Week 4 Life sur le hard
 
I’m really really going off varnishing and that’s all I’m going to say on the matter! Now on a more positive note, week 4 sur le hard saw Team Stella pulling out all and I mean all the stops. The last time we spoke we’d just applied the first coat of light primer and Stella had a rather blue bottom. The second coat of primer was a cream colour, so we could see where we’d already painted (a simple yet effective way of doing things). Only problem was that the cream on the blue looked rather patchy, we weren’t too worried as we’d applied 2 coats and felt that Stella was ready for some anti foul. Mr Paint (not his real name) turned up and said that the paint shouldn’t really be patchy and Stella needed another coat. We explained we had no primer left, well what do you know he happened to have just the amount we needed. He gave us a Euro and Turkish lira price (he even had special after dark rate). I-pods at the ready we applied coat number 3 of the primer. The first coat of anti foul went on the following day, it took us an hour to apply and we were worn out at the end of it. Think the fast music we were listening to made us paint at double super fast speed. The plan was to put a 2nd coat on the following day. The next morning the Captain decided to fit a ‘Y’ valve to the head (that’s the looby loo landlubbers). Without going to far down the toilet road, this little device means that not everything that goes into the loo has to go into the holding tank. The pee pee can now go out into the sea! Should help to save space in the holding tank. All right I know I’ve gone too far now. The Y valve escapade took pretty much the day to do and work had to be interrupted to have a new sea cock fitted (I’m not even going to try to explain that one readers). As you’ve probably already guessed coat number 2 of the anti foul didn’t go on till the following day. Stella looked pretty smashing all anti fouled up. We then asked the marina staff to move the props (the wooden bits that hold the boat up when it’s out of the water) and we ( I say we but what I really mean is the Captain) had to go through the whole scraping, sanding, primer, and anti foul process again on a mini scale this time. On Friday we had a bit of, well not a bit, quite a lot of excitement really. You’ve all heard of the Tour de France, well we had the Tour de Turkey come to town. No, I’m not pulling your anchor I promise. There is an International cycle race that tours Turkey and one of the stages finished in Finike. We wandered into town to watch the cyclists coming round the mountain as it were (on a big screen). Then we cheered and whooped (well we didn’t but the children who had surrounded us did) as the cyclists sped by us to the finish line . It was a pretty big occasion for the the town of Finike, helicopters flying overhead, TV cameras and men in lycra not a sight for the faint hearted readers! Sunday saw Team Stella Maris indulge in a little bit of culture a couple of hours of work in the morning followed by a classical music recital in the afternoon (very enjoyable lots of the well known classics, which always helps). Then back to Stella for a half hearted attempt at work. Later it was off to friends Carillion for some scrummy pork chops (I know what your thinking) they smuggled them in from Greece, pork smuggling is very big in this area. Number of propellors on Stella is nil (not panicking just yet) slight change to takeaway count. Although not technically a takeaway we did have a sneaky Pide (Turkish pizza) after watching the Tour de Turkey (well it’s rude not to). Other than that I’ve been subjecting the Captain to another week of one pot meals that get stretched and stretched to last (we all knew I’d get bored of going up and down the ‘vertical ladder of death’ with the washing up water). I know your going to find this hard to believe but even the novelty of the bucket de pee pee is wearing off!! We go back in the water in 4 days time readers, so fingers crossed for the prop and the stripe man to return. Love & ‘Y’ valves The anti foulers XX
Monday, 21 April 2008