0500
Wake up needing a wee. Get up to use the heads, only to remind myself that we’re on the hard and that we can’t use the heads. Go back to bed.
0530
Wake up really needing a wee. Get up to use the bucket on the deck. Our Swiss neighbour is already up doing his daily stretching exercises in his cockpit, which puts paid to my toilet plans. Take bucket down below to use. Can’t find anywhere in the boat that feels natural to use the bucket. Go into the heads whose hatch looks out onto Exercising Swiss Man’s cockpit. Abort toilet plans and go back to bed.
0600
Spring out of bed, zoom through the boat, slide down the ladder on to terra ferma and race across the boat yard to the loos before I wet my pants.
0615
Return to the boat to find Liz is half way through the third coat of anti-foul. Our boat is positioned in such a way that one half is in the shade until 1000 and Liz has set the precedent by starting work before it gets hot. I pick up whatever tool is closest to hand and make it look like I too am adhering to this work timetable.
0620
Am ordered by Liz to make tea and coffee. We have a rule on our boat: only when at sea am I the skipper; at all other times Liz is the boss. This is why I like making long passages.
0800
It is now hot and my timing is such that I spend the rest of the morning on the wrong side of the boat, in the blistering heat, epoxying/sika-flexing/glueing/polishing or using some other noxious substance that ends up more in my hair and hands than on the boat.
1200
Break for lunch. Friends come over to marvel at Liz’s paint job and ask what I’ve been doing all morning. I scratch my head.
1500
I pick up a paint brush to help Liz with the anti-fouling and she knocks the brush clean out my hand. It bounces across the boat yard, making the Turkish workers on other boats laugh out loud. It is clear that this is her job and her job alone. She glories in the admiration of more passing friends whilst I blush at my ever decreasing masculinity.
1505
Decide that, because the sun has passed its zenith, it is now an appropriate time to complete the SSB radio installation in the lazarette, the large storage locker at the back of the boat. I nip down below to grab my tool box and spot the thermometer. It is 40 degrees, and that’s in the shade, inside the boat. The lazarette is even hotter.
1510
Spend the next hour emptying the lazarette which contains the heaviest objects on the boat: spare anchor, spare anchor chain, spare dinghy, inflatable canoe, another spare anchor… Each object, once dumped on the deck, is followed by a cup of tea and a break in the shade. I whack some music on, which seems to motivate everyone around us. Turkish workers dance on their tressels and Liz asks me to turn it up full blast.
1600
Finally climb in the lazarette. It’s like an oven. Didn’t secure the hatch cover properly and it drops down on my head, locking me in. I spend the next hour banging on the lazarette door. No one can hear me.
1700
Liz opens the lazarette door, demanding to know what the hell I’m playing at. I am passing out with exhaustion. “What’s all this mess on the deck?” she demands, so I attempt to pacify her by buying an iced lolly from the marina shop.
1715
Return from the shop to find Liz has finished for the day and is now down the pool, relaxing. This is when my day starts and I get to work doing the jobs I hadn’t managed to do thus far.
1730
A mate pops by, suggesting a cool beer at the bar. What can I say? I’ve been up since five: my work here is done.
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By golly that prop looks good!
Depends which way the pointy bit is facing. If due north then a stiff sou’westerly should do it.
Do you need much wind to do that?
Move the boat
Something has been bothering me the last few days. How do you paint the bit where the stilts are touching the hull?
Jamie, I think you must have been menstruating at 5am – next time, sit on the bucket.
That’s not a boat bottom – that’s a mobile reef! Did you set Millie to work on the shellfish? We’ll be back out in Turkey end of Sept – will you be around? Making do with the Solent until then……….
We’ll still be here is September, making last minute preparations for our trip to Egypt and on to India. If you’re around in our area we would love to hook up with you. In the meantime enjoy the Solent!
Pool looks fab, wish we were there! Look forward to seeing Liz in a couple of weeks. x
Blimey Esper’s bum was even worse when she was out of the water, did not appreciate how bad it was using a snorkel-not surprised we could not manage any world speed records when we were there; as for the prop it’s a wonder it turned at all-it does polish up nicely though. Must admit I was beginning to worry about what you have been doing all day, but I see Liz can certainly turn her hand to most things and has done an excellent job on the hull!I sympathise re the lazarette, remember I spent days lying on my back in there painting it all nice & white-don’t recall any passing yachtsmen offering to buy me beer though.
Wow, how long did you go without hauling out to get that kind of buildup?
If you don’t want your boat to look like poor Esper then heed the following:
1. Don’t use cr@ppy Turkish ‘Moravia’ antifoul
2. Don’t over-winter in Fethiye
We had mussel and oyster farms six inches thick all the way along the chain resulting in it taking over an hour to get the anchor up. The prop/shaft/engine valiantly did their best to give us a maximum 2 knots and 1500 revs.
Oy vey. The ever changing delights of boat life… mutter… mutter…