More Kiwis

One of us was rudely woken by someone loudly proclaiming “Wake up you lazy devil……. It’s 8.00am and the sun is up!”  At 6.30 this morning Jan took a lovely photo from the side hatch.  Today was a complete contrast to yesterday and boaters were on the move.

The plan was to travel two hundred metres to the winding hole opposite the entrance to the Willow Wren base and then return past our mooring to the water point at Brownsover.  We still don’t have a good '”pre-start” routine because we each forgot to take a walkie-talkie and Jan didn’t have the camera to record my reasonable effort at winding Waiouru.  With our luck we were expecting a boat to appear during the winding process.  Somehow it didn’t happen.  Even more surprising the water point mooring was vacant allowing us to top up the half full water tank.  Jan put the Candy washing machine on whilst we were moving which worked out rather well as the cycle finished in time for us to moor.  When the tank was full (plenty of pressure from the tap) the bow was down four inches and the stern was up two inches.  It’s been a month since our last pump-out and the tank gauge hasn’t yet reached half full.  The 14 day mooring immediately adjacent to the water point was vacant so we hauled Waiouru back onto it!

I erected the rotary clothesline on the stern post so Jan could hang the laundry to dry.  Jan then went off to Tesco to buy some bread for lunch whilst I broke out the boat cleaning gear and washed the starboard side twice.  It’s the first time the starboard side has been given a proper wash.  The chamois was used to dry the side,then I started applying the first of what will be two coats of polish.  OMG the surface area is vast!  The task wasn’t made any easier by the fact that there is a shelf in the canal bank below the waterline which meant there was a 1ft gap between Waiouru and the bank.  This resulted in me having to stretch with one foot on the bank and the other on the gunwale.   In the end I gave up after the first coat of polish.  If it doesn’t rain tonight I’ll attempt to get the second coat on tomorrow.

We should probably start thinking about what we might do to the second (smaller) red panel.  It looks a little bland at the moment.

The photo makes the panel look “washed out!”  Any suggestion on what to do with it?  The other side has a porthole in the middle of the panel!

After lunch I was in the middle of a telephone conversation with a glazier about glass splashbacks for the galley walls and Jan had her head suck down the sink (she does this sometimes when life gets unbearable!).  Jan started talking to me but with my hearing I couldn’t understand the muffled words.  Then I realised there was a passing boater calling out.

Both of us managed to get our heads out the side hatch to see nb Helen-Louise and the flat vowels of a Kiwi calling out “ Ki Ora Waiouru. We’re Elizabeth and John….. Friends of Dot and Derek of nb Gypsy Rover!”  There was only time for a few words before we realised “CAMERA”.  Couldn’t find the damned thing at first and by the time we got back to the side hatch they were gone!  Oh well… next time……

[NOTE:  It just started to pour down….. but the sun is still shining!  That puts to bed any idea of a second coat of polish tomorrow <phew…. reprieve>

After ferreting around in the bow locker I found the last of the Craftmaster black topcoat paint and decided to give the stern deck it’s first topcoat.  After carefully applying the paint I can see what an appalling job I’ve made of it.  It looks awful with numerous brush marks.  The primer and undercoats went on so well…… It must be the paint LOL.  Sod it…… looks like more sanding it required!

The last task for the day was to finish re-configuring the ‘Nook’ e-reader so it works as a tablet.  It’s now much easier to read our email on the Nook than '”fire-up” the laptop.