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What a delivery.. 3 weeks in and we aren’t even half way yet!

Last month I received a call from Walter who just became the new owner of the 6-year old Garcia Explorer 45 Shaman. A beautiful aluminium yacht built to do some proper exploring to even the Arctic.

The first of May I arrived in La Rapito (close to Barcelona) and sailed Walter, his wife and 2 sons to Ibiza. There 2 friends arrived and on the 5th of May we started sailing towards Gibraltar (Walter, 1 son and 2 friends). All ready to endeavor into their first night sail.

Their expectation: Gennaker up, some fishing and 3-star lunch and dinners onboard.

What they got: 25+ winds, 2m waves, fishing pots, traffic, engine trouble and seasickness..

Due to the bad weather in the Straight of Gibraltar we decided to divert to Estepona.

The raw water inlet valve broke off the inlet pipe (above sealevel) giving us a lot of white smoke out of the exhaust. I mcGyvert the hose straight onto the inlet after first removing a huge amount of seaweed out of the pipe. After 5 hours we had an engine again.

In Estepona Walter decided to fly home and I was tasked with reorganizing and labeling everything onboard and overseeing a full engine check and adding a new valve on the raw water inlet.

When the jobs were done a nice weather window emerged to go to Gibraltar. By lack of crew I decided to do that by myself. Man, I have never been so nervous!! I really needed to talk some sense into myself saying it is not any different, it is just a daytrip and I should enjoy the solitude!

Which I did 🙂 In Gibraltar I got some fuel and the I moved Shaman to La Linea. A woman alone on the boat and what you get is 14 odd men dropping whatever they are doing and watching me maneuver Shaman on the dock. Nobody offered a hand (not that I needed it), but I did get a round of applause afterwards. It is a strange workd we live in…