For the past two months and a half I’ve been monitoring the weather forecasts daily. Sometimes even a few times per day… every time with a deep sense of anticipation for a major change that would drive the night temperatures above freezing. After being disappointed for a 100 times, last week finally the luck shone on me. No more negative temperatures for as far as the weather forecast could load on my iPhone 🙂 I wasted no time and ran quickly to Constanta to see little Mem Pas Peur, a bit anxious about her state.

Thanks to Constantin, who took great care, my little boat was in perfect condition, ready for a sail. The weather was perfect at the end of February, and quite warm, about 14 degrees C in the afternoon, but being alone I decided to perform a bunch of maintenance activities. Such as filling the gas tank, checking the engine, filling the extra diesel cans, checking the toilet and its manual flush… and the bilges. Here I discovered the only unexpected surprise. Two of the smaller bilge compartments that were filled with all sorts of metal tools somehow got partially flooded. I suspect the kitchen sink drainage, but will check it thoroughly some other time. Long story short, this vast collection of tools was covered in a superb thick layer of rust. So magnificent it was that after taking them out on the pontoon in a bucket one of my neighbour boat owners stopped in his track and exclaimed, while rubbing his head: “Where did you find these, on the bottom of the sea?”

Far from feeling proud as an underwater explorer, I just played dumb and admitted that they matured more quickly than expected in their bilge repository. I must have seemed pitiful because I received lots of advice about how to best resuscitate them. And I am waiting for the first chance to apply some of that advice, in the meantime my poor tools sleeping peacefully well covered in their newly acquired rust mantle in the cockpit locker.

I returned to Bucharest with a keen desire to go sailing, since Mem Pas Peur looked in great shape. I waited a few more days for a weather window, and together with Andrei, decided to give it a try yesterday. The weather looked quite good on my iPhone, but it turned out to be perfect, exceeding our most hopeful dreams. Below there are a few pics that reflect the conditions of that day: clear skies, almost no swell, winds from W and WNW between 10 and 15 knots, with occasional gusts approaching 20 knots, and 9-10 degrees C. With a first reef taken in for safety, we flew as never before with Mem Pas Peur, sailing from close-hauled to beam-reaching, doing between 4.5 and 6 knots. Not bad at all when considering the rich crop of shells that built an empire on its hull 🙂

I stop here with my story-telling and let you drool over the next pics 🙂