We start our stay in the boatyard with a very manageable list of projects – mostly just standard maintenance and cleaning this year. But one thing leads to another, and then to another… I think in the week since we’ve been back, I’ve added more items to my To-Do list than I’ve crossed off!

I do the boring, non glamorous jobs. Like cleaning every surface inside the boat to remove the layer of boatyard dust. And unpacking and putting away everything that we stored on land. And doing an inventory of the provisions that we didn’t eat last season that seem to have survived heat and humidity and we’ll put right back in the rotation for this year. And touching up the interior teak with oil where it has been dulled and faded by sun or water leaks.

Just for fun, here’s a picture of Mike’s flip flop – glued together with silicon caulk and with a big hug of water holding it in place to dry!

Capt. Mike does the important jobs that will actually keep us safe at sea. For example, replacing the swivel hardware that connects our big, heavy Bugel anchor to the rode chain. While the anchor has performed fabulously over the past two seasons, the connector has been known to fail, which could allow Sanitas to drift into another boat or onto shore, or at the very least could allow us to lose that expensive anchor! Our German friend, Andreas, recommended a Wasi anchor swivel, so Mike replaced it is an abundance of caution. Hopefully this will let us sleep soundly at night once we’re living on the hook again!

For his next trick, Capt. Mike replaced the stuffing material around the rudder post. My very nontechnical understanding of this is: there are two things that have to go from the inside of the boat (where the motor and steering mechanism are) to the outside of the boat (where they actually propel us or steer us through the water). These two items are the prop shaft which moves the propeller and the rudder shaft which moves (can you guess?) the rudder. The boundary between the inside and the outside is called the stuffing box. A thin strand of Teflon material, that looks kind of like an extra fat shoelace, wraps around the rudder post inside the stuffing box and forms a fairly tight seal. If installed properly, it keep MOST of the water out, just allowing a slow drip into the bilge.

Mike replaced the prop shaft stuffing material last season – there was so much water flowing in, we decided it wouldn’t be prudent to cross the Gulf Stream in that condition! That repair was complicated by the fact that Sanitas was in the water at the time, and keeping the wet stuff on the outside was pretty important so we’d stay afloat. It made much more sense to finish the job and replace the rudder post packing this time while she was safely on the hard and no chance of sinking.

Thanks to Al, who gave us this fancy tool which was perfect for removing the old packing material.

It’s definitely the most difficult space in the boat to work in. Capt. Mike has to do some serious boat yoga to fit into the space. And it’s almost unbearably hot. He had to use the big wrenches for this project!

Right about in the center of this next photo, you can see a circle of textured material around the shaft. That’s the nice, new, clean stuffing!

Not quite as dramatic, but still on the To-Do list, Mike made a small shelf for the bottom of our chest refrigeration. Condensation gathers at the bottom and this shelf will let me keep food out of that water. Plus i can never actual reach what’s way down there at the bottom of the fridge anyway!

And then… After all this productivity, we ran into our first unpleasant surprise of the season. While testing the propane system, Mike discovered a leak. When he turns the propane on at the tank, we can hear the hiss of gas escaping, and can smell the propane. Luckily, the solenoid still works (we replaced it our first year) so we can narrow down the source of the leak to the external part of the system – not something leaking within the living space of the boat. Theoretically, this should be easier to trouble shoot and fix. However, we’ve squirted soapy water in ever hose and connection, watching for bubbles, and we haven’t found the source of the leak yet. Wish us luck as the search continues!

I’ve walked more than 1250km, over the better part of two months now, so I think I’m entitled to an opinion on this. And so far, I enjoyed my time walking the Camino Frances across Spain MUCH better than the Camino Central in Portugal. Now some of that could very well be mental attitude:

After two months of travel, most of it walking, it is entirely possible that I am a little bit tired.

And it’s much more exciting to be walking toward Santiago with hundreds of other pilgrims than to be walking away from Santiago by ourselves.

But there are a lot of external reasons that I prefer the Camino in Spain as well.

There are fewer services oriented toward pilgrims in Portugal: fewer albergues, cafes, pilgrim menus, and shops.

There is much less history and art to experience – few grand cathedrals, museums, and palaces. And the lovely white churches we do walk past are always locked. There ARE quite a few Roman bridges, but they get old.

The language barrier makes things tricky. I had finally learned enough Spanish to make myself understood ordering in a restaurant or an albergue or to ask directions. I even dusted off my high school French a few times. But Portuguese is wacky! In writing, it kind of looks like Spanish spell-checked by a drunk. But when spoken, it sounds like Martian! My entire vocabulary consists of “good morning” (bom dia) and “thank you” (obrigado).

But the biggest downside to walking the Portuguese Camino is that it is almost entirely on roads. Sometimes in the narrow shoulder of very busy roads with trucks zooming by at 60mph. Sometimes on what our guidebook describes as “delightful country lanes” which really just means narrower roads with stone walls on both sides with less frequent trucks zooming by at 60mph. And maybe worse than the traffic is the surface of these roads – small square cobblestones that twist your ankles and make your feet ache after 25-30km under the weight of a backpack.

We came upon a road crew placing the stones on a new stretch of road – fascinating! It’s very labor intensive. The road bed is covered in sand. Strings are put in place to make straight lines to guide the cobblestone placement. Then two men sit in the road with a hammer in one hand and a pile of square rocks nearby and dig a hole, place a stone, and tap it into place. Over and over again. I wish they’d just leave them all as dirt – so much better for walking!

I know, I know… I’m not getting much sympathy from you as I complain about sore feet while spending two months in Europe. And you’re right! It’s time to snap out of it and enjoy the beauty of this small country. On the positive side, people are very friendly and keep warning us that we are walking the wrong way, lol. And there are way more English-speaking pilgrims than we encountered in Spain. So we get the chance to have several two-minute conversations with northbound travelers each day. And coffee and wine are both dirt cheap! There’s no tortilla option in the cafes, but cabbage soup is a pretty reliable gluten free option. And I learned how to say “without bread” in Portuguese (sem paõ). And we’re planning to take a three-night vacation from pilgrim-ing in beautiful Porto, so I think we’ll feel renewed and energized again as we continue south. Wish us luck!