From Viviero we headed west, Barquerio, Ortigueria and then onto a gem, Ria de Cedeira - golden beaches, forested peninsulas and beautiful sunshine! Navigation in the rias was however something of a challenge. As they are flooded river valleys the whole estuary looks like it has plenty of water but much of it is covered by only a few feet of water even at high tide with plenty of depth only in the river channels themselves. We are quite used to this in the UK and simply follow the marked channel keeping the red bouys on your left on the way in. It sounds easy enough, the trouble is that this is not the UK and the Spanish seem to take rather less care of their seafarers! Heading for our anchorage up river and following the marked channel into Ortigueria I duly rounded one red channel marker heading for the next one along. I had several meters of water under my keel when the depth suddenly dropped, not just a bit - the next thing I knew was we ground to a halt in 2 meters of water - we were on the bottom! Happily Moondance has a lifting keel so a press on the up button and I was able to back off, scratch my head and consider the situation. There was an unusually small distance between bouys so either the bouy I was headed for marked a significant dog leg or..........
Some hours later we went for a walk along the bank of the river and all became clear. You can see the bouy I turned at in the back of the picture; the bouy I was heading for (in the foreground) was well out of position and a few hours later was high and dry on a mud bank! I wonder how many boats that out of position bouy has put on the putty.
Woody was pretty chilled about the possibility of being stuck on a mud bank.
It was all worth while though, it was a beautiful place.
We decided to spend a couple of days in Cedeira; it was time to tackle the generator.
The generator provides a quiet and efficient source of power giving us 240 volts to run the battery charger. I had been unable to start it since getting back to the boat this year so we had been relying on the main engine's alternator to charge the batteries.
The generator is run by a small diesel engine, fantastically reliable machines, all they ask for is clean fuel and compression in the cylinder. I quickly established that there was fuel getting to the engine (the generator happily runs off the starboard fuel tank, unaffected by the diesel bug problem), that only left compression. As diesels have no spark plug but relies on the mist of injected fuel being squeezed very hard to cause it to go bang and run the engine. Pressure was leaking out of the piston so no compression and no bang - almost certainly a problem with the valves not seating properly which let the air in and the exhaust out; the cylinder head would have to come off to take a look.
Sadly nothing is easy to get at on a sailing boat, no nice big engine room for Moondance, just a little hole in the floor for me to squeeze into.3 hours later, 2 seized bolts removed, 1 set of nuckles skinned and instead of a partridge in a pair tree one sense of humour failure - but the cylinder head was off.
There were obvious signs of corrosion on the valves (the small circles inside the bigger circle in the picture), probably caused by condensation over the years. The valves would have to be replaced and the cylinder head refurbished. A call to the agent and 700 Euros later, Bobs your uncle, a refurbished head on its way. Did I mention that boats were a bottomless pit to throw your money into?! I will pick the refurbished head up in a week or so and send them mine a bit further down the coast and guess what? Another few hundred Euros to get it fitted and the valves reset, a high precision job and beyond my abilities!
Moondance rolls on southwards.
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