two fitted on the aft heads and grey water pump are pretty inaccessible. Secondly because the little rubber duck bill fits inside a plastic screw on cap:

When you screw that cap tightly enough to stop leaks past the threads, it can distort the duck bill insert and cause that to leak instead.

So, some chromed brass fittings were procured, suitable holes drilled in the walkway area with a hole saw (carefully!!), and vent pipes led down to the hated Jabsco fittings. A great time to discover that one of them had a small crack in the casing. Cue a temporary epoxy job. Grr.


The power panel had also started to do funny things. Initially, it looked like the inverters were failing (ouch!) Here is the panel:

The incoming genset supply shows 228 volts. The power being "passed through" the inverter to the consumers shows 209 volts. Bit of a problem! However, when the heating / air conditioning system was fed from the inverters, it showed a healthy 228 volts as per the picture. So, not likely to be the physical inverter causing trouble then. Maybe the cabling to the consumers fed via the "inverter panel"? Well, checking the voltage at one of the plug sockets, it was fine. Opening up the power panel, the errant voltage gauge was getting the same full 228 v fed to it but was only displaying 209 v. It also had started to wander around by about 10 volts. A seriously sick gauge.

Once again, the Nordhavn Owners' group was a wonderful resource. The advice was that this is normally caused by a capacitor failing on a circuit board and a new one of those is three orders of magnitude cheaper than a new gauge. The trick is to replace it before it fails totally and destroys the rest of the gauge! Hence the unit was hastily unplugged.

The power panel does not look quite as professional now:

The plastic bag hanging out of the slot contains the connector plug for the sick gauge.

Just need to find someone with a fine point soldering iron now - we only have a chunkier one on board that would trash the printed circuit board.  The fine one is stored away with our furniture in Romsey (we hope). 

The offending capacitor is the closest one (the biggest black cylinder for the non electronics folks):

It hasn't all been work though. There has been a little playtime too, walking the white fluffy dogs (Pip and Poppy) the black spaniel Bronwen and having a visit from Anne and Izzy (our goddog).

The three smaller canines looked quite cute together:

Izzy took quite a shine to Pip. Quite a shine.  Shame that the poor lad had been "done" a while ago. Still, it must have done his street cred no end of good.

All was well until Izzy had chicken and cabbage for dinner. You can work the rest out for yourselves.