Inshallah

It was hot today, really hot. We have talked to other folks who simply can’t tolerate it and are retreating to other places…such as their farmhouse in northern France. Yeah, don’t feel too sorry for them. We actually bought a thermometer (not sure if that was a good idea) and the cabin read 34 C (93 F) today. And it was much, much warmer outside. While just standing in the shade we had sweat continuously dripping down. At least we are in the water and can now get away with just wearing our bathing suits. At least it cuts down on our laundry. And speaking of laundry, it’s been at least a month since anything was last washed except for some underwear in a bucket. And I finally got up the courage to tackle it today. It’s a task I dread. But the laundry gods were on our side today. After gathering every washable item we own (including a blanket we haven’t washed since I bought it in India. 4 years ago.) we loaded three big bags in the dinghy and headed to the other side of the marina. Our timing was perfect, both machines were working and empty! The third bag we splurged on and will pick it up on Monday all washed, dried and folded. Oh, the little things like clean laundry.
And the day just continues to get better. Mike went up the mizzen and got the radar wired. Also the rest of our electronics. As I type he is playing with our new Raymarine C80. We have seriously moved up in the world. We have radar, GPS and depth sounder all on one nifty screen in the cockpit! Plus Mike thinks the work on all the major projects will be done tomorrow (I’m giving him until the following day). I will believe the work is done when I see him drink a beer at noon. But really, we are getting so close! So tomorrow consists of doing some final projects, and more cleaning. Monday doing some shopping. Tuesday trying to go for a shake down sail. Wednesday or Thursday pulling out of this place??? Knock on wood… Inshallah… If the Gods are willing…

Heaven and a New Sail

Mike is tired, really tired. If I only had a nickel for every time I heard him sigh today. But he plugged along and got the wind generator up on its new support pole. It’s beefy and hopefully will do the trick and not shake our roll bar down. We also got the wiring from the roll bar (wind gen, solar panels, GPS antennas) all through conduit, snaked along the deck and down into the cabin. And they delivered the fixed main sail…and all of the reefing blocks are in the right place! Since the evening was so calm we decided to hoist the sail. Very exciting although the new rigging system feels that it needs a kink or two worked out.

Putting in the battens

And another beautiful evening in Marmaris. We celebrated our new sail with a half a bottle of wine from the night before and figured ‘who needs a glass’. So while Mike sat on the dock, I jumped in the water to cool off. And I had a brief but unforgettable moment. Floating in the cool pastel colored sea, tinged from the pink sunset, while taking a sip of red wine straight from the bottle handed down to me by my beloved husband. Heaven. Right there.

Sookeeee

The wind finally stopped howling sometime during the night and we awoke to a gorgeous morning. We decided to try and beat the heat and make our way into town and get a new, and bigger, stainless steel pipe fabricated for the wind generator. We had luck but Mike just had to return in the evening to pick it up and now lug a 2 meter piece of pipe on the dolmus. Thankfully the driver let him on with it!

1st attempt

2nd attempt

Later in the evening we attempted to put up our main sail. So after Mike got the lazy bags and bolt rope on the boom he realized that one of the reefing blocks is still on the wrong side of the sail! Oh my god! How difficult is it?! So he took it all back down and folded it up once more for it to go back and be fixed.


But it was such a beautiful, calm evening. And I just couldn’t bring myself to walk all the way to the shower so tried to discreetly soap up on the dock and use the hose for my shower. After looking both ways down the dock I found a window and oh, so nice. Afterwards, we watched the last episode that we have for 'True Blood'. What are we going to do with our evenings now? Oh yeah, go sailing, look at the stars, hang out with our friends!

Snug as a Bug

It was a windy one today! We were happy to be snuggly tied up on the inside of the pontoon. Those boats on the outside were having a bouncy ride. But it made for a fun walk to the shower tonight. My feet sure got washed clean by the time I made it to the end of the dock.
As for work, I spent the day inside multi-tasking…posting the blog while doing some sewing projects. Mike kept on keeping on. He is getting a bit tired though and I hope we are getting close to the finish line. At least our neighbors were brave enough to motor off into the winds and left us to our solitude again.

