Bilge Work: The Underside of Making for Sevilla

2011 09 17

last days in Portimao

The Punishment Room - Behave Or You Have to Work in the Bilge

Before heading off to Seville we decided we should replace an ailing bilge pump switch.  Our existing bilge pump switch had failed.  We knew this because the Budget Committee, being Dutch trained, is an inveterate worrier and checked the bilge several times during our interesting voyage from Azores to Portugal.  On one of her multiple checks she found the bilge full of water; the bilge filling continually with water draining along the entire length of the boat as Meredith was pounded with green water for days on end.

Fortunately it was only the switch that failed and the manual override worked to energize the pump and clear the accumulated salt water.

That the automatic switch had failed was not a total shock.  On Meredith this is a common problem and we seem to have to replace the bilge pump switch every year or two.  Since the switch may one day save our lives we are inclined to keep it well maintained.  Of course they still fail and never at a good time.

The switch is a simple device: usually a float that closes an electrical contact when the water (loose term) rises and causes the float to rise to  a predetermined level.  Lately newer solid state switches with no moving parts have come onto the market.  Our experience with these is that they are superb devices that have a working life of no more than six to eight months.  Then they fail.  We have tried two, both failed.  The last was the one in Meredith when we left Azores.  Now we just use float switches.

Some boats have wonderfully clean bilges; compartments that could be used by Mr. Clean, or Comet as a testament to the wonders of their respective cleaning products.  Not so Meredith.

Even though I never spill a drop when changing engine oil there is a ubiquitous film of black hydrocarbon covering the pool of liquid (for I dare not call it "water") filling my bilge.  Even though no tissue paper of any kind goes anywhere on Meredith save into the garbage bag in the sink (save only for the toilet paper which goes down the head on Meredith) there is always a floating mass of indescribably foul cellulose obstructing my bilge pump pump intakes.  Where does this stuff come from?

Today I found the top off a jar of peanut butter floating in the bilge.  We have never thrown out a topless peanut butter container.  How is it possible for an orphaned peanut butter lid to be floating in my bilge?

It was.  Six feet down which made recovering it just so special.

Bilge pump switches are installed in the lowest point in the boat where they spend their lives half covered with a noxious mixture of oil, fuel, dirt and filth; all the unwanted material from every other level on the boat runs to the bilge.  If you ever wonder how the term "low point" came to have such negative connotation spend only a few minutes in the bilge. Clarity will find you; hopefully before you succumb.

Anyway, bilge pump switches need to be checked often and replaced when they are suspect.  About all you can do to service a switch is clear it of accumulated muck, grease and animal skeletons and check for cracks in its plastic housing.  Fail to replace the switch at the earliest sign of a problem and you may wake up one night to find your sleeping berth has the declined in elevation to water level.

Worse, if you have only small amounts of water coming into your boat a sticky switch will fail to clear the material and then you can enjoy the incredible heady odour that consumes the entire boat when a small body of water sits stagnant for a month in a dark warm space.

Usually it is corrosion that gets our switches and that most often in the wiring.  It seems a constant bath of hydrocarbons leaves a switch well lubricated and, save for the inevitable black film, very clean.  The hydrocarbon bath does have a deleterious effect on the life of coating on wiring and the plastic switch body however.

Both of our "electronic" switches failed due to cracks in the external wiring.

There are a couple of adaptations we have made to our bilge pump circuit that you might consider:

No "Automatic" Setting

We have the normal bilge pump switch with two settings: automatic, which turns on the bilge pump switch and manual which energizes the pump when you move the switch to that setting.

We eliminated the "automatic" setting on the bilge pump switch and wired the bilge pump switch directly to the batteries.  Why would you ever want to turn off the bilge pump switch?

One year we left the boat in the water in Green Cove Springs while we returned to Canada for Christmas.  Somehow we bumped the bilge pump switch and turned off the automatic feature so the bilge pump switch did not run.  This will never happen again.

