While Maxine is ashore flirting I sit in the cockpit, watching a spectacular lightning show to the north. With a gentle evening breeze and a small cervesa, I find that Act 2 of Walkure is utterly appropriate.
And huge ships glide past in endless procession, to and from the canal a mile upstream. As you can see from the photos, Balboa Yacht club is rudimentary at best, but it is a romantic place to sit and wait.
Maxine unearthed a lovely postcard and these photos, produced when the canal was first opened.
Things could be worse. Today we went across to Flamenco Yacht Club, where a brand new 60′ Amel yacht standing on the hard was blown over by the same winds which gave us our mooring difficulties. The boat needs to be shipped back to La Rochelle to the builders yard for repairs. With either of her masts alone worth much more than Tainui and all her appurtenances, her repair bill will be unimaginable. We shouldn’t complain!
Tainui is just about ready to go – waiting only for the flexible coupling parts and some cooking gas. The deck lines have been run, sails bent on, the mast boot snugly re-sealed, side curtains scrubbed of their mould, plumbing leaks attended to and all our downstairs junk neatly stowed. But for one major issue, we are ready for sea. I have been over the side and the propeller looks OK. There is a divet out of the rudder behind it but I hope the rudder wasn’t bent when the coupling failed. We won’t know until we connect the prop and fire up. If there is coarse vibration, then… (but I don’t want to think about that).