SV Kiviuq

The last time I posted, about three months ago, we were in the depths of winter in Scotland and Marilou and I had just begun a three month high intensity interval training programme. Now, in mid-April, Spring is definitely sprung here at Dunira. The snowdrops have finished flowering (and in some places around us the ground was absolutely carpeted with them), but the daffodils in the garden are outstanding this year and at their peak about now. Our first rhododendrons will be in flower during the coming week. The birds are frantically nest building, and in some cases rearing young already. Sadly though, I think we have lost a resident song thrush. He, for a '€˜he'€™ it was, began the season strongly with a fine loud song delivered from early morning from the very tip of a tall spruce behind the house. This exposed 'look at me' behaviour, so typical of male song thrushes at this time of year, declares territorial possession and, with luck, attracts a mate. But it is biologically costly and a thoroughly risky business to boot. Well, our thrush just wasn'€™t there on his lofty perch one morning a few weeks ago, and hasn'€™t been seen or heard since. I fear he paid the price for his efforts. The most likely explanation is that a predator, probably a sparrow hawk, snatched Romeo from his stage while he was giving his all to ensure the propagation of his genes. Natural selection sometimes exacts a severe penalty. Thankfully the song thrush is not yet a rare species here, so hopefully another of his kind will be here to share his repertoire with us next Spring, and with luck he will avoid the fate of his predecessor for a year or two at least.

As for the fitness programme, I must say it has gone well. I think that over the twelve weeks of the course we may have missed a total of perhaps four or five morning workouts due to other commitments. That is not to say it was easy. It wasn'€™t. It required discipline to actually get to the gym between 0830hrs and 0900hrs every weekday morning, especially when those mornings were still dark and the rain was horizontal. And Shin Ohtake'€™s programme is undoubtedly demanding. But we did it. As a result I think we are both at least as fit and strong as we were this time last year when we had been working out daily in the gym in Inverness; once weekly with the encouragement, advice and pushing of an excellent personal trainer. Marilou particularly has excelled, to the point that she has won the admiration of members of the local weight-training community. Not that I am jealous of course! And in some exercises she comes very close to the weights and repetitions that I can barely manage. I tell myself this is good. I know I will be able to continue to limit my efforts to offering hearty encouragement as Marilou raises Kiviuq'€™s mainsail during our forthcoming voyaging.

The initial fitness course is now behind us, but the fitness maintenance continues. To that end Ohtake provides an ongoing programme, and so long as we are here at Dunira we will follow that. The other very good thing about the experience is that it has taught us a lot of exercises that require minimal equipment, and often just body weight, which can be done on board and in many cases even when underway.

Let us now turn to Kiviuq and our voyaging plans. Kiviuq has wintered well in Kip Marina; the only damage we are aware of being two burst fenders. Since my previous post Kip experienced one or two serious blows with winds in excess of 60 knots. The worst blows were from between south and west, a wind direction that pushes Kiviuq onto the fenders that protect her and the pontoon from direct contact. This was simply too much for a couple of the fenders and they have been replaced.

In May we will concentrate on getting Kiviuq ready to go to sea again. This will involve refitting sails, servicing winches, and some annual maintence under the hull that will require lifting the boat out of the water for a few days and onto the '€˜hard'€™. There we will give her underwater sections a couple of coats of bright red antifouling, replace the propeller anode and grease the propeller folding mechanism. We will also probably run out the anchor chain for checking and repainting the marks that tell us when 10m is out, 20m is out, and so on up to 90 metres out. A dedicated navtex antenna will be fitted and we will find and fix the electrical leak in our deck-level navigation lights.

If we complete the work on schedule we should get away in early June. If we manage that we plan to return to Iceland, more or less retracing our steps from Reykjavik last September, and then on to Isafjordur in the far north west to explore the fjords there. From Iceland the plan is to sail south directly towards Madeira to be there sometime in August.

There is a lot to do, but hey ho!, it will keep us busy.