Piezo Electric Buzzer

we installed an inexpensive ($4 at Radio Shack) piezo electric buzzer into the bilge pump circuit.  When the bilge pump runs everyone on board hears it.  That way we can keep track if there is a leak problem.

The wiring is very simple.  At the back of the bilge pump switch find the terminal that connects to the "manual" switch, ie. that tests positive when the "manual" switch is activated.  Connect the positive (red) wire on the buzzer to that terminal.  Wire the black wire on the buzzer to the negative bus.    Every time your bilge pump runs, even on automatic, the buzzer will sound.

Unless the bilge pump switch has failed.

Converting Your Boat's Propane Cooking Gas to Butane Simply and Cheaply

rocking gently on the current in Ferragudo, Portugal

2011 09 15

Early Evening In Ferragudo

Today while the Budget Committee took care of the laundry I determined to solve our cooking fuel shortage.  Our twenty pound propane tank ran dry.  Our twelve pound reserve tank would only last six or eight weeks longer.

Among the changes when you take your propane stove into Europe:

• you have to start using butane
• none of your North America  fittings or connectors work
• it seems there are no standards for anything on the entire continent 

When your Canadian propane tank empties in  Bahamas you just take it to the propane depot, or line up with the rest of the cruisers on Wednesday in the parking lot and wait for the propane truck to come.  Either way: Voila.  A full propane tank.  Everywhere in North America and much of the Caribbean use the same standard bottles and connectors for using propane.  No matter who is selling the gas the bottles and connectors are the same.

Not so in Europe.  Much of Europe uses Butane for a cooking fuel instead of propane.  There is a patchwork solution to size and shape of gas bottles, connectors and regulators.  You may encounter several as you cruise from country to country.

What to do?

Some people buy expensive fittings that will adapt their propane tanks so they can be filled with propane.

Problems:

• the adapter fitting is very expensive
• as in North America it is increasingly difficult to find a station to refill a gas bottle.  Mostly Europe uses bottle exchange where you take your empty bottle to the supplier from whom you bought it and exchange it for a full one.  
• if you find a refill station it will be a long way out of town and you will have to take a taxi.  No one would take a propane tank on a bus.  Would you?  If caught the best you can hope for is to be thrown  off the bus.  

Another solution some people recommend is to buy a different adapter that lets you fill your propane tank from a local butane tank.  You connect the bottles and then hold the butane tank upside down while the butane runs slowly down the connecting fitting into the propane tank. What is wrong with this picture  (do you really need a list?):

• the adapter is expensive
• you have to buy a butane bottle to use this system.  Why not use that bottle and skip the refill procedure?
• Can you see yourself standing in the cockpit draining one gas bottle into another gas bottle?  

These were maybe good solutions in the old days.  Things have improved.

Here is Meredith's quick, easy and inexpensive way to convert from propane to local butane.  It cost €31.50 for all the materials and took two hours including going to town to buy the hose and get the new tank (done by dinghy, the Repsol gas station in Portimao has a small dock)

Materials

1. A European Gas Bottle

This Good Looking Plastic Coated Gas Bottle
Came from the Local Repsol Gas Station

You can choose from several different gas bottle types and gas providers.  The exact one really does not matter.  We went with a Repsol 6 kg bottle that can be exchanged at Repsol gas stations all through Portugal and Spain.  It fits nicely in a propane locker designed for ten pound propane tanks.

Repsol gas stations are everywhere in Portugal and Spain so exchanging empty bottles for full ones is simple and easy.  The fittings on the tank are the same as on the BP gas bottles.

Cost of the tank: €30.  Cost of the fuel in the tank: €14.50

Many sites recommend you use Camping Gaz but for reasons elucidated later we chucked that recommendation in the wastebasket.

