Joys of boating

I have been assisting a couple of friends with their boat which is currently out on the hard. Their hull hasn`t been out of the water for four years and the bottom was dirty so the old antifoul has to be scraped off and new applied for the coming year. So there we are standing under the boat scraping and scraping and scraping Booring!!! Blah!! arm and back aching work not to mention the toxic nature of the crap that comes off, Yes I know I should have worn a mask Boy have I been sick.

Anyway the first thing I discovered was rampant Osmosis (fibre glass pox) everywhere. the hull needs to be peeled of gellcoat and steam cleaned well and allowed to dry before re gelcoating. It won`t however get it as funds are short (they are old live aboards and intent on travel next year to reduce the frightening costs of owning a boat and living in the UK.)

Each day I would present myself for duty (O eighthundred) and at the end of the day about twenty hundred, wend my way back to my own boat and have a shower (the water would be blue from the antifoul dust)and the warm water would heal my old aching bones.

Then it was off to the the restaurant for my dinner, delightful chats with the Polish waitresses and home to "Horlicks" my book and bed! What a bore you might say? but I love it, I do exactly as I please when I please.

The joys of boating! I really do love it! nothing is ever what you would expect. the people the tasks or the boating world in general there is always something to do people to see or places to go.

When in the commercial world of boating it is of course more pressured butI think I am leaving that behind for now with its delivery dates and booring people back to my book, soon to be blog, when I get my laptop up and running on the local free Wifi system (is there really such a thing as a free lunch? Nah!)

I really love my life!!! why am I so lucky? will it last? even my friends on the Blog are great! I love em all! Snooooooreooo!