Heavy Fuel

At midday, the sail returns, and to my great surprise, it appears to have been repaired. As it's refitted and half hoisted, I can see where strips of material from a spare sail have been stitched over several tears, one of which is particularly long. It looked like a dirty great rag before. Now, well... Now it has some strips of material from a spare sail stitched over several tears. I want to be confident and happy that we're going to get back out there, but my better judgement won't allow me to believe it. That being the case, I set about mustering facial expressions and intermittent comments to simulate the desirable and appropriate confidence. I'm not sure how good I am at faking it, but it feels passable.

In the late afternoon, Jean-Pierre emerges from his engine cave with some news. He says the main three-hundred litre fuel tank is severely rusted and all the diesel in it is contaminated. Whilst I might have had thoughts to insure and scupper, Thomas is all about solutions.

We have one thirty-five litre jerry can and another twenty litre container. We estimate we need six more to carry enough diesel to negate the lost main tank. At 2000h, Thomas, Manuel and I set out into town looking for more containers. A local is only too pleased to help and attaches himself to us, whether we want his help or not. After he's guided us to several of the various shop-slash-stalls selling plastic bric-à-brac and assorted crap, we've sourced only one container, purchased out of the car boot of a passing taxi driver.

By some incredible coincidence, we've crash landed into the one African port where Manuel has a friend - working here for a few months. We'd had dinner with this guy, Ben, last night. By an additional coincidence, I spot Ben passing us out on the street. He's with a Moroccan friend, and within twenty minutes, we've sourced five twenty-five litre plastic containers.

By 2200h, they're all filled, hauled across a raft of fishing boats, and secured to the Valentina's aft deck. And we're off again.

I did not see that coming. I checked the price of FastCat back to Spain earlier.

Photo: David Lustenburger, Tangier