Sines

Before this journey we used to rely on our family and close friends when we were going through tougher times. The last two weeks could have been very stressful, if it would have just been the two of us trying to fix our engine problems. The evening before we wanted to leave for the Algarve, we again found diesel in our oil carter. Bye bye good weather window and hello patience.

Since we have had this problem before, in Roscoff, we knew what to do, replace the fuel lift pump. Through the guy at the small shop in the harbor, Louis, we were able to order one. Now the waiting game could begin. In the mean time we discovered that the diesel in our tanks was really gross, it had turned dark blue and almost black. Which might have been the reason why the rpm's kept spiking. When we were able to open up our tanks we found a lot of dead diesel bug, who knows how long our diesel has been like this. We pumped out the dirty diesel and attempted to clean out the tanks a bit. Since we have no manholes we had to use the small holes that are used to measure our diesel levels. We hope to find someone in the Algarve to make some manholes for us, so that we will be able to better monitor and clean our tanks. The cleaning and the waiting took us a couple of days. These days would have been quite lonely if it had just been the two of us and our engine problems.

We knew that the Stormvogel had been in Sines for a while with engine problems themselves. What we didn't know is that Jo and Flip 1) are the parents of Bart's friend Max 2) Flip would turn out to be our engine guru 3) most importantly they are wonderful people. On top of that the first couple of days Square One, whom we have met before, was also docked in front of us and with them Beautje (Lajla and Hilda) had arrived.

The first evening, we spent getting to know each other and with a good game of biggen🐖 (if you know, you know 😉). After four days of doing our own thing during the day and sharing dinner in the evening, the six of almost started to feel like our own little family. We felt so welcome on all of the other boats for a cup of coffee, a chat, advise or to ask for or offer help. It was very special to go through this experience. After a a day or two we jokingly renamed our dock "de Dorpsstraat". Yes we share the same life at the moment. And yes we share the same passion, which makes it easier to bond with each other. But I am still quite amazed how well it just clicked together.

As the days passed Bart and Flip spend most of their time on their knees in the engine room. Once the pump had arrived, one of the screw threads unfortunately had been damaged. As a result, Bart and Flip had to improvise on how to make sure no air nor diesel could escape. On top of that the diesel pipe no longer fit into the diesel filter, so Bart and Flip (Buurman and Buurman) had to improvise again. They replaced the copper pipe with a rubber one. Meanwhile Lajla and Hilda were so kind to let me or the both of us, use their electric scooters🛴 to do groceries or search for spare parts.

When Bart and Flip felt ready to bleed and start the engine, but it wouldn't start. We still, after all of the work on the diesel pipe and screw thread, heard a sort of spitting noise coming from the engine. Bart discovered that the pipe of our diesel retour had been torn wide open. He had just found another problem but also another solution. Bart and Flip went back to Louis who took them to a welder business. In a couple of days they should be able to replicate the parts that we needed. The waiting game continued...

Luckily the six of us found lots of things to do. We caught a couple of sea bream from our Dorpsstraat dock. Flip made a very tasty dinner out of them. With Jo and Hilda we took our supboards to the beach and built a sand castle. Jo and I even found each other's fingers underneath the sand as we were digging the channel, just like in the old days. I have Bart another hair cut, which wasn't as successful as the first time, since we used the wrong clip on for the hair Clipper, oops. The ladies, Jo, Hilda, Lajla and I took the scooters for some double trouble on the road to the Chinese store and around town. And how could we almost forget, we ate a lot of delicious roasted chicken together. All in all, despite our engine perils we had a wonderful time in Sines.

On Friday (25th) and Saturday (26th) another good weather window was starting to show on our weather apps. We, I mean Flip and Bart of course, knew we wouldn't have finished fixing the engine by Friday. So we aimed to leave for the Algarve on Saturday. On Thursday and Friday Bart made a couple of trips to the welders to see if they were done yet. He also had to go back because the piece they made wasn't air tight yet. Where we thought we would spend Friday morning finishing up the last bits, the men spend almost the entire day fixing the engine and I did everything around them to make sure we would be ready on Saturday to leave and be on anchor for a while.

After quite a stressful day Bart and Flip were able to start the engine again!! We did so a few more times to make sure it wasn't a lucky shot. We still have a tiny diesel leakage in the diesel retour pipe, but not worrisome enough to postpone our last trip south, for a while, any longer. Together with Beautje we made a game plan for our trip the next day. We concluded our stay in Sines together with a dinner for six and at last a musical performance by Flip and Jo.

Looking back at our time in Sines I think I will mostly remember the people and how warm it felt.Meer informatie