The wait is over!

We have had a booking to cross the channel with Agy since late 2019. We were due to travel in 2020, but you all know what happened to that. Since then we have been waiting, mainly patiently, but sometimes anxiously to use that booking. We have moved it several times (Eurotunnel has been amazing), not really believing we would be able to use it each time we moved it. A few weeks ago we realised that the booking we currently have might actually be one we can use. Might we finally make it across/under the channel?

Once we arrive in Calais the possibilities are endless, do we turn left or right? North or South, Obviously not West ( that would be back home), but maybe East?

We began planning, maps out, the books with all the camper stop sites were found, and a route planned out. I contacted friends in Lithuania, Latvia, France and Germany. Poland is on the list We were coming to visit. Santa was put on standby to welcome us up north. It’s a long drive with lots of potentially remote areas and multiple border crossings, but absolutely possible. Excitement was high.

And then… well, you know what happened in Eastern Europe. The world has changed in so many ways heading east just isn’t right at the moment for several reasons. Finding fuel to get to the supermarket has been tricky recently, never mind driving thousands of miles in multiple countries.

So we went back to our original plan that we’d thought about for 2020. Spain it is! We can head south, drive through France, and follow the sun. Visiting places Ian holidayed in as a child. Of course as we plan this, Spain is experiencing more rainfall than they have had in many years with mudslides and Saharan sandstorms, but you know.. It’ll be fine by the time we go!

As we haven’t travelled and lived in Agy since last year she needed a bit of internal TLC, and prep. Cupboards needed emptying and repacking (I found some of my clothes I had been looking for for ages!) cleaning was required and water, heating, fridge and the loo needed checking to ensure all was working well.

 We also decided to give her a bit of extra colour and jazz up a few cupboard doors.

Her sheets were washed and once again that octopus needed wrestling… I wrote about it here if you are wondering what on earth I am talking about.

.https://agyvanontour.blogspot.com/2021/05/agy-van-is-going-on-tour.html

Having made the bed, struggling to reach the back corner from both inside and out, Ian found a step that would make a huge difference! Great timing, but it will be much appreciated next time I have to reach up and tuck her in. 

We discovered a slightly weepy (no not sad, leaky!) tap, so Ian also replaced that.

So here we are anticipating our next adventure, hoping nothing gets in the way and we can share our travels with you once more.  

 

Going up!

Go on, tell me you said that in the ‘Are you being served’ voice.No not menswear, perfumery, stationary and leather goods, its Agy upgrades that are available on this floor. In fact, It’s Agy going up!

She’s a beautiful van, and as you know we love her, but she can be a bit, how can I put this politely?, wobbly at times. Obviously, we wouldn’t ever drive her at Formula 1 speeds round corners (or anywhere) but we do have to be extra slow on corners, not only because we have our possessions in cupboards that we want to stay there, but also because she just isn’t that keen on sticking to the road. It’s not terrible, but it could be better, and on this island there is rarely a flat or straight bit of road.

Having done a bit of research and following several YouTubers travels, we decided before we go on our next big trip we would upgrade Agy’s tyres to ones where we have less chance of getting stuck in the mud or skidding in snowy conditions, most have the additional bonus of better grip and handling too. A few people had made the same  recommendation, so having checked our existing ones and found a few cracks(!!!), we decided now was the moment. 

We’d been told  ATS tyres was the place to go for great service on the island, so after a bit of shopping around we agreed and booked her in. Luckily, almost next door to ATS is Richie's diner, a fabulous cafe that does amazing all day breakfasts, so it made sense to wait there. Oh, it was delicious, a proper old school cafe that reminds me of the East End Cafes that saved many a  ‘morning after’ in my younger London days. None of this fancy Avo on toast with a mochachino here. Good old fry up, enormous hunks of bread and a mug of black coffee… amazing! The walls are adorned with old 50’s movie posters and memorabilia, it’s the very best place to wait.

Now, Agy looked perfectly good with her old boots, but look at these bad boys! She looks feisty!   They come with the lettering in blue, as you can see here, but with a quick wash, it comes up gleaming white and totally changes her look. For those of a petrolhead persuasion, they are BFGoodrich KO2 All Terrain tyres (yes I know, you can read it clearly).

Obviously we hadn’t changed them for their looks, so we took Agy on a drive to try them out. We have some pretty sharp bends here on reasonably fast bits of road (ok, we only have one tiny bit of road that is a dual carriageway here, and it is so short with a busy junction at each end so is often at a standstill), but we can test them out on the main route to Newport, then up over the downs (an oxymoron if every I heard one). Oh, she stuck to the road like glue! It seems our limiting factor will now be the wine glasses surviving the corners.