Nesting

About a month ago we had a little bird that was eager to get inside our boom. In order to prevent him from nesting we stuck a rag in the end which he did not like one bit. The little bird kept returning, chirping loudly and actually appearing a bit distressed. Mike even thinks the bird tried to poop on him. At that time we looked down into the boom and did find some traces of a nest that was in the works and pulled it all out, or so we thought. We were happy that we had caught it in time and the little bird didn’t waste too much of his energy. Well, this morning Mike discovered some more pieces of twig and twine, only to pull out a pretty substantial nest hidden deep inside the boom. No wonder the little bird was so upset!



For myself, I continued my own ‘nesting’ and went into town to buy more stuff to organize. Only upon my return to discover that we had neighbors! Directly across from us and in our swim spot no less! It’s funny because we both were a little out of sorts about it. I think we have gotten spoiled out here with our privacy. While waiting for our neighbors to depart, we were also waiting for the arrival of several people to help us get our projects done. Baron, the sail and rigging guy, Mr. Hussein, the electrician, and Engin with our shade panels. No surprise that Baron was the only one who did not show up. Mr. Hussein graciously came and answered some of Mike’s questions and helped him realize that he is capable of doing much of the installation and wiring himself. Engin delivered our much anticipated shade panels which has proven to be very welcomed in the late afternoon. Now if we can only get our main sail…

Gray Skies

My wish came true this morning, as I woke up and looked out the hatch I saw gray skies! They even stuck around for most of the day which I appreciated because I was still feeling a bit sun weary after yesterday. We are thankful for a day like this when temps cool down to the 80’s. And today I felt that I am starting to make this boat my own. I have always envied other people’s boats, the ones that have that really good lived in feeling. You can see the little things here and there that they improvise or make themselves to create a more safe and comfortable boat/home. Today, I had my first feeling of that with Independence. It was just something as simple as using an old pillow case to hang underneath our hatch in the aft cabin to keep the full sun from shining in during the day. It works perfectly, even though it made me want to lie down on our shaded bed and take a nap!

Our cozy (and now shaded) aft cabin

This evening as we were walking back from a shower we took a cue from another boat and sat on the dock with a glass of Raki while letting our toes dangle in the water. What a gorgeous, calm evening and at times like this we really appreciate being so far out on Bravo. There are maybe only 4 live-a-boards past us so the evenings are quiet with only the occasional person passing by on their evening stroll.

And a happy birthday to John, Mike's dad! And Judy, Mike's mom! And our puppy, Sunny! We love you all so much and wish we could be home to celebrate with you.

And I hope you all like photos of sunsets because I don’t seem to be able to stop myself.

Near Perfection

A day feels so much better when you can get stuff crossed off the list, even better if you only have to do it once! And near perfection when Mike finds out that his new rigging system works! This morning I was able to haul Mike up the mast from the comfort of the cockpit! He was able to get a bunch of stuff accomplished and then started tackling the electronics again. I had another great day helping Mike and then reluctantly doing some more sanding and varnishing. At least now I can varnish in my bathing suit.

Another view of Indy

The 'F' Word

Frustration was the word of the day. It felt like nothing was going as planned. A few days ago Mike took some old stainless steel piping to the ‘Sinai’ to have it fabricated into a support post for the wind generator. After lugging a meter and a half piece of steel back on the dolmus, he got the body of the wind generator mounted. But not soon after, Willy from down the dock, came by and told us that the pipe is much to small to support the generator. We reluctantly had to admit that all of the other wind generators we have seen are on pretty beefy poles. The plan to use material that we had lying around and save a few lira may not work out in the long run. Shit. That a long with several other things such as wasting too much time in town on errands, cables being too short, etc. led to a bit of frustration. It was at that point when we tried to put our energy into things that were easy and concrete just to give us a feeling of completion and success. Those other issues can just wait until tomorrow.

A Welcomed Rain

Today I finally got into the swing of being on a boat…in water. I put my indoor jobs on hold and got myself out on the deck to do some work. I finally shed the layer of clothes over my bathing suit and spent part of the day (re)sanding the hand rails and cleaning up the decks. It felt so good have the sun shining down, taking a swim when I got hot and seeing Mike get the windlass wired and working! And just this morning when I woke up I thought to myself “Blue skies again!”. At this point it would be so nice to wake up to gray skies and rain one morning (Seattle people, don’t hate me). Well, I didn’t get to wake up to it but in the late afternoon the clouds did start to roll in with thunder and lightening in the distance. And then the rain came. After we quickly closed the hatches and zipped up our spray hood, we took the opportunity to sit in our (mostly) dry cockpit, drink a beer and enjoy the first rain in over a month. And I think the pine trees enjoyed it as well because they gave off the most delicious sweet scent that filled the air for the rest of the evening. The clouds then helped give the sun a most spectacular setting to the west. And to the east the darkening skies and mist settling in the pine laden valleys behind the bay almost had us believing that we were in Alaska instead of Turkey.

