Visit old Beau-Gest type Fort, and also our navigational hero Vasco da Gama, at least his statue, and old home. Ramble round this quiet fishing village which is within the distant moles of a huge outer commercial harbour. Gill goes for swim off nice beach, while we suss out possibilities of refuelling and then using the slipway to dry out to check prop and make some pitch adjustments. Staff agree for 19E. No dirty work, antifouling or oil as harbour is pristine.
1515 Refuel (110E, cash only, at pontoon, then 1600 drive onto slipway to await settling just after HW. Out fender board and all fenders. Jerrycans, dinghy, sails, and anything heavy laid on port deck. Masthead to shore. Loads of ropes and lines to bollards. She settles at 1630 and by 2000 is pointing bow skyward with bottom exposed. Slipway is as slippy as ice below my feet as, in wetsuit, I get stuck into the delicate task of dismantling the stripper to get at the back of the prop boss to remove the pitch cassette. Lots of tiny split pins and allen keys….just the stuff for a pitch black slippery slipway while knee deep in water. Eventually get new pitch cassette in and prop and stripper reassembled. Next got to re-fill prop with grease. No grease gun! Eventually manage to find someone still in the yard at 2300 prepared to lend one although it has to be emptied and filled with our own ‘Featherstream’ grease. Job eventually done but to sketchy engineering standards.
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