2. A Regulator for your Butane Tank

Standard Butane Regulator purchased from BP
can be used with Repsol and Other Brand Tanks
Repsol GIve a Regulator Free when you Buy a Tank

You cannot use your propane regulator with butane.  Butane is supplied at a lower pressure than propane and you can do harm if you fail to change the regulator.  On the plus side when you buy a gas bottle the supplier gives you a regulator.  Cool. More so because the regulator is easy to plumb.

If you want an extra you can buy one, as I did, at BP for €7.50.

The regulator has a barb on it designed to fit 8 mm butane rated hose.  This makes the whole job very easy.

3. A length of Butane rated hose.  

This is just hose so there is no photo.   You must buy butane rated hose because Butane, like Propane, corrodes ordinary rubber compounds.  You can get the hose at most heating dealers in any town.  I got mine at the BP depot and it cost €1.50 for a metre.

The standard home use butane hose is 8 mm which is sort of useful.  A North American 5/16 barb fits an 8 mm hose very snugly.  In gas connections snug is good. 

3. A 5/16 brass barb from North America.

5/16 inch barb and a Fitting to Connect to the Gas Shutoff

In addition to the barb you will also need a fitting to connect the barb to your gas shutoff valve.  You should source these in North America because your gas shutoff will take imperial threaded fittings: American Standard Tapered Pipe  or American Standard Straight Pipe.

You have to start with a 5/16 barb and end up with a pipe to fit into your gas shutoff valve.  My gas shutoff takes 1/4 inch pipe with American Tapered so the actual pipe is .540 inch in diameter The guy at the Rona store or Home Depot or Lowes will help you.  Check the gas shutoff before you go to the hardware.

If you do not bring a barb and fitting with you relax.  What you do in that case is buy a new gas shutoff valve in Europe.  It will take metric fittings and you install the metric shutoff in place of the imperial shutoff and use metric fittings.  Not a problem.  The gas shutoff will be expensive just like home but honestly, your gas shutoff is probably twenty plus years old and needs replacing anyway.

4. Two Hose Clamps


Usually already in stores but you can buy two for under €1.

5. Soapy Water

Procedure


This hardly needs to be written:

Hose Connected to Regulator

1.  Connect one end of the hose to the regulator barb.  Use a hose clamp to snug the connection up.

2. Connect the other end of the hose to the 5/16 inch barb. Use the other hose clamp to snug the hose to the barb.

Barb Connected to Gas Shutoff

3.  Connect the fitting that will accept the 5/16" barb onto your gas shutoff valve.  Use some teflon tape on the threads

4.  Connect the end of the hose with the 5/16 barb to the fitting on the gas shutoff valve. Use more teflon tape.

5. Connect the regulator to the gas bottle.

6. Turn the regulator on which pressurizes the system and use the soapy water to look for leaks at your connection points.  Do not squirt and run.  Put some soapy water on the connecting point and sit and watch it for a few minutes.  If bubbles show up you must snug things up a bit more.

You can now cook dinner.

That is all there is to it.

Connie likes butane as a fuel better than propane.  It has more heat energy volume for volume, catches flame quicker and allows for some fine tuning on the heat levels on the stove, a difficult task on a propane stove.

The connection system used by BP and Repsol is simple and fast.  Just click and remove or click and insert the regulator on the tank.  Because propane is stored at higher pressures it is likely this simple connection system cannot be used back home.  Too bad.

Butane cannot be used in Canada because it will not flow very well as temperatures descend to zero degrees Celsius.  It just won't work much below that.

What Happens When I get to a Country that Won't Exchange My Repsol Bottle?

I will buy the local exchange bottle and a regulator and change the hose over.

Likely the next country will use the same regulator and if not likely the regulator will be free with your new bottle purchase.  Just remove the hose from the old regulator and put it on the new one.

Many southern European countries have adopted the Italian butane gas connection system while the UK and Netherlands use the "Dutch Standard".  If we get to Netherlands as we hope to then we will be faced with buying a new regulator as well as a gas bottle.

