A week of water problems

Ferreteria La Placa, Ametlla de Mar 

Our Bailey Orion caravan is generally reliable and we have been mostly very pleased with it over the past three and a half years. However living in it for over two years during that time does mean consumable parts wear out far sooner than they would do were we not using it so intensively. The water problems of my title were caused by wear to our Whale water pump. First up, the plug that pushes into the caravan inlet socket has been getting more and more difficult to connect recently and this turned out to be due to a little rubber o-ring having started to disintegrate. Removing said o-ring allowed us to fit the pump ... but resulted in water spraying out every time we ran the taps. Fortunately we have a bucket!

We had to leave it over the long weekend - the 6th of January is a public holiday here in Spain - but went into Ametlla de Mar yesterday where Dave had located Ferreteria La Placa. This shop was perfect. A proper old-fashioned hardware store where we could buy individual o-rings in a couple of sizes, not have to stump up for a sealed bag of a hundred! The shopkeeper was helpful too, happy to spend far more time than our 40c purchase warranted!

Books from Ametlla Tourist Office 

While in Ametlla we also visited the Tourist Office and now have a folder of ten walking route maps, a large tourist map of the local area and two interesting books about Catalonia, all free! The magic phrase was '¿Tiene mapas de senderismo?' We celebrated with a two hour walk along a further section of the GR92 coastal path and back into town via its parallel cami.

Back at Bailey, super plumber Dave got the new o-ring fitted in almost no time at all and our water pump was once again both pumping and leak free! Until this morning when we woke up to find the pump's indicator light on but no sound and no water. FFS! Fortunately we already carry a spare Whale water pump and had established the tricky process of replacing the actual mechanism part when it previously failed on us at Vera two years ago. We even knew to keep a tiny paint brush cover and (eventually) found the safe place in which I had stashed it! Fingers crossed we will now have running water for many months to come!

I'll leave you with two relaxing scenes from our walk.