Mike=hungover

...but surprisingly productive. And he's allowed to go swimming today.

Drinks on Chinook

Thank goodness we got a social invite for tonight so I don’t have to write an entire blog about our dinghy ride to the bathroom this morning! Instead, the biggest excitement of the day was being invited by Deborah and Brian from ‘Chinook of Canada’ for a drink on board. We spent a couple of months being neighbors while hauled out and always wanted to get to know them better. Unfortunately, haul out really doesn’t lend itself to being too social. So we were happy to run into them and looking forward to seeing their boat in the water. We had a great evening with them as well as with John and Vanessa from ‘Meander’ and Tudor and Barbara from ‘Youanmee’ and a handful of other folk. The evening flew by as we all sat cozily in their cockpit filled with laughter sharing lots of drink and food. We finally bid our hosts good night (again, last guests standing) and made our walk back home in the breezy night air. And thankfully I was able to keep Mike on the dock, as he was a bit wobbly on his feet and kept threatening to go for a swim (despite the waves breaking over the dock), which in his condition probably wouldn’t have been the best idea.

Fast and Easy

Since we went to bed at 8pm we were up pretty early this morning. And we are finally starting to jones for good coffee again. This Maxwell House ‘Bogaty Smack’ stuff (we at least have fun saying Bogaty Smack!) just isn’t cutting it anymore. We have even made a switch to tea but will see how long that lasts.
Mike spent the morning trying to figure out how to wire the solar panels and wind generator from the roll bar to the main cabin. The first idea was to wire it down through the lazerette, through the aft cabin and to the batteries. But after taking down some head liners in the aft cabin, he realized that he would have to drill a dozen holes through centimeter thick steel in awkward positions in hard to get to places. So instead…we decided to just run the wiring on the outside of the boat. Not ideal but ‘fast and easy’ is our motto these days! And the work on the sails and rigging continues. The other day when Mike hoisted the mizzen he found out that it is in need of some repair and also discovered that our brand new main sail has two of the reefing blocks placed on the wrong side. Finally this morning, the sail guys came by to take them to the shop and hopefully they will be repaired shortly. After those chores were done, we both headed into town where we stopped for some lunch and then went our separate ways. My mission of the day was buying a shower curtain, a trash can, and sheets and blankets for our guests. Mike went to the ‘Sanai’ and had some old stainless steel piping from our pulpit welded into a meter and a half rod to support our wind generator. He also bought a shit ton of new line for our rigging! After hauling all of our goods back home, we cooled off with a swim. And I am happy to say that the stress seems to have lifted. The atmosphere feels lighter and we seem to be enjoying ourselves… and each other again.

Mundo de Plastico

I went on a plastic shopping spree today. I took measurements of our shelves and little nooks and crannies to try and find plastic bins that would fit snugly and keep our stuff safely in place. And I think the staff, in one store in particular, thought I was a bit crazy with my constant measuring to try and figure out what would work best. Mike started his morning off with a swim (hey, that’s a good idea…) and then continued working on the electronics and got more needed lines from the nav station up to the cockpit. And we both were pretty wiped by early evening and found ourselves reading in bed with the sun still shining.

A False Summit

My energy was mostly back today so continued on with my cleaning and tackled the galley. In addition to cleaning, I tried to come up with ways to lash items down so they don’t go flying off shelves and counters while we are under way. Mike spent a frustrating day stringing cable lines for the new electronics. When they built this boat they must have installed all of the wiring and then built everything around it, tightly. Because there isn’t a lot of room to add new cables/wires or get them where you want them. After a lot of sweat and swearing, Mike had success with getting the radar cable from the cockpit, to the navigation station, through the bilge and engine room and up to the mizzen mast! Good work Krausser!

My views of Mike today...

And I have to share that there has been a feeling of stress in the air since getting in the water. Mike described our feelings well, “It feels like we have reached a false summit.”. You climb and climb and tell yourself ‘only a few more steps’ and by the time you think you can’t take another breathe you make it! But then only to realize that you haven’t, you can see the true summit in the distance and it is going to a lot more energy to reach it. And you don’t have time to sit down and take a break. At least our path to the true summit isn’t as long or as steep as before. And friends await us at the top! We just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other until we make it out of this marina.
And in celebration of our friend’s Heidi and Aaron wedding, we made a nice dinner and gave a toast to their love and happiness! Happy Wedding Day Heidi and Aaron!