A Trident adapter to allow me to fill my propane tank with butane costs on the order of $135 at discount.  Paying only €30 for a new refillable butane bottle I can buy four new exchange bottles for the price of one Trident adapter fitting designed to let me use my old propane tank.  And the exchange bottles are just so easy to replace when fuel runs low.

Why Not Camping Gaz?


Camping Gaz is a French company that provided one of the first standard butane distributions in a fractured European system.  Most often used by motor homes (or caravans in the UK) camping gaz is available all over Europe.  It has the advantage of being available in a single format across most of Europe.  However:

1. The containers are dear.  A 2.7 kg gas bottle cost €47 in Portimao.

2. The regulators are sold separately but the local MaxMat building supply store, the only Camping Gaz distributor on a bus route, did not have any in stock and in typical Portuguese tradition could have cared less.  Not even an offer to order one was proferred just a perfunctory "we have none right now".

3. Being for motorized caravans the larger gas containers are available on motor routes usually miles out of town.

4.  As expensive as they were the Camping Gaz containers were cheap painted steel, easily damaged and open to corrosion in a sailing environment.  If your container is damaged or rusty it will not be accepted for exchange and you must buy another.

Why Not Autogas?


Autogas is an intriguing possibility for the future.  Increasingly in Europe gas stations are installing self serve LPG filling stations for gas powered vehicles.  One or more companies in the UK are selling refillable portable containers that can be filled at autogas stations.

However:

I have only found autogas containers in the UK which means shipping which means delay.  It also means you have to order all the stuff you need at one go, like regulators and filling fittings and so on.

The local Repsol station told me you have to go out of town to find a Repsol station with an autogas filling station.

So:

In a few years Autogas looks like a winner.  Just not yet at least for boaters.

Our Dinghy Has Set Us Free

2011 09 10

Ferragudo, Portugal

Here we sit at anchor in Ferragudo.  Five days ago we left the marina at Portimao just across  the river four or five days ago determined to make east to Seville.  It hasn't happened.  Cruisers' disease has set in and we are enjoying being at anchor so much we are just going to stay here a bit and continue to enjoy.

Life at anchor is radically different from life tied up at a marina and we are in no hurry to return to the marina life.  Since dropping our hook we have been to town only once and that was really just an excuse to fine tune the new dinghy with our old outboard.

The dinghy flies. Europeans are inclined to small dinghies, little more than waterwings actually and even smaller outboards.  Being typical North American motorheads we (I, the BC let me) got for the biggest outboard we could carry.  We (I) like big outboards and fast dinghies.

Our new YAM(aha) softbottom inflatable which ended up costing about $1,400 CDN after the horrific 23% VAT was paid is a joy.  It absolutely flies down the river with our trusty  9.8 Tohatsu driving it at half power once it is up on plane.  We have never travelled so fast in any marine carriage owned by us.

Gasoline today was €1.69 a litre make it $2.50 Canadian a litre or $9.50 a US gallon depending on how good a deal you get on exchange.  $50 for a 5 US gallon can of gas.  Nightmarish.

Having a more powerful outboard we can get up on plane.  This not only increases speed but reduces fuel use and I think we actually use less fuel point to point than the slow puttering  waterploughs we see making for town from neighbouring boats.

Of course going fast is so much fun and having a dinghy is still so novel that we burn a lot of fuel taking unnecessary trips to anywhere we can think to go.

If buying a dinghy in Europe you need to know that despite the profusion of brands most dinghies are fabricated by two companies: Zodiac at the high end and Plastimo at the Chevy end.  We are chevy drivers.  Although our dinghy is labelled YAM(aha) it was made by Plastimo and the only distinction between the 3.1 metre YAM and the 3.1 metre Plastimo is that our dinghy has a piece of blue fabric on the nose and the Plastimo has gray.  Every other detail, piece of hardware, oarlock, D ring is identical.

So just buy the cheapest dinghy in your length.  It is no different from the dearer dinghy with the nicer label.

But bring your outboard from home and get used to arriving first.

