Written by Mia:

Since arriving in Gibraltar, we have been meeting lots more cruisers, people who live aboard and sail from place to place. There is a lovely sense of community amongst this group of people and it seems unique to this way of life. We are really enjoying making new friends. We have been introducing you to our new friends along the way and it is such a joy to think about the people we are meeting and relish in the time we spend together.

Marina Lanzarote stands out as a place of community for us. We were lucky enough to be designated a space on the F pontoon which meant we were right across from J-squared and met Jeff and Julie and Lucas for the first time. Teo was helping Jeff do some hammering before we had even been there a day! We met a Swedish couple down the way as they pass by and just check what people are doing for the day. I swapped stories with a lovely Australian woman while I was doing laundry and she later shared experiences with parking. These subjects become threads of conversation over the coming days as you meet each other on the docks or in a shop. The couple from Golden Glow who we met in Gibraltar appeared and we swapped information about forecasted wind and then they offered us some useful boat hand-me-downs. A Norwegian boat moors across from us and there is a four year old boy on board so we have kids running back and forth all day and at some point they were on J-squared learning about the light controllers and generally giggling, play beating each other up and getting treated to ice cream. Bright Eyes have been in Marina Lanzarote, too and we were invited over for drinks which was a lovely evening. Anne bought Teo little treats and even handed me a little bag of wrapped things for him to open on our passage- what an incredibly thoughtful thing to do!  Everyone is out working on or cleaning their homes. People make conversation with each other and swap stories and information- it feels like the perfect neighbourhood. These experiences are just a taste of what we have been experiencing and all that happened within the space of a week.

People try to help each other. We were trying to clean stubborn fender grime off the side of the boat and someone comes and gives us a magic sponge thingy, which cuts the time of the job to half. If you are missing the right tool for the job, someone will be happy to lend it to you. We have been borrowing Stewart’s ladder to go up the mast and Jeff’s metal drill bits. Jon was trying to straighten a metal bracket for our new LED navigation lights and before you know it two other skippers appeared offering tool, advice, ideas and hands. Information is swapped openly too so you find out the fastest way to get permits approved or gas bottles filled or the best  supermarkets.

We have become friends with Jeff, Julie and Lucas (J-squared) and not only shared time with them on pontoon F but were anchored together in the bay at La Graciosa. What a lovely welcome we got when we got there! Lucas came and picked us up and we had dinner with them on board. In fact we have been invited over more times that we can count, SO nice! Teo and I swam over there one day and requested a fly by – we got to swim under the trampolines! Check that off the bucket list. J-squared has a lot more space for entertaining and Jeff is a fabulous chef so we have enjoyed the lap of luxury! We have been invited for yummy dinners more times than we can count, we have shared errands, too. In fact Teo came out the a zinger, he says to Jeff when he had known him all of two days, “You know what would be great, Jeff? if you would come and help us carry our food shopping to the boat.” Jeff only told us what Teo had said after lugging our stuff – talk about perfect neighbours!

The community generosity is not just limited to food and talk, we have received many ‘gifts’ and passed on items which we don’t need right now, but have real value. For example, Teo regularly treats us to concerts with light displays because Jeff gave him a multicolour LED lightbulb with controller. Julie gave him a sticker book that is his current favourite thing to do and we all have less chance of flat bum syndrome because they parted with cushions that make Itchy Foot’s cockpit a LOT more comfy! There is no official exchange, but Jon gave Jeff a much needed cable for is navigation system which we happened to have spare and several hours of his time trying to get their satellite phone working with their laptop. This is not just a form of barter, but rather a sense that everyone will just ‘pay it forward’ with the next cruiser in need.

But, by far the best part is just trading stories and being in the company of lovely people who have a beautiful sense of spirit and wicked sense of humour. We are looking forward to seeing the friends we’ve met again and meeting more of this amazing community down the road. Knowing we will see them soon, and make new friends soon, makes it easier to say “Hasta Luego”.

Written by Mia:

We had lots of gusts one evening in Soller, many months ago. It was fun at first, as the boats danced around, well at least the ones that didn’t have stern lines out… and this did definitely add to the chaos. Boats were dragging around every where, and one slipped so close that Jon even asked their crew if she would like to step aboard for a cup of tea. At 2am Jon was still awake and woke Mia with news that we too were dragging, and needed to re-anchor. He claims this had nothing to do with his wanting a new anchor, Mia is not so sure… either way, dragging is terrifying and if a new anchor solves the problem, buy two! Or don’t, we don’t really have room for two and the forepeak is getting full.

