Tom Döhler
Yesterday (Monday) we had a day with loads of errands to run. We got up super early – way earlier than when we were still working – and took the metro into the city. On the list was me getting a blood test, picking up letters and yet more things from the hardware store. Enjoying the novelty of Camilla’s first day of freedom we took our time and walked, and walked, and walked. Our feet were hurting by the time we had lunch in Vapiano so we took the tram back to Badalona to pick up Camilla’s bike, which had mysteriously lost its bell and the holder for the lock. To be honest we were expecting far worse! After a refreshing little nap in the afternoon – gotta integrate with local culture! – we met with friends in the city for dinner.
This morning was another early one. We needed to take the bimini to ‘Canvas Carlos’ to have the solar panels fitted, so it needed to be clean and dry. At 6am it started raining so Camilla woke me up and suggested we take the thing down before it got soaked. Bleary eyed we got up only to find it was soaking wet already, so we went back to bed. Thankfully the rain stopped so by late morning it’d dried so we took it in and explained to Carlos what we were after.
The anchor chain and rode are still sat on the pontoon, but before we put it back we want to build a draining base for the anchor locker. The locker has two holes either side to drain out the water but unfortunately they’re pretty high up so there’s always a puddle of salty water at the bottom, which really isn’t good for the rode to be sitting in.
What we needed was a plastic crate-type thing which we could cut to shape to fit in the bottom, to give the rode a little platform to sit on whilst still letting the water drain through. We went off on a scavenger hunt; visiting all the local bins and the big piles of trash which get dumped next to the railway tracks. Yes, it really is as classy as it sounds. Empty handed we went to a couple of hardware stores, but no luck. We’ll need to keep thinking. Camilla reckons that we can make a base out of a beer grate – I’m all for that as somebody has to take care of all that beer 😉