You Want to Watch that Racial Profiling

2011 09 09

Ferragudo, Portugal

KRUPS, KRUPS? You Gotta be Kidding

I fear I suffer a bit of anti European sentiment.


Couple of days ago at the local appliance store I noticed that most of the stuff on the shelves was made by KRUPS.  It stopped me cold in my tracks.  

KRUPS was a big german munitions company, ie they made bombs, bullets and guns used to kill Canadian soldiers in WWII.  And now the people those Canadians died to help were buying consumer crap from the company that killed their liberators?  Man was I pissed.


Luckily I have learned to wait on these things.  Confirmation is needed before nuclear attack can be invoked.  Investigating I found, pending further investigation, that the bombs and bullets company was KRUPP not KRUPS.  So never mind.   


But I was a bit too ready to believe the worst.


Any Port in a Storm


If you visit Lisbon we recommend you find the Institute of Port where you can sit in beautiful old leather chairs and select your favourite tipple from a port cart.  Prices are unbelievably low and you can likely buy a port put down in the year you were born. That must have been a good year right?


Here are a couple of selections from a local liquor store - that 1924 vintage at 1400 euros a bottle will never touch my lips.

But the 1927 is a real bargain at only 1,325 Euros

Alternating Currents - Alternator Woes

2011 09 08
Ferragudo, Portugal (across the river from Portimao)

View At  Anchorage in Ferragudo on the River Arcade
(across from Portimao)

We made about 300 meters distance made good yesterday.  Our dinghy arrived on time (if 12 days on a 10 day promise can be considered on time.  Our broker very strongly suggests that he delivered on his promise "ahead of schedule - Portuguese time". Clearly he had no intention of delivering the dinghy in 10 days or even 12 had it not been for the eruption of Mount Curmudgeon.  It only took 7 days to make heaven and earth - six if you don't count the day off at the end.  Proof that God was not Portuguese.

Dinghy on board we departed the marina in Portimao intending on dropping hook in the convenient nearby anchorage in the River Arcade to prep for departure today on our way to Sevilla, Espanha.  Immediately we noticed the alternator was not alternating.  NO electrons were being generated.  No power created to feed our voracious batteries.

No one expects their alternator to fail.  Like the Spanish Inquisition surprise is trouble's first weapon.  That and a near fanatical devotion to the pope I suppose but that is less relevant here.(m. python rules)

Along with all the other important devices on our boats the alternator is much abused, much neglected and generally ignored.  Until of course it up and quits.

Without an alternator you will be forced to sail, not motor, and to hand steer.  Your battery bank cannot support you and your insatiable appetite for electrical energy for more than a day or two usually much much less.

Your fridge is drawing 3 amps average and without that your beer will get warm.  When you run it the diesel eats from 2 to 5 amps powering the fuel pump and the instrument panel and such.  Your autopilot is good for at least 5 amps and a lot more if conditions are rough.

So there you are: sailing not motoring, hand steering with only warm beer.  Sounds like a Corsican slave galley.  No thank you.  You gotta get that thing working.

Here are some things you can try that should breath some life back into the poor dear thing.  Unless you have totally fried the alternator, a very unlikely event, one of these procedures should get you on your way.

The Big Three 

THe natural response of all of us faced with the overwhelming depression of a failed alternator is to throw open the engine compartment and stare blankly at the engine.  Just what compels us to join in this act of bovine placidity I cannot answer. It never works and no broken part has ever started to work after a good hard look at it has been effected.  Not on my boat anyway.  But I keep trying.

In seventy five percent of the cases of alternator failure one of these three procedures will get you on your way:

1. Take off all the connections from the alternator to the battery.  Everything.  Every peid of wire even the ground wire.  Clean the ends of the wire thoroughly and then clean the contact points on the alternator to which these wires connect.

2. If your alternator is externally regulated , and I assume for this blog that your alternator is externally regulated, remove the harness connecting the alternator to the regulator and clean all the contacts - including any stray wires that do not look important.  There will be at least one sense wire from the regulator to a switched negative post.  Check and clean both connections on this sense wire.

