Winter in Porto Santo

Day 1 in Porto Santo.  While watching the very clement weather forecasts in Porto Santo from a full and drizzling Ireland, a two week visit to Embla in Porto Santo seemed a good idea.  Last night, I landed in Porto Santo after a long layover in Funchal, Madeira.  The sun wasn't shining!  Forecast for strong breezes and occasional showers.  

Since Embla is on the hard, I thought a few initial nights in a local hotel would be a good move.  Porto Santo in February is rather quiet and so I'm thinking I'd be better off in splendid isolation aboard Embla. 

This morning I carted 20kg of spares (exactly 20kg, RyanAir take note) to Embla.

 Day 1 on the project list.  Our dinghy RIB is leaking and so I tackled this first with limited success.  T

he glues I had ordered from an excellent chandlery were incorrect, so I had to turn my attention to fixing some other items.  I have an old DuoGen onboard which creates about 8 amps in water generating mode while sailing.  On our last trip from the Med to Madeira it exploded and need some TLC.  It turned out that a few spare and 30 minutes of fiddling solved this.  

Email from CTT Expresso..(the local Post Office in Porto Santo)  apparently they can't deliver some parts I'd ordered.  Of course no way to call them.  So down tools and hik back into the town from the port.  I needed the walk anyway.  While queuing at CTT I saw a delivery guy preparing his next set of consignments,  so I jumped the queue to accost him withy Google translated message. He couldn't help but managed to get the attention of more senior looking official.  She agreed to call the delivery driver and he agreed to meet me in 20 minutes back at the boat.  So a brisk walk again back to the port and I found the driver with my parcel.  He wouldn't hand it over unless I produced a special code, which thankfully I had on my phone.  Why?!  He knew he was waiting for me and it was obviously me. Quite a relief as I have had numerous issues trying to get parts delivered to Embla recently.  

I managed to save the day by getting the Spinlock clutches services with some new parts, which had broken when a line jammed under heavy load during our passage to Port Santo.






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