Moves

Just so you don’t think our cruising life is all “plain sailing” ...we were being moved to a new spot last Thursday morning and, although we were originally promised 4 days to work on the keel while it was down over the ditch, that gave us 2 days. So the pressure was on to get the inaccessible areas prepared and painted.

We started work at 6am Wednesday morning – grinding and sanding – and put the first coat of paint on at 5.30pm. That was all on an hour’s breakfast and an hour for tea. After 2 hours of painting we showered, had some dinner, then did coat #2 at 9.30pm which took over an hour. I should mention at this point that there was a BBQ going on under the trees beside us - just to torture us! A short sleep was interrupted by the alarm at 1.30am and coat #3. A little more sleep and up at 5.30am to do Coat #4. At 9.30am we started coat #5, hoping to get it done before the travel lift would appear. At 10am the travel lift manager came along and said he'd decided to leave us where we were!

In meantime we’re enjoying the fun of using communal showers and toilets in the yard although they are much better than the primitive offering in our last boatyard in Turkey. One of the first days I found a snake in them and subsequently had to go in with a stick to make sure the coast was clear! Any water used on board has to go out via a bucket down the ladder making washing up etc a pain. Nothing can go down our drains.

We have been the centre of attraction in the yard while we’ve been marooned on our island! Everyone is apparently talking about us – typical that we don’t manage to do a normal haul out!