We’ve yet to test the real reason for changing to these, we do get muddy roads when the tractor pulls out in front of you, but you know, not full on mud roads, but we will, soon.

With the hope of a trip over the Channel at some point, Ian added light beam deflectors.

Having sorted the tyres out ready for mud and snow we thought we had better prepare for sunshine too, so she got a new sunstrip and we replaced her reflective strips on the mirror guards to make sure people can’t miss them as they hurtle towards us on narrow roads. We also popped on a stone chip deflector on (which is a bit like a fancy bonnet bra).

Like any woman she needs a decent bra to protect her assets. We are hoping it will protect her from the impact of chips. If only my bras could protect me from the impact of chips! 

Her other recent upgrade was an undertray, again to help protect her from damage on more adventurous trips on stony uneven ground. It sounds so simple. Pop off a couple of bolts, slide the tray in, do them up on the first side, repeat on the other side. Let's just say it isn’t! But after a fair bit of wiggling, a few choice words and cramp in places nobody should know existed, it's on and she is ready for anything!

Creating Secara

We started the new year sending the boat off with a stranger! We had debated painting her ourselves, as we had painted our previous boat and done an amazing job, but this time we decided it wasn't the right weather for painting a boat outside. After a bit of searching Ian found Adam who owns Kustom Kolor, a local vehicle painter not far from us. So off she went with Adam to get her new colour.

However there was no shortage of jobs to do while we waited. The engine needed servicing and sorting. There’s no point in having a beautiful boat and an ugly engine. In theory, this should have been a simple job. Remove the existing paint, sand her down, prime it, paint it, add the detail. Oh how far from simple this was! As you can see it looks beautiful here, but it took so many attempts. For some reason, although it was the correct primer and paint, the paint was problematic.  Ian had to strip it back and start again. Incredibly frustrating, but eventually it got sorted.

When we went to collect her after her paint job, there she was sitting in the yard, gleaming. She looked stunning, certainly not like an old 1980s boat, but Adam persuaded us she needed just a little something extra, so we agreed to bring her back a few weeks later for a bit of free customisation.

Once she was home we set to work refurbing the trailer, replacing her bearings and wheels and then replacing instruments so she will work well on the water, and fixings that, as always, meant tiny spaces with no room to manoeuvre.

Fortunately, we had a willing helper in our young next door neighbour Bruno (who was keen to be credited for his work :-) ) who didn’t mind fitting tiny nuts to hard to reach screws! I suspect we will have to repay him with a trip out around the bay, but that’s a small price to pay for a day with less back pain!

As things began to come together and she looked more like a boat again, she needed a name. She hadn’t had one previously so we had no worries about the superstitions on changing boat names. It took us a while as somehow her name didn’t leap out at us, but eventually we settled on Secara. A slight take on the Latin for 'cut'. It sounds good and we hope she will slice through the water.

The job Ian had been dreading was the antifoul. Antifoul is important as it stops all the wildlife attaching to the bottom of the boat as she sits in the water, but is horrible (and expensive) stuff to apply. She isn’t big, but it wasn’t a fun job, but although you really can’t see it here, she looks so much better with it done..  

Next was fitting the bilge pump (a little pump that automatically switches on and pups out any water when necessary), again, not difficult, but getting this pile of cables and attachments in place, reaching down into the depths of the boat, getting the pump to sit on the floor, with a big stiff plastic tube pulling it in the wrong direction does not make  for a comfy afternoon’s work. However we made it, and it seems to work. While we were there, we fitted the fuel tank too.

We haven’t yet decided if she will live on the drive, or in a boat yard, on the water, or a bit of each, but wherever she lives, she is going to need a cover that works while she is both on and off the water. Covers are expensive, so after a bit of investigating we decided to have a go ourselves. How hard can it be, shaping a cover to fit a boat from thick waterproof fabric, with no pattern and a very cheap sewing machine?

Most people cut their fabric to a manageable size (it soooo wasn't a manageable size at any point!) on the drive on a freezing January day don't they?

It turns out, if you aren’t too fussy about perfection, it's not too bad! Coping with huge amounts of fabric isn’t easy and UV resistant thread is thick, but overall, between us we did a reasonable job, and she now stays dry inside.

Doing it in the dark and rain made it even more fun!

Our final few jobs before returning to Kustom Kolor really brought her to life. The new seats went in, we added a little solar panel on and we were ready for her finishing touch.

She may be small, but she looks amazing.

Once the engine is on and steering connected, she is ready to go!