Another productive week here in Vuda Point marina aboard the good ship Learnativity. The weather is frankly just wonderful; hot and sunny mornings, clouds and thunder build in the afternoon and we get a bit of rain about half of the time but it only lasts for a few hours at most and we’ve had some spectacular sunsets and sunrises.
It may sound as strange to you as it does to me given that Learnativity is out of the water and jacked up on stands in the middle of a busy boat yard, but I have this incredible perch up in the trees where I sit and welcome in each day as I sit out on my aft deck about 5 meters/18 feet up in the air. The way I have them lift Learnativity out of the water in the Travel Lift is such that I was able to get them to put my aft end in right up against the beautiful trees surrounding the end of the marina and work yard so as you can see in the pictures, if you didn’t know better you would think I’m living in a tree fort.
I start each morning by rising just as the first light of day is streaming up over the eastern horizon of verdant hills which are off in the distance behind those trees and green grassy field. Ruby gets her ritual full tummy rub as we both get the sleep out of our eyes and then I fix up my favorite breakfast of yogurt, whole wheat bread, chunky peanut butter, dried cherries and a glass of cold milk and head up on deck to sit in my breakfast perch.
The tree branches are an arms distance away and filled with a myriad of different birds as they too start their day with their breakfast. As you can see if you look closely at the picture on the right, Ruby enjoys this time as well as she chases the saucy little birds that fly onboard and try to sneak off with a few pieces of her dog food. The other photos below will give you a bit more of a panorama view of the view from the front and sides of the boat and help you visualize the whole location here in the marina and boat yard.
The last two mornings have been particularly marvelous as the sun and sky have been brilliantly clear and the whole marina is enveloped in the early morning light, the sounds of birds chirping and a light fresh breeze through the trees. Part of living life well for me is surrounding myself in beauty and this will give you an idea of one of the ways I do so.
Boat work wise this week saw the completion of the final preparation of the topsides of the hull for the dark blue paint they are about to get this coming week. You quickly learn just how big a 52 foot boat is when you have to go over every square centimeter of that hull with your hands! That’s been done many times by many times thanks to the fabulous crew of guys from Baobab Marine (named after some of those trees surrounding me) and so we now have a very smooth surface with no more pinholes, dents, scratches or other marks. The new dark blue paint is being mixed up at the factory and should be here on Monday and then it is a matter of trying to read the weather right for a day where there won’t be any rain and spray it all on. Should take about four or five coats of colour to build up the full colour and cover everything completely and these all go on in one go as the painter goes round and round the boat.
This week was therefore filled with finding the last spots needing more filing and sanding and then covering it all with one last coat of white primer as you can see in the pictures. Then we taped the top and bottom edges a bit beyond where thee bottom paint and the top deck paint lines will go and washed it all down thoroughly. The big tarps went back up, the old masking was replaced with new on all the port windows and she is all ready for the final colour coat! When the blue paint arrives and it looks like we have a rain free day, we’ll wash and wipe it down again and transform the hull from the white of old to the Corinthian Blue of new. That will be a very exciting day and milestone as you can imagine and I’ll share it all with you when it happens, hopefully in next weekend’s update.
With the topsides all done our attention not turns to the even bigger job of painting the deck surfaces with gloss white and non-skid white paint. A much longer job as there is so much hand sanding and filling to be done of all the nooks and crannies you might imagine are on a sailboat’s decks with all the rigging, windows, hatches and fittings. But we have already done a great deal of sanding, filling and priming so this is the final stages of that and should go well. I’ve been busy cleaning and rebuilding all the fittings, hatches and rigging so they are ready to go back on as soon as the gloss is all sprayed. This too will take quite a bit of time because each hole has to be rethreaded to remove all the paint and filler they are now covered with, then the mating surfaces have to be caulked and fastened down firmly to seal them. I get great joy from doing all this but it is slow work and has to be all done before we can tape off all these fittings, tracks and hatches to protect the gloss around them from the non skid paint we will then apply. That’s all weeks away though so I’ll bring you pictures and details in the weekend updates to come.
It was also an unusually and wonderful week for me socially this week. On Wednesday Ruby and I were invited over to fellow cruisers Terry and Christine on Teka Nova. They are from the UK and also have a steel boat very similar to Learnativity and are also out of the water and busy doing lots of boat work. We’ve been trading stories, tools and helping each other out along the way and they invited us over for the evening. And what an evening it was! Their boat was build in Finland and the interior woodwork in particular is beautiful. Christine in particular loves hosting dinner parties and she really knocked herself out. We had a full spread of food from appetizers to a main meal of pork loin with passion fruit sauce, fresh peas and carrots, and potatoes in cream sauce with garlic onions and spices all followed with a delectable dessert of lime pie that was somewhere between cheesecake, cream and heaven. Not content with just fabulous food Christine had also laid out the dining table with a full compliment of glassware, silverware, fine china and flowers. She even made up a special meal for Ruby and Terry dug into his wine “cellar” to add to the wine I brought along. As wonderful as the meal was, the conversations and stories were even better and yet again I was reminded just how charmed a life I lead. Then on Friday two fellow cruisers Nick and Barbara on Val, also a steel boat that was out of the water for painting and had been our next door neighbours for the past month, invited Ruby and I and most of the other yachties who are living here, over to celebrate them going back in the water. Just a wee bit envious of this, Ruby and I joined a very full boat for an evening of appetizers and wine. So as you can see, life here is pretty rough, but I’m holding up OK and can’t wait for whatever is coming next.
Last but not least, this week ends with me marking the start of my fifth year out on this grand sailing adventure. Almost impossible for me to believe that it has been so long but more so short given the amazing number of experiences I’ve had and I’m going to make that the topic of a series of posts over the coming weeks as I reflect back on all this and share some of the lessons in life much more than sailing, which I’ve learned. I’ve only sailed a bit more then 25,000 nautical miles in the past four years but that’s more than most people get to experience and it has been SO dense with awemazing adventures, new sights, sounds, people, cultures and filled to overflowing with life, love and learning that it would take me more years to write about it all than it has to experience. I’ll do my best to summarize a few of the major lessons I’ve learned along the way for you starting with the next post.
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