FUENGIROLA – SCRAPING AND ANTI FOULING!

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Well we are three days into the stripping and anti fouling – Vic and Oscar working really hard with us.  Horrible job – painting on the paint stripper, waiting 10 minutes for it to react and then scraping it off with a blade………There are layers upon layers upon layers of paint, each owