Friday 1st July
Friday dawned cool and clear as I prepared to haul my Beloved from the security of her berth to the hard climes of hardstand...
Low tide at 1030 and still waiting for the Canny to arrive from Jaffa Land. 1100hrs and we needed to be there, so Greg and Judy jumped on board and very competently we manoeuvred our way into the waiting arms of the travel lift. Out of the boat and onto the dock while the 'boys' waterblasted the bottom. Not much slime but literally hundreds of baby barnacles meant a re-think as to the way to proceed. It looked very much like the warmer water temps had produced a bumper crop of attached marine cretins. Unfortunately each one leaves a calcium remains when detached, and the only way to get that off is to scrape and sand... Disappointingly, even the prop with its fancy coating was coated with the tenacious little blighters!
So... we decided to bite the bullet and re-antifoul now rather than in six months as intended. We were not Robinson Crusoe on this one either so we were told.
As you can see - the spotted disease had infected everywhere - right down to the bottom of the keel, which is usually relatively clear
After a couple of hours of very slow scraping and wet-sanding, the yard boss wandered over and asked if I knew the new regulations forbade the nefarious practice of wet-sanding and I was required to only use a vacuum sander - conveniently they could supply one at a nominal fee of $60 for the afternoon (+ 10 sanding pads @ $2.50 each!)
Meanwhile JB Marine turned up to suss out the prop/drive-shaft rattle and it looks very much like the culprit may be a worn cutlass bearing in the strut could be causing the problem. A new bearing is planned to be fitted Monday, meanwhile...
By now it was 1445 hrs on a Friday afternoon and the yard would be closing at 1645hrs (and re-open Monday). With little choice remaining we, with some alacrity, took up the offer and worked like little trojans for two hours flat out scraping and sanding until at 1644hrs we declared the spotted menace defeated!
A wamish shower and some warmer curry meant an early night for the intrepid duo...
Saturday was another day...
Saturday July 2nd
...which dawned cold and misty, about 3 deg outside and a little warmer inside as the blessed heater kicked in!
Onto the next task as we waited for the temp to rise sufficiently to at least allow paint to flow rather than glug, we set to cleaning and then waxing and polishig the topsides, a three stage process that took us through until mid-afternoon as we acid-washed, machine and hand-rubbed the white bits. A huge improvement!
By mid-afternoon the sun had warmed things sufficiently to allow us to mask and begin the rapid application of two coats of anti-foul. an hour and a half later the tin was empty and two lovely black coats were on!
Clean up and a long hot shower followed by a quick trip to Paihia Countdown then back to the Club by 1830 hrs for the Mid-Winter Christmas Dinner with mulled wine, ham, pork, roasted veges etc. We met Phil and Kelly, ex-Brits in their early 50's who had had enough of the Auckland rat-race and recently moved to Opua with their 40' yacht. Had a nice evening chatting but by 2030 we were flagging and the Canny is long asleep back on board as I finish this epistle and head that way myself with the Coalition having its 'noses in front!@
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