Thursday 9th March ...
Linda - What a lot of fun we've had this week. Especially me 😀. There was a big crowd of us for last Friday night's Happy Hour in our local The Red Lion. It was our friends Tina & Pete's 50th Wedding Anniversary which meant a lot of jollyness and cake eating.
Saturday night I was invited onto Sarah and David's boat Wandering Star for a girl's night get together. David was absent of course. There were about eight of us ladies in attendance for the frivolities of prosecco, wine, and nibbles. And also in attendance was their gorgeous kitty Maude. Maude's a real Princess and obviously the most important member of the Wandering Star crew.
Over the weekend I had more fun when I hoisted Dean to the top of the mast. It's one of his favourite places.... not. He was on a mission to clean the mast and check fittings etc. He dropped the genoa and staysail foils so that he could access the forestays' wire and give it a once over. This made him very happy as he's never done it before. In fact, I don't think that anyone we know has ever done it!
We both allow him to stay up there for one hour max because his legs go numb and my neck gets stiff constantly looking up at him to ensure he is OK, and waiting for the hand signal to raise or lower him. In this time he cleaned both foils and cleaned the mast down to below the second spreaders.
At the top
I thought this was a good close up
Below the second spreader
Swinging out to the Starboard spreader edges
Now the Port side, a bit more difficult.
Notice his safety line.
This is my view when I'm looking up
on watch with my stiff neck
After a couple of days rest he went back up and cleaned the rest of the mast and the first spreaders etc. Another one hour stint in the air.
One day it was cloudy with some rain. Time to get the sewing machine out. Dean had retrieved some Sunbrella that a fellow yachtie was disgarding. Same colour as ours, blue. He wants to make a cockpit table cover out of it, but today he used some of it to make a cover for our deck windows to protect them from sunlight and damage. It's quite a big job if you have to get the windows changed. Within a couple of hours (and a lot of measuring and re-measuring) the cover was made and the press studs drilled to hold it in place. It looks good, just the job.
Measuring
Drilling
The very neatly finished product
Rug edges
More partying and jollyness continued on Monday afternoon onboard our friends Mandy and Mike's yacht. They are the new owners of a yacht here in the marina and they were holding a yacht renaming ceremony. We've never actually been to a renaming ceremony before so it was very exciting indeed.
About 12 of us were in attendance. Renaming a boat consists of six parts...
1. Removing every trace of the old name
2. Performing a purging ceremony (removing the last remaining item of the previous name)
3. Performing a renaming ceremony
4. Making a sacrifice
5. Appeasing the four Wind Gods
6. Toasting to the new name
We all raised our glasses to yacht KIRRIKE.... Cheers!
We caught Mandy and Mike practising the ceremony
Janine about to film the ceremony
Everyone in good spirits on board
Me with camera in one hand, Prosecco in the other
The re-naming ceremony begins
The purging ceremony
Appeasing the West Wind God with Prosecco
It was a double celebration. It was also Mandy's Birthday. This meant an extra amount of alcohol needed drinking. No problem at all. In fact by the time we got back to the boat a whole SIX hours had passed.
Happy Birthday to YOU...
Lunch too..... WOW
AND MORE CAKE
Just a few of the empties here on the table!
The endless bottles of wine kept on coming
Before I was legless
I have to admit that the rest of the night I was completely incoherent. While I crashed out on our sofa, Dean cooked the dinner. I just about managed to get up to eat it, then I was gone again. Shameful, I hear you say. Yes, I agree. But what a great day, one I shall never forget.
Thank you MANDY, MIKE and KIRRIKIE for your fantastic hospitality.
Thursday 16th March....
Linda - Not much going on this week. We did have a LOT of rain and thunder plus a good old squall yesterday morning. This must be the changing of the season from Winter into Springtime. Yippee.
Quite a number of boats have departed in between the stormy days. The big talk at the moment is "Where are you wintering next year?" Some people have already booked places such as Sicily, Tunisia, North Cyprus. Some are even going across the Atlantic to the Caribbean. No-one we know has said they are staying in Finike, nor even in Turkey for that matter. I think they are all fed up with the way we were treated last year due to how the marina handled the berthing fees saga. For us, we are still exploring information, thoughts, and ideas.
At the Red Lion Happy Hour this week there were so many of us that our table extended from one end of the bar to the other, and beyond! Maybe because a number of people knew it was their last time before departing for the summer season. It was quite a jolly affair, with a number of G&T's downed. Not by me of course. I am a B&C girl....and as you know, they don't sell B at the Red Lion.
The jollyness continued on at the Sunday BBQ and into the late evening when Kevin and Bev invited us back to their boat Kailani for 'afters'. Sue and Paul on ZigZag were also in attendance. There were lots of laughs and it became quite rowdy as we each told our stories. It was a great evening.
So only one major Thésee job with photos to talk about. You'll recall last week I wrote about Dean making a cover for the deck windows. Well, this week he removed the old edging that was around the inside of the windows. It had dried out and was beginning to crack and fall off. He removed it all and then tried to silicon around the gap but it was a complete nightmare and very awkward. Such a messy job and doing it on his tip toes with the boat moving about too. You can imagine the expletives.