We even spent most of the next day trying to anchor, and keep in mind while we are anchoring it requires concentration and Teo has to find something to do on his own. This particular afternoon we spent about 3 hours trying to anchor only to finally give up and retreat to the pontoon of doom. The pontoon of doom being the cheaper of the two marinas in Soller – run by Port IBs – which is bumpy, wobbly and full of other boats with questionable parking skills. But we just chalked this defeat up to keeping our sanity and topping up the batteries and the water tanks.

As we left Soller we stopped at Sa Colobra mostly for the photos I have to admit… And the anchor didn’t hold there either, and Mia was running around like a crazy person taking down the mainsail… on her own… while on the walkie talkie with Jon who was ashore with Teo.

The next day things got rocky and rolley in San Vincenc as well. Again, a different anchor that held better would have definitely given us peace of mind and a few extra hours of sleep. Visions of that rocky beach against Itchy Foot’s belly are unwelcome!

Cala Murta (both attempts) would have been a lot less nerve-wracking with a non-dragging anchor. Arrrrrg that place still fills me with dread and frustration, it even claimed a pair of Mia’s shoes and we all know how popular that would be, don’t we? So, I won’t even bother with any details about that place.

When the sleepless nights ratio was more than 50% in a week, we found ourselves renting a car and driving from Pollenca to Palma to shop for a new anchor. It wasn’t really shoppping, Jon knew which one he had his eye on and he had done his research. It is a Rocna weighing 25 kilos and we spent a late night getting it installed. And we named him Rocky and we love him and we sleep better because we stay put, now we just have to get Rocky to read the weather reports and we can kiss mooring buoys and marinas good bye!

Fast forward two months and this all seems like a distant memory. I just found the draft version of this blog post (unfinished and started shortly after installing the new anchor) and those of you who read the post about living on anchor for a month are probably not surprised about how pleased we are with our new friend. Even though he is heavy and harder to pull up and secure, he is excellent in windy conditions and swell and that is just swell. Sorry.

Jon’s comments:

Hallberg Rassy boats come with a perfectly ‘fine’ anchor – a Lewmar Delta and that is what we had onboard when we took ownership of Itchy Foot. Delta anchors are loved by many and while they are an old design (from the 70s) they are still found on many yachts happily sailing around the world. So why did we want something different? Sand – we anchor in a lot of sand and Rocna’s love sand and mostly everywhere we want to go has a sandy bottom (it’s next to a beach after all). Secondly they set (which is the act of securely digging itself into the bottom) almost instantly, exactly where we put them on the bottom. They is very useful when trying to find the only sandy patch in an area covered in seagrass and weed. With our Delta anchor we often found that it would take many meters to get it to ‘dig in’ and set itself on the bottom. It also didn’t like it if the wind changed direction in the night, taking time to set in the new direction. In short, back in the 90’s the Delta anchor you could buy. In 2016, for the sorts of places we’re going to be anchoring, the Rocna seems like the best anchor for the money. Over the last couple of months the anchor has proven it’s worth and our confidence in it and our ability has grown.

Written by Jon:

It’s quite amazing how much of my day is now consumed by managing our consumption of amps and volts. As we’ve yet to invest in extensive solar (or wind) powered energy generation it all has to come out of either the engine or generator. The amount of electricity we use directly impacts how often, and for how long, we need to run our somewhat noisy generator – something we’d like to keep to a minimum.

So where are we using all our energy? Well, when we’re sitting on anchor, it’s mostly going to two places: the refrigerator and the interior lighting. The refrigerator is very nice to have and allows us to keep a more varied diet with some cold drinks – it’s a bit none negotiable on our boat. The interior lighting however has room for improvement.

Here is a common evening ‘configuration’ – not all of these are on at the sometime, but if gives you an example of what we’re using:

So if I run the above for three hours, from 8 until 11pm, then I’ll have consumed 3×13 Amps or around 40 Amps. This is more or less what it costs to keep our refrigerator cold for 24 hours.

What can we do about it?  Switch to LED lighting.