3. Check your fanbelt to make sure you have good tension and then check the fanbelt surface where it contacts the pulleys to make sure the belt has not glazed over.  Glazing can make the belt slippery. When it comes to fan belts slippery is useless.

With only a small amount of work and just a bit of luck you should now be on your way.

IF NOT

First Try THis - but only if you have an externally regulated P type alternator.

1. With the engine off place a steel screwdriver blade or steel wrench near the nut on the pulley of the alternator.  There should be no evidence of magnetism, ie. there should be no pull on the wrench or screwdriver trying to pull it towards the pulley nut.

2. Start the diesel.  Wait about five minutes.  Now CAREFULLY place the screwdriver blade or wrench near the pulley nut on the alternator.  YOu should find a strong magnetic force pulling the blade or wrench towards the pulley nut.

THis is a bit dangerous cause the diesel is on and you are close to moving parts that can maul you quite seriously and even kill you.  For the sake of my lawyer I must now tell you not to do what I have just suggested.  It is dangerous and no one, even a professional mechanic working in a protected environment wearing half inch kevlar protective clothing would never try to do what I have just suggested.  It was a joke and I did not mean it.

If you are squeamish about losing an arm or watching your entire alimentary tract wind itself up on the crankshaft of your diesel remember that you do not have to start the diesel.  You can be safe.

Just turn the key to "run", wait five minutes and then test with the wrench or screwdriver blade.  However - that annoying oil pressure beeper will be sounding non stop and if you have an oil pressure cutout switch on the diesel you will have to short circuit it.

Entirely up to you what you do but if your arm gets ripped off don't blame me.  I'm broke anyway. (You wait the five minutes because most external regulators have a delay programmed into them and they do not start up right away to give your diesel a chance to get up to speed before they load the engine with the alternator.

3. If there is a strong magnetic field at the pulley nut on the alternator but the alternator is not producing any current then I am sorry.  You are screwed.  You are going to have to take the alternator off the boat and have it rebuilt. On the bright side you will not have to waste any more time working on the darn thing and you can devote the rest of your afternoon to drinking the beer before it gets too warm.

IF YOU PASS THIS TEST, IE THERE IS NO MAGNETIC FIELD THEN TRY THIS:

1. Turn the engine off and remove the key.  Disconnect the wires running from the regulator to the the alternator.  Usually this means pulling off a harness or plug. The wiring from the alternator to the regulator will likely have wires in the following colours: black, red, white, brown, blue.  We are only concerned with the blue wire and red wire.  THe blue wire may not be blue.  Blue is usually the colour used for the "field" wire; it carries current from the regulator to the rotor on your alternator.  If you do not have a blue wire read the manual for the regulator and find out what colour France or England or Germany use for their field wires.

2. Using a small piece of wire connect the blue (field) wire to the red wire.

3. Check for magnetism at the pulley nut on the alternator.

If there is magnetism on the pulley nut it looks like your alternator is ok, at least the rotor and brushes and the regulator harness is ok, ie. there are no shorts in the wiring harness.  This means that probably your regulator is the problem.  Hook up your spare regulator and you should be on your way.

If you do not have a spare regulator then shame on you.  You deserve to be stressed out because you are woefully unprepared.  All is not lost however and you can make a regulator out of parts normally found on most boats.  Read Nigel Calder's book on Electrical and Mechanical Maintenance for directions.

Simply wire together a n series a bunch of light fixtures or whatever you have that use power  until you have a circuit with enough "power consumers" to use  5 amps of current.  (a ten watt lightbulb uses about 1 amp so five of these wired in series would be good).  Then wire one end of the circuit you have made to the positive post and the other end to the blue (field) wire.  You might want to wire in a switch as well to turn the string of lights on and off.  Start the diesel and when it is running smoothly go below and turn on the string of lights.  This will run enough current through the rotor of the alternator to produce about 13 volts to 13.5 volts, enough to charge at an elementary level.  Use to your voltmeter and verify that the alternator is putting out no more than 13.8 to 14 volts.

