And... we're back in Portugal after a 34hr trip back from Australia, and a morning travelling back from the UK. Our last week in Adelaide was fantastic, with plenty more catch ups, a couple of BBQ's and generally seeing Nathan's family. Our weekend in the UK was spent watching the rugby and a dinner or two.

Anyway, we arrived back in Portugal and were greeted by our freshly arrived parts - mast pieces, a boom, sails, folding props - the list goes on. The mast transporter hadn't done a very good job of keeping all our bits together, but everything arrived and we cracked on with fitting them.

First up, the folding props. All was going well until we found out the main securing bolt wasn't quite big enough, so after a mild panic, Nathan headed to an old school engineering shop and an hour later, had the bolts drilled out on the lathe. Total cost - 5 Euros. Bargain!

Next up, fitting the rigging to the new mast, and our new rudder stock. We were getting a bit behind with jobs as we were due to relaunch today but as lady luck would have it, the crane driver decided to take an impromtu holiday, so we now have until Monday to get everything done before going back in the water.

On the bus trip back from the airport, we spotted some big swells off the point and found the boat yard awash with Red Bull surfers - big wave season is finally here so the plan is to go check out the surf tomorrow.... update to follow!

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Well, we're wrapping up our visit back to Adelaide and planning the next steps for our return to Portugal and Blue Calypso.

We spent last week visiting the Hills, picking strawberries, sampling the local chocolate factory, and then a weekend of birthday celebrations for Nathan's dad. That was the whole reason for us parking up the boat for 6 weeks and heading back to Australia, and it was great to get everyone in the same place at the same time.
 

We also spent a lot of time down at Pt Adelaide taking in the City of Adelaide Clipper ship and the rebuilding work that's underway, as well as this ocean tug, which has been in situ from as far back as anyone can remember.  

Cliche photo of Australian beach scene below.

So what's going to happen when we get back to Portugal, I hear you asking? Well, we've got a few jobs to do before the boat can go back in the water.

- Folding propellors need to be fitted
- Another coat of anti-foul needs to be applied
- Our new rudder stock and bearing needs to be fitted, to cure the ongoing drip that we've had since launch

We've got 48 hours to get that done, then it's time for the fun stuff. Re-masting. As a lot of you will know, we've struggled with light wind performance since leaving England back in July, and a lot of that has been down to a lack of sail area. Whoever designed Blue Calypso back in the '60's did an amazing job with the hull, but not such a good job with the sail plan. Anyway, we spent the four weeks before coming to Australia sourcing a taller mast, sails, and all the fittings needed to put it together. Nathan spent a few days driving around collecting it all, as well as giving our ebay account a good workout, and all those parts are set to arrive the same day we get back to Portugal.




Once we arrive back in Portugal, unpack our bags and settle back in, we need to remove our foremast strip all the part of it, then attach everything to the new mast ("Everything" includes mast steps, wiring, halyards, lights, and all the stainless rigging). We'll then step the new mast, tune up the rigging, fit the new boom and sails, then head out for a bit of testing to make sure everything's all secure (excuse the blatant photo shopping below)... 

Next stop after that will be Peniche, followed by a visit to downtown Lisbon, before turning south for a five day blast to the Canaries. With maybe a stop in Africa to spice things up a bit.

Updates to follow.....

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Our good chums over on Irreversible have uploaded another vid of their time cruising the UK south coast, including a visit from the good folks on Blue Calypso.

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G'day folks!

Well what can I say..... being back in Australia is a bit of alright. Warm sunny days, doing the whole tourist thing and not having to think about organising parts for the boat.

Adelaide's experiencing some early summer weather so between visiting the beach and the hills, we'll be spending the next week cutting another video of our time back here before we head back north to get that new mast fitted.

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G'day from Down Under.

Picking up where we last left off, I had to do a second 400 mile round trip to collect our sails. We'd purchased three sails from a south coast based UK sailmaker and organised to have them ready for the 25th. We paid in advance, double checked the work that needed to be done to them (sliders, UV strips, etc) and re-confirmed everything would be ready for collection. Rocked up on the day to find the sails bagged up and ready to go. Great. Had an employee call the manager and check everything was all done, he confirmed it, but at the last moment we thought it best to check what was in the bag and that's when the fun started. Not only had none of the work been done to the sails, but one of the sails had been substituted for something else... in effect, none of the three were usable. Typical bloody marine industry.

Anyway, a couple of emails later and the sails were ready the following Tuesday, with all the work done and bagged, ready to go. I dropped the sails down at the mast company for shipping to Portugal and drove back to London. The sail company had a half reasonable excuse for why the mistakes were made but seriously, what is wrong with the leisure marine industry? They just cannot seem to get their act together.

After all that fun, we finalised shipping of everything to Portugal then packed our bags and headed to the airport. 30 hours later, we arrived back in Australia for two weeks of not doing a lot. Perfect.

Anyways, all for now. We're going to see if we can do a City of Adelaide tour (http://cityofadelaide.org.au/) and catch up with everyone we haven't seen for the past year and a half, before heading back to the UK and Portugal to keep heading south.

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Just a couple of days left here in the UK and we're almost done sorting out this mast project. We did a tour of the south coast last week to round up all our bits - winches, base pads, u-bolts, sta-lok fittings, longer halyards, etc etc - loaded up the car, and dropped them off at the mast supplier.

I need to head back down to see the sailmaker on Tuesday as our sails weren't ready last week, but that's a story for another blog post.

Anyway, just a brief jaunt to the other side of the world for a couple of weeks to catch up with my family, then it'll be time to head back south and put all this together.

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While we settle in for an early night before our early morning dawn raid on the sailmakers and mast supplier, spare a thought for those folks in George Town, Bahamas - easily one of my favourite cruising destinations. Hurricane Joaquin is pummelling them at the moment and this is the forecast they have to look forward to tomorrow. Hang in there guys.

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