After a bit of research and asking the opinion of others in a similar situation I settled on buying LED replacement bulbs from a Swedish company called Bat System http://www.batsystem.se/. Thanks to the Hallberg Rassy group on Yahoo and Leon from Regina sailing.

So how much improvement did it make to our power consumption? See the table below for details but the short version is that I can now completely ignore how many lights we have on in the evening. Following the same configuration as above, my total 3 hour consumption would be about 2 Amps.

What are the downsides? Mostly that there is a higher initial cost, replacing all regularly used bulbs on our boat (internal not navigation) cost about 200 euros in total. The second compromise is on the quality or colour of the light these bulbs produce. To give you an example of what that means in real terms see the photos below.

NB: I set the white balance on my camera to a fixed value to shoot all of these.

Halogen – a nice warm colour of light.

50/50 Halogen/LED – Switched out half of the bulbs.

LED – not a cold colour, as they are good LED light but they have a slightly green hue due to not producing all wave lengths of light.

Skin tones under Halogen (a little pink)

Skin tones under LED (a little green)

The short version is that after a few days of getting used to the slightly green hue we’ve completely forgotten about it and are now used to the colour, Mia actually prefers the new colour lights in the bathroom.

One thing to consider if you really can’t cope going full LED is to switch out some of your bulbs, in the middle photo above I tried 50/50 LED and Halogen behind the sofa. The halogen did an excellent job filling in the missing spectrum of light which the LED lights simply don’t produce. You won’t save as much power, but it will basically halve what you currently use.

Next step for us? LED Anchor light and other navigation lights.

Written by Mia:

We decided early on that we wanted to install netting to the sides of Itchy Foot to help keep things and us from falling overboard.

So, we did a little research and a little shopping and Mia’s first exterior boat project was born… I watched a how-to video (they tried to make it look simple in the video by having a woman install it – HA don’t think we didn’t notice Sailrite!) and then full of vim and vigour I got started. The internet said it would take the better part of a day to install it.

I just finished it… on DAY 8!! And I was still pretty proud of myself… when bragging about this to people around me I should have made sure they knew I was looking for a compliment and not criticism 😉 I must admit that might have been a little unclear.

Here’s what I learned:

1. Use shorter bits of string for weaving a long bit of string will get VERY tangled especially when it is 20m long and it is easy to spend more time untangling it than actually weaving it through…
2. Don’t look at your neighbour’s netting because it will make a person crazy when they see that some rails (not yours) are designed to handle this very elegantly…
3. Help from a 5 year old is not always helpful, but we are lucky to have a very patient and self amused son.
4. Learn to tie knots to be independent, Jon tied most of mine when resulted in me making lots of references to Princess Bride which is funny to begin with and then starts to get really old and not very empowering… sorry Robin Wright!
5. To learn to use a Heat Knife. Go me! I am the only member of the crew that has this talent. That makes me indispensable.
6. Learn when to say it is good enough – (learned that one from “Iron and Ink”, the tattoo place on our street in Oslo…) because redoing stuff you thought was already done will make you and “knot boy” crazy!
7. When finishing the last bit of the project make sure you are not alone, patting yourself on the back is hard 😉

Written by Jon:

Itchy Foot is a strange name for a boat I admit. The idea came when reading the Julia Donaldson book ‘The Snail and the Whale’ to Teo (short for Theodore) our 4 year old son. If you haven’t been lucky enough to read this book the TLDR is about a snail, with an itchy foot, who wants to sail around the world. To achieve this goal he hitches a ride on the tail of a whale and together they travel the world.

It’s a regular favourite at bedtime, though honestly I think we enjoy reading it to Teo more than he enjoys hearing it. One such evening, as I was reading it out loud, Mia mentioned that ‘Itchy Foot’ was a good name for boat and seed was planted.

Ever since I started sailing 15 years ago I day dreamed about the idea of owning a boat I’d always assumed that I would name her ‘workavoidance’  – I term which came to use during lazy days at University which led to me registering the domain name workavoidance.com in the early days of the internet. But when the time came for us to choose a name for the Small Ships Register shortly after completing the sale of our boat I realised that she needed to have a name which reflected her role as a home for our whole family, 4 year old and all.

So Itchy Foot seemed like the right choice for us. Unfortunately the fact that it is close to ‘itchy feet’ a synonym for wanderlust isn’t well known to non-native english speakers so I guess we’ll just have to live with the obvious question about foot fungus!