Tuesday 2 April 2019

Up bright and early today. It was a busy day and we wanted to get a run in. Given our recent experience with life around the boatyard, our only opportunity was to go before breakfast.  It seems slightly weird that we are on roughly the same longitude as Britain, but the clock is on European time, so an hour ahead of the UK.  This means that the sun rises late and sets correspondingly late. It was still dark when we set off, but we were treated to the sunrise in the distance, which was quite spectacular.

Back to the hotel for a quick shower and breakfast, then I went to the yard while Tricia attended to obtaining provisions. The first to arrive were the riggers who had various bits of maintenance to progress. They had taken several of the winches away for servicing and these had to be reinstalled. They also worked on the mast track which holds the luff of the mainsail.  While performing their rig survey last year, they had noticed that this had started to come away from the mast, so one of them was up to about the level of the first spreader fixing it.  While they were working away, their dog was waiting incredibly patiently at ground level.

We have been negotiating with the yard manager and the plan is that the boat will be lifted back into the water tomorrow.  This means that there is much preparation for is to do. So after the trek back to the hotel for lunch (2 km in each direction) I rushed back.  Another of the people we have helping was due to be at the boat to finish off the last “below the water line” repair.  He laboured away in a dark and awkward corner of the boat while I spent time washing away as much of the boatyard dirt as I could, from the topsides.  The area up the side of the boat is often difficult to reach, especially when you are pressed up hard against the side of the next boat, so I took the chance to clean it as best I could. This required perching on the stands that are supporting the boat and reaching up as high as I possible.  Doing this from below inevitably means that one gets wet, but now the wind has dropped and the temperature is rising, it is not too unpleasant and I dried quickly enough.

Gleaming and nearly ready to go

Back to the hotel, hopefully for the last time, and collapse into an exhausted heap.  Although there are long periods of hanging around for “manana”, it is still tiring and we did lose another hours sleep at the weekend.

Distance covered today	0	nautical miles
Trip distance covered	0	nautical miles
Distance covered 2019	0	nautical miles
Steve (and Tricia)