Mike Having Too Much Fun

2nd attempt...

Mike Having Too Much Fun

I wasn’t feeling so hot today. Maybe it was a little bug passing through but I had absolutely no energy so spent most of my day hanging inside the cabin not doing much of anything. Mike however, stayed busy and put on the lazy bags and hoisted the mizzen sail, put up the radar dome, measured for new rigging line. And even made a couple of videos…here’s one!

(Well, it says that it is posted but I don't see in on our actual blog. Maybe it's our poor internet connection or not being allowed to access 'You Tube' in Turkey. Let us know if it doesn't come through!)

No Words

An incredible fire red sun tonight

For some reason it feels different writing this blog now. And really can’t pin point why, maybe because we are in this middle ground, done with the hard haul out but not out sailing yet. And even though we made it to the water and we’ve reached that milestone, for some reason there doesn’t seem much to write about. But I have made it my mission to write an entry every day! And so I will try not to bore you to tears.

I spent most of the day starting the cleaning process of the boat (sorry, not off to a good start!). After 2 years of being on the hard we had quite the layer of dust and grime coating most everything. So out went the cushions in the saloon to bake in the sun for a bit. The shelves got emptied, useless stuff made its way into the trash. The walls and floors got washed down. Ahhhhh…much better.

Mike spent his day by running into town with the priority of finding a new mast head light. He had some luck and the shop came to the boat to eye ball just what we need. But that meant hauling the worker up the mast. I am really glad Mike doesn’t weigh 90kg because this dude did. And it looked like Mike was working hard on the winch, with me tailing the line, to get him up there. But then later in the day, a new mast head light delivered! Now it’s my turn to haul Mike up the mast so he can install it… We then ended the day with watching a new DVD series, ‘True Blood’. We have been told that you either love it or hate it. Well, I think we are definitely on the favorable end because we stayed up way too late to just watch ‘one more”.

Life Is Good

Upon awakening I realized something was different. I knew it had to be after 8am but it was quiet. On the hard I could set my watch to the sound of grinders that immediately started at 8:15am. But not out here, there was only the sound of the occasional scooter or people chatting as they were walking by. After drinking my coffee and taking the long stroll to the bathroom (a compromise, no more ladder but a heck of a long walk), I put on my bathing suit and started washing off the decks. Finally, we can wash all of the dirt, twigs, leaves off and they won’t just blow back on making a muddy mess! Mike was doing some odds and ends but then realized he was pretty wiped. So I was happy to see him take a swim, followed by a nap and just trying to sort out this next phase in his head. I took advantage of the quiet afternoon and took a swim, laid in the sun trying to get rid of my farmers tan, and gave myself an insanely needed mani/pedi. And it is seriously 15 degrees cooler in the cabin now. It's actually a pleasant temperature and we're not dripping in sweat. Thank god for wind scoops! A wind scoop is piece of nylon material that you attach to your hatch and it funnels the breeze down into your cabin. 100 times more effective than an electric fan. There was no way we could have used them on the hard or we would have been knee deep in dirt. Just another bonus to being in the water! Later in the day, we realized that a celebratory dinner of burgers on the grill sounded pretty good. So Mike got the dinghy out, worked on the engine which finally started, and we zipped across the marina to pick up a few groceries. Upon our return we sipped on a gin and tonic waiting for our hunger to kick in and then fired up the BBQ! Oh my god, those gin and tonics and burger were the best ever! We concluded that everything must taste better on the water! But even with this mellow day, and finally being on the water, there still isn’t quite the feeling of being out from under this boat. I think we both know there is still a lot of work to be done in the next couple of weeks. Now it is just staying focused so we can sail out of this marina to meet up with Heather, Shan and Lucca! Now that is going to feel good!

Here is a photo again of the marina. We are on the outer pontoon, about where those two boats are directly above the double 00 in the telephone number.

Our new swim hole

Launch Day!

We made it! Independence is now floating in the water after 2 years of being on the hard! After getting the fuel polished and cleaning the tanks this morning, the lift crew came for us. But not before we downed a little brown courage to ease the nerves. And of course this morning I found myself getting a bit sentimental for this dusty yard and the place we have been. It’s just little things like the smiles and goodbyes we got from some of the Demir boys as we were leaving. It even felt like the lift guys were happy to see us finally getting in the water. It’s funny how you can build small relationships by a daily nod or a simple hello. That in comparison to a boat hauled out next to us a couple of months ago. They may have been on the hard for less than a week, the woman spent her entire time sitting in the cockpit reading Glamour magazine as hired workers scraped and painted the hull. And then get this, as the lift team arrived they were scrambling to get ready. She then picked up a bucket on deck, and without looking threw the contents off the boat barely missing the lift guy, who I then saw grimace and wave his hands in front of his face. She almost threw her bucket of piss on him! Where is the awareness? Or the desire for that feeling of satisfaction by doing something yourself? Anyways, despite these past 3 months being a rough go, and at times greatly envying the ones who didn’t lift a finger, we know that we can own this experience and there is depth to the time spent here. But now back to the story! Again, after a little brown courage, they pulled Indy to the ‘pool’ where they lifted her out of the cradle (we both wondered if the cradle would rise with her since she had been sitting in it for so long!) and lowered her into the water. I like to think that I could hear her go “ahhhhhhhh”. Then Mike was quickly below making sure water wasn’t sprouting from a thru-hull or some other unexpected spot. Our only discovery was water trickling from the cockpit drain thru-hulls but nothing that would make us go back on land, just a little monitoring After all seemed ok they pulled the straps out from underneath her and there we were…floating.

Mike then decided to start the engine and make sure it would turn over, and it did. He even tested out the gears and forward and reverse ‘were’ working. After sitting there for what seemed like forever, the guys in the tenders came to lead us to our new home…Bravo pontoon. Oh god. That is the outer break water that is a million miles from anything. But who cares! And of course, there has to be a glitch in this story somewhere. So as we start to motor toward Bravo Mike realizes that we now have no throttle, we could only move forward at idle speed which wasn’t enough to overcome the winds. But good news, the tenders came to our rescue. One driver could see our anxiety increasing and simply said “Don’t worry, be happy!”. We then remembered that these guys are professionals and move boats around with no one on board. Our stress quickly dissipated as he happily climbed on board with a smile and laughter to handle the mooring line, while the two tenders shoved and pushed us into place. A smooth landing into our new home.

And what a view! Again, we are on the inside of the outer breakwater so just the open bay behind us. And the boats directly to our port and starboard are empty. Oh, it feels really good to be out of the masses. Not to mention away from all of the noise and dust. It’s almost hard to believe that we were just in the parking lot a few short hours ago. After getting a little acclimated and taking a shower to wash all of the dirt away, we put our new cushions in the cockpit and enjoyed a glass of Retsina we had chilling just for this occasion. And we both had separate times where we noticed the feeling of weight suddenly being lifted from our shoulders. Our reality has suddenly taken a 180 degree turn. There is still a lot of work ahead of us but the goal feels more tangible since reaching this milestone. Not to mention being able to jump off the boat for a swim in the middle of a work day! While lounging in the cockpit for a bit, we found ourselves getting really hungry and sleepy. So after an early dinner we made our way to bed with light still in the sky, with fresh breeze on our faces and the boat rocking us to sleep.

One More Sleep!

Neither of us slept very well last night. Mike got up for a few hours in the middle of the night, where I just took forever to fall into a fitful sleep. I definitely have some butterflies present among the general excitement about getting in the water TOMORROW! Mike spent another day cleaning up and putting things in their place. I ran into town and bought some material to make fender covers, and then spent the rest of the day screaming at our geriatric sewing machine. She is a beautiful thing but man, temperamental. And it doesn’t help the fact that I am not a seamstress or anything close for that matter. But with Mike’s help (and patience) he was able to fix the problems, that arose every 10 minutes, and I was finally able to get 4 big covers done. Then it was enjoying our last night (fingers crossed) on the hard with some dinner and a movie. Hopefully this time tomorrow we will be gently rocking back and forth with the sound of water lapping at our hull.

Meet Big Red!

