Eventually afloat again
16 December 2017
Haha. Quote from the last post in July: “back to MINNIE B at the end of October and a new series of adventures”.
Well, that did not work out as planned. Yes, Phil was back in Trinidad at the end of October and the plan was for Norma to arrive in the middle of November when much of the boat painting had been completed.
The first stumble was that despite advance notification of arrival date, our ace painter, Kerwin, was finishing off work on another boat and not substantially available until … you guessed it, the middle of the month. So Phil got on with other repairs and maintenance and grinding out the blisters and bubbles.
It is difficult for the guys who work out here, as they are day-workers and must take jobs as they become available, and Kerwin had slim pickings over the summer even at the very low daily rates of pay. So no quarrel with Kerwin.
Once he got started he seemed to decide that this was to be his best ever painting job - even using the “roll and tip” method i.e. a roller with a very good brush to smooth out the paint. In parts we ended up with at least two coats of etch primer, two coats of epoxy primer/undercoat and four coats of gloss finish, with appropriate sanding between coats.
The other factor in delay has been the weather as some days we have had rain all day and others we have had dry mornings but wet afternoons, so no work on deck.
The factory paint scheme had a series of panels of non-slip bounded by narrow strips of gloss – nightmare to replicate so the paint scheme has been simplified.
Anyway, we were all done by Tuesday 12th December and we launched on Wednesday 13th.
All that remains is for us to get the boat back to sailing condition, re-rigging sails and so on.
Although we have been working on the boat seven days a week, we have had time to socialise with friends and to visit the excellent fruit and vegetable market in Port of Spain every Saturday morning at the unearthly hour of 0600. Our reward has been a superb breakfast at Denise’s kiosk in the ‘food court’.
We are now moored at Peakes dock and plan to head for Carriacou, Grenada on Wednesday 20th December with an overnight sail for the 105nm.
We aim to spend Christmas in Carriacou and then continue northwards for major provisioning in Martinique, then Dominica to offer a bit of help in hurricane recovery, on to Sint Maarten to replace anchor chain we bought there earlier this year and then to the Virgin Islands for the 2018 Elite Luxury Cruise with our mystery guests who arrive in the middle of February.
So that is the new plan then ... and that should be all good then ...