4. If there is no magnetism at the pulley nut get out your voltmeter and check for voltage on the blue (field) wire.

If there is no voltage then likely the problem is a short in the wiring harness.  You can track that down with your voltmeter and clean or cut out the bad wiring or connection and rewire.

If there is voltage at the blue (field) wire and there is magnetism at the pulley nut once again you are screwed and are going to take that alternator into the shop for a rebuild.

No matter what result you obtain when you are done you have earned the right to a beer.  Hope it's cold.

Thoughts on Alternator Maintenance and Preparedness

1. Carry a spare regulator.  They are inexpensive.

2. If you are cruising carry a spare alternator.

3. Clean your alternator regularly.  Use your wife's vaccuum cleaner to suck out bits of crud from the alternator (tell her it is just dust).

4. Check belt tension on the fanbelt often, like every time you start the diesel.

5. Every two years remove your alternator and take it to a good starter shop for a rebuild.  They will clean and lube it, change out the bearings, replace the brushes and check all the other parts, like the diodes. Cost is usually about $150 in Canada.  Use your spare alternator while the rebuild is being done.

While you are at it you might take in the starting motor too.  It needs attention as much as the alternator.  While you are in there you might as well change the air filter and pull the bilge pump to clean the vanes and the pump switch, tighten the stuffing box, check the tranny fluid, remove the heat exchanger and flush the seaweed and mud out of it, remove and scope the exhaust, lube the through hulls and verify smooth handle action and check all the other electrical connections.

I mean you are in there anyway.

D Day for Meredith

2011 09 07

Dinghy arrives today.

If not we leave the dock today anyway.  One day at anchor in Portimao and then we are off to the island of Culahtra or somewhere around there.

It is nice to be active again.  Next major stop is Seville but we hope to spend some time on the Guardiana river which separates Spain and Portugal and is a very scenic cruise.

Cleanup In Aisle Four - Practical Bilingualism

2011 09 07
Last day in Portimao

My assigned task yesterday, in fact my only task for the whole day other than blogging, was to locate a bag of the small square melba toasts we so adore on Meredith.  These things are incredible - highly stressed packages of arid little toast crumbs that, when bitten, explode into a billion points of water absorbing brilliance.  They suck your mouth dry in a split second.  Cool.  They also go well with the local young cheese.

Luck was not with me that day and I had traversed the endless aisles of the Jumbo grocery store finding nothing that resembled a melba toast.

Finally I was reduced to asking for directions from staff.  Staff are rare things in a Portuguese store and a cause for celebration when one is present.  Obviously my luck was changing for there immediately before me was a person adorned with the tiny jacket worn by all Jumbo staff.

She was mopping up a red mess in Aisle Four - Salty Snacks.  Actually she was more attacking the mess than mopping it and her mop handle was nearly a blur it was moving so fast.

Hesitantly I interrupted the work flow.  A quick tap on the shoulder accompanied with a gentle "excuse me...".  This woman came equipped with air brakes.  She stopped so fast she gave off a compression wave as atmosphere bounced off her instantly stationary frame.

She looked at me hesitantly.  I proceeded.   "Tiny toasts?" I muttered hopefully.

I knew I had blown it as a cloud crossed my unwilling guide's umarked brow.  Quizzical she just looked at me.  It came to me in a flash.  "tiny tostas" I said more hopefully.

A lightbulb clicked into brilliance.  Her visage cleared and she visibly gained in stature.

"YES" she almost shouted.  "GO ONE" and she pointed down the row to the next aisle with her right arm.  Then her right hand shot out at ninety degrees and she motioned me to proceed to the right.  "THEN GO LEFT".

I thanked her profusely and followed her instructions right to the tostas.

And somedays life is just that cute.