I’ve neglected to tell you of some useful Tahitian words.
Ia Orana means “hello”
Maeve means, “Welcome!”
Nana means “goodbye”
E (ay) means, “yes”.
pita (eye-tag) means, “no”
Mauru’ uru means, “thank you”.

We’ve begun to use the words when we can and greeting a local with “ia orana” is a nice thing to do and usually elicits a big smile.

Oh, yeah, the varnishing job…

The yard crew did appear yesterday afternoon and got things taped and finish sanded ready for this morning. Starting at 0430, it rained to beat the band. At our wakeup time of 0600, we just rolled over since that task was in the wind.

We busied ourselves with below-decks tasks, and when the sun finally appeared, so did the crew and they were able to toss on a single coat of varnish. It was applied correctly and sparingly, so there’s some hope that they’ll get the second coat applied this afternoon. We’ll be in the TraveLift slings by then, but it shouldn’t matter.

We’ll be busy getting the unpainted patches under the boat stand pads, so that we’ll have a full coat of paint when we’re splashed on Monday morning.

I’ve got an engine checklist to complete, but I did change engine oil yesterday. It was unused since I always leave fresh oil during a layup, but changed it anyway. It’s cheap insurance.

I did change the lower unit lube in the almost-new Mercury outboard. I had purchased some fancy fittings and such to make the job less messy and they worked as I had hoped. It’s the cleanest job that I’ve ever made of it. Good old West Marine!

We checked the small bins below our berth and they all seem dry. We’ll do the same for the aft berth later.

We’ll lose our new friends from Australia today since they splash before we return from lunch. They’re interesting people, of course, as you’d expect out here, but are very kind as well.

We’re back from the second half of the day and it was a bit disappointing. The yardscrew did get two-three coats of varnish applied, and that’s good. I think that it’s too many in one day but they seem to know what they can do. They did NOT get us into the TraveLift, though, so we’ll have to hurry, once we’re in slings on Monday morning, to get painted the unpainted areas under the pad.

We did get another mast boot installed. The mast boot covers the seam, a circular space, actually, between the mast collar (the hole in the deck through which the mast passes) and the mast itself. The technology, if it can be called that, is primitive and involved cutting to fit a PVC sleeve, using glue to heal the seam that allows us to fit it over the mast, and installing hose clamps. It’s cumbersome, but for the most part it works.

We used caulk to seal various seams, so I chose a tube to use. The tube of caulk that I had was punctured! I’ve never had that happen before. As I pulled the caulk gun handle, caulk squirted out the nozzle, as it’s supposed to, and the side of the tube. Damn! Sticky caulk is such a troublesome material.

We’ve got some varnishing to complete, but I imagine that we’ll get that done once we’re in the water.

We also have an odd steering gear issue. It feels as if something in the steering system is causing a lot of friction. I do not have an idea what it might be. We hosed the parts with Corrosion Blcck and we hope for the best. Stay tuned on this one.

I can tell you that here at end of two weeks of work, we’re ready to be on the water and having some fun. We’re both a bit grouchy, I’m afraid. I do hope that we solve these last issues and get going on Monday.

I've not posted any new photos in several days but perhaps I'll get to that this weekend.