It's been more than a month in the yard at Docklands 5 with "Astarte" on the hard getting lots of care. That means hard work for us but progress is being made.
It took a whole month of seven days a week of hard work to take the bottom paint off by scraping, sanding and grinding it down to "no paint." Then repairs on some blisters we made, by re-fiberglassing the ground out spots, filling and fairing them. Once that was completed, the paint layers starting going back on. We put on four coats of barrier coat. And as of this writing, we have two coats of bottom paint. The rain has now started, forecast for five days – so no more painting for awhile.
The hull has also been washed and waxed – more hard arm and shoulder work for Michael! The interior floor has been sanded down to bare wood and four coats of a new finish put on them. The main salon is all completed with the boards reinstalled after a good cleaning of all the areas under the boards. It looks great and no shoes are now allowed below decks! Our carpet from Michael's mom has been cleaned as well so we are sparkling fresh on the floor!
The SSB radio has been sent out for repairs and we are waiting for that to reinstall once fixed. Today's project on this rainy day in the boatyard is to clean out the anchor locker which means clearing out the V-berth and reaching into the anchor locker for a serious clean-out. Not a pretty job. We will also "work" and grease all the the thru-hulls and the centerboard pin.
It really has been non-stop work along with still getting the daily chores done (cooking, laundry, cleaning, shopping etc) – none being easy while on the hardstands in the yard. The good news is the yard has a nice community area with a microwave, toaster, grill and big sink so we do our main meal in there daily. This was particularly convenient when the floorboards were out of the boat. It was hard to move around.
We will both need to sleep for three straight weeks when this big project is done. At this point the plan is to get launched hopefully in the next ten days or so and head to Whangarei Town Basin for about 5 days and then off to Great Barrier Island or Kawau for some R&R. After a few weeks out it will be time to return to Whangarei and provision up for leaving the country and heading to the islands (still TBA). We have to be out of NZ by May 24.
So lots to still do and time is ticking away.
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At 1/28/2017 7:04 PM (utc) S/V Astarte was located at 35°44.37'S 174°20.32'E
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