It’s official! We are on the list to be launched on Wednesday, the 14th! Holy shit. Are we ready for this? Hell yeah! Today we got another coat of pain (I mean paint) on the boot stripe and the name. This means that we’ve officially finished all the planned painting projects! Of course, there will undoubtedly be some touch-ups to come, but the big stuff is done. Despite any misgivings about our painting technique, I have to say that we are both very pleased with how she turned out. Indy is looking GOOD! After finishing painting we ran into town to pick up zincs for her belly and a few other items, and on the way back to the marina we actually were able to spot Indy from the road. I think her new paint job might stand out a bit. But what the hell? Why not have fun with it?

Here she is.....!

Kinda funny, huh? It wasn't even on purpose. I just couldn't reach the I and N!

Three More Sleeps

We are starting to wrap stuff up around here! We got a coat of paint on the boot stripe and ‘Independence’ painted on the transom. We hauled Mike’s butt up the main mast so he could bring down a broken mast head light that we need to replace. Uhmmm, what else? I tackled cleaning the fenders and the BBQ, while Mike continued to button up some of the loose ends. The BBQ was about one of the dirtiest jobs I have done yet during this haul out but how exciting that we are getting to that point! The feelings of tedium seem to have worn off, and I am now getting PSYCHED!!!

Yard Sale

Another morning of getting up early to get a third and final coat on the topsides! And after taking all of the plastic off the toe rails it looks fantastic! Maybe some brush strokes here and there but I really don’t care at this point! As Mike reminds me (ad nauseam) “It doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s not a perfect boat”. We are also in the process of trying to clean up our junk yard. Three months of serious projects as well as a ton of donated “goods” has left the area under and around us chock full of boating stuff. Some useful, some not so much. So Mike painted ‘free stuff’ on a big piece of plywood and announced it on ‘The Net’ this morning. We had a handful of people come and rummage through but a lot of it will ultimately go to the rubbage bin. It feels good to purge ourselves of all of this stuff, and it feels even better to realize that we have all of the big jobs done! But unfortunately today, the small jobs are feeling tedious. At least to me. Mike seems to like just putzing around on one little thing or another. I keep telling myself that we are so close and to “get motivated!” but think I am still just really tired. Tonight was also kinda rough due to realizing that all of my girlfriends were spending the day together celebrating our good friend Heidi’s bachelorette party. It’s times like these that make it hard to be away from home. Mike and I also realized that we got engaged one year ago today! Man, what a year it has been. Makes me wonder where life is going to take us this next year…

Them's some dirty feet!

Early to Rise

The wind howled all night long which I blame on my poor night’s sleep. But surprisingly, it wasn’t too hard to get out of bed at 5:30 am to start painting. We were out there before the sun rose and the second coat is making quite the difference. It looks awesome! We even got some smiles from the Demir boys as they showed up for work! But after that I was done and never really recovered. I am tired. So I spent the rest of the day updating our blog and was secretly thankful it took so long because I failed miserably when I attempted to do anything that took more energy. By 6pm I was starving and ready for bed. After a quick meal of beans and a failed attempt at watching a bunk DVD, I headed to bed while there was still light in the sky. And it felt really good.

Spring Cleaning

It felt like we were waiting to paint most of the day. Mike got the final prep for the topsides done and then we putzed around on other little jobs while waiting until it cooled down enough to start painting. This included Mike diving into the lazarette to organize things and to rid ourselves of many, many useless items. I think I married a packrat. Mike has a tendency to keep anything that “might come in handy some day”. Given, some of it may, but the chance that we will need THAT particular item is close to nil. I guess it stems from the need/desire to be completely self-sufficient.
Unfortunately, painting seems to bring out a bit of stress in me (and therefore, us). Maybe because of all of the prepping we do I want it to look good, not like we just slapped it on. So after reading about painting polyurethane on the internet, I felt like I had some good tips. We briefly discussed our strategy, and then got to work. And of course, that’s when the wind decided to pick up. I mean really pick up. And all our planning quickly went out the window. At one point our tray full of paint was actually blown off the scaffolding. We then decided to switch to the leeward side of the boat, and after Mike moved all of the scaffolding we started again. We followed the recommended technique of one person rolling on the paint and the other following with a brush to even things out, but the results looked like shit, which only added to our developing stress fest. We then decided that only one of us would ‘roll’ which turned out to be me with Mike as my paint lackey. Luckily, we just got the first coat on when the skies grew dark. And then immediately went inside and drank a bottle of wine for dinner. Now it’s just getting up before sunrise to get a second coat on. As much as we hate setting the alarm for 0530, it’s gotta be done. Especially before the Demir boys show up and can see our work!