MESSING WITH OLD BOATS..........................

Someone once wrote something along these lines..... "There is nothing more exciting, enjoyable or worthwhile than to be messing about with old boats.....". Well,...... let me tell you,............. He lied. But first, before we get to messing about with old boats, the sequence of things went like this......... SATURDAY 6am, Corina (my niece) and Joel depart Green Turtle Cay for their return to Australia. SUNDAY 5pm, pick up anchor and move the yacht SVEA into Black Sound, a back water on Green Turtle Cay which has the boatyard in which SVEA will be hauled out. Dinghy back out to pick up the anchor on yacht ARITA, and also put her in Black Sound on a mooring. The entrance to Black Sound is very shallow, and only at high tide can this operation be done. MONDAY MORNING 3am, a lightning storm hits and is of such brilliance and energy as to be indescribable. So much continuous light that you could read a book if you had no fear and were deaf. Ferocious doesn't come close. Winds are judged to be sixty knots. MONDAY 11am, the next storm hits. This one comes in at 75 knots. Yes, recorded at 75 knots. Total white-out. You can't see a thing and you certainly can't stand up. SVEA is hanging in the slings, on the travel-lift, having been hauled out of the water moments before. The wind instruments on top of the mast on ARITA disintergrate. ARITA is secured to a mooring, with a monster block of concrete on the bottom of the Sound. Lightning strikes are everywhere. A tornado cuts across the island taking out the once beautiful poinciana trees in the picture below, leaving rubble and broken limbs behind. Unripe avacadoes and mangoes are everywhere in the streets. Avacodoes from heaven......... obviously for the taking....



A palm tree gets snapped like match-wood. The remnants of the wind instruments are found on deck. With the kind of wind we had, they should have ended up in Brazil. There is a possibility that it was in fact a lightning strike as many of our fuses to instruments on board, are blown and the VHF radio no longer works. Don't you just love this sailing life........................... Still, we got through this one and there must have been many at sea or in exposed anchorages, that would have been terrified. By MONDAY 3pm there is a Coast Guard helicopter hovering around responding to some distress call...............................Then again, some of the flowers have survived and the engravings on the Bahamian currency make you realise that the good and the beauty goes hand in hand with the bad and the ugly.



Thus, even if things got busted, and power and services are going to be down for days, and huriccane season has arrived in earnest, there is no reason not to smile,.....right?..... and look what we found........... the biggest "Crown-of-thorns" cactus, Laurie has ever seen. All our pics are double-clickable although my smile (the one after it all ended) is big enough as it is....



Now........ for this messing about with old boats. With SVEA secured in the boatyard and the bottom cleaned with a pressure-washer, we can begin on the re-painting of the topsides and the boot-stripes. Apart from a couple of gouges to be filled, the hull is in remarkably good shape. The wood is sanded, then primed in orange, and repainted in black for the top-sides. SVEA is a very historical yacht and well documented. Were it no so, we would definitely rename her " The Black Pearl".
Did I mention this is hot and dirty work.............................



Totally surrounded by modern fiberglass yachts, packed in like sardines, SVEA is like the odd-woman-out. A few more days of hard work and she will be back in her element. Note that there are twice as many jack-stands holding her up as we are used to............ Good call........ There is usually about three good working hours in the morning before the thunderstorms move in at 11am. The boatyard is very well organised and despite the massive rainfall, water is still scarce. At the end of the day we get a 7 minute shower. The shower is switched on from the office and after 7 minutes, you had better be done............. Some dirt takes at least six minutes to come off............


More flowers on both sides.

The orchids above, are for my daughters Celia and Natalie, in Darwin, Australia, and the frangis are for Anne, Lauren's daugther in Florida.