Eventually he got one window done and appearing to look reasonable. Next day when it had dried he wasn't happy with it, so off he went on a Plan B expedition to find some kind of squidgy tape. (I don't know the real name so I just call it squidgy tape because that's what it looks like to me).
Within less than a few hours he had been to the shops, found some squidgy tape, removed the silicon (what a mess), polished the window, and applied the squidgy tape to BOTH windows. Here's the photos...
Preparing for the silicon
Here goes....
Next morning.
I know this looks great but the rest was a mess.
Now applying the squidgy tape
Finished.....
and so much better, quicker, simpler, and LESS STRESSFULL
Thursday 23rd March...
Linda - What's going on? Why is Dean is rubbing down the cockpit table AGAIN?
Well, we woke up one morning to find the surface varnish had cracked. This table is so unbelievably annoying. So it was back to removing the top layer of varnish once more (this itself is a stressful job because when Dean sands it the surface goes all gummy and gluey, and the sandpaper sticks to it, and there is a LOT of swearing (even by me secretly).
Rubbing down again
Mr C not very happy at all
It took a whole afternoon just to remove the surface layer. Then next day whilst I was at Bridge, Dean polished it up again. I would like to say that it's all OK now, but Mr C would get annoyed because it clearly is a long way from perfect.
And another thing, I found a small piece of our silver Beneteau sign had fell off onto the deck. The bit between the A and the U. Lucky I found it before it blew away, and Dean was able to glue it back on.
Polishing the cockpit table
The patches that have worn through to bare wood.
Dean had to re-stain them.
This week was the start of Ramadan and so the flags were out in force. The local council fly huge flags above the main roads, which sometimes tangle themselves up in the afternoon winds.
There's been no Keep Fit for a week. We needed some exercise, so decided to go off on a walkabout around the town. It's quite pleasant along the river, we've been before but on our bikes. This time we walked it, ending up back at a beach bar for lunch. It was a blowy day but sunny so we sat outside.
Starting our walk at the river
One of the good restaurants
This is the hospital
Fabulous views with snowy mountaintops
Near the back of town
Lunch stop Beach Bar
We had to wait quite a while for our lunch so didn't hang around after we had eaten as the wind was really starting to pick up. I had forgotten that I had hung some laundry outside on the boat, but luckily it was still there when we returned.
As we walked along the beach promenade I almost stepped onto this tiny little turtle on the promenade. It was only about 2 inches long. We have no idea how he came to be on the boardwalk, so we popped him back down onto the sand.
Baby turtle
Winch maintenance was next, which went extremely well. All four winches now serviced and in good working order. No problems here.
Dean mentioned the dreaded V word again. Yes VARNISH. However this was varnish for inside the boat. Some of the woodwork edges around the sink, galley, and navigation table were marked and chipped. Dean had decided to rub them down just enough to remove the chips and blemishes then re-varnish. For this he bought some new (expensive) satin finish varnish and thinners from the boatyard.
Rubbed down and prepared for the satin finish
The galley
It's a job that Dean has been avoiding for a while, but in fact it's turned out with a fantastic result. Looks as good as new. I'll get some end result photos for next week because now he's doing the companionway steps too.
One last thing I just remembered. We ate more Birthday Cake. Always seems to be someone's Birthday here. It was the owners 40th Birthday at the Red Lion. The yachties organised a cake for him, it was yet another good turnout.
Thursday March 30th ...
Dean - One of the jobs this week was to prepare for the new batteries, which although late and well beyond the promised date TIT's (This Is Turkey) they are due any minute, I think. Anyway there was a lot of small wires on the positive battery terminal which needed tidying. I fitted a positive bus bar and moved them there.
Wires now in place
Other important work while I grafted away
Duogen parts
Top step with extra non slip
Bottom steps
One of many test fits, inside out
Nearly there
Final adjustments
New bus bar in place, ready to move the wires
More maintenance! I stripped down the Duogen wind charger to clean the bevel gears. They are greased and collect a lot of dust and stuff throughout the year. I cleaned them off using some petrol and a small brush, re-shimmed to the correct clearance of 0.15mm and re-assembled with fresh grease.
Of course no week is complete without the V word. I cleaned up the companion way steps and re-varnished. The veneer is very this so I had to cover a couple of thin areas with some non slip. Not a bad thig as with wet feet things can get tricky going up and down the steps.
I came across some more blue material that someone was throwing out so decided to make a new table cover. Phew! Even though I was copying the old cover it was difficult. I don't know how many test fits I did to get the correct shape. But in the end not to bad a job.
I've not written the blog for a while, not surprising as my patience is less now than it used to be, I guess it's an age thing. Lost the internet and then all my photos while writing this. ARRGGHHHH!!!
Anyway you will be pleased to hear that Linda will be back in charge of the blog, but not for three weeks as we are going back to Blighty for a couple of weeks.
The next blog post will be called 'Belated Birthday celebrations, & summertime begins in Finike'
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