The last couple of weeks have actually been quite busy, with our friend's boat out of the water and many days of scrubbing, sanding, filling and painting of the hull. It's quite physically demanding work standing underneath a boat and holding a heavy sander above your head while trying not to get blinded or asphyxiated (try spelling that without a dictionary). The good news is that it's all finished now and they are going back in the water tomorrow.
We've also been doing some work on our boat with the new radar unit being installed last week (a bit more of the inheritance down the drain) and today we started getting the sails down and trying to clean them up a bit. They don't look as if they've had much attention for years and were very dirty. We did the staysail today, laying it out on the concrete and scrubbing it with a broom and a mixture of bleach and detergent and it's come up looking like new (well almost). So with renewed enthusiasm, the mizzen is set for the treatment tomorrow, weather permitting. And talking of the weather, it's actually been quite nice the last week or so, temperatures getting up around 20C and lovely sunny days. Even the wind has died down to almost nothing today although it has been gale force for the last few days.
Doreen's current project is making curtains for the boat, no small task as there are at least 14 windows which need doing and being a boat they are not all in the easiest of places to get to to screw up track etc. It will be a big job but worth the effort I'm sure.
I think we'll be in Napier for another three or four weeks and at this stage it looks like we'll all be ready to move north around the end of the month. It's been great living here for the last couple of months but we're both starting to get the urge to move on now.
That's it for now. More in a week or two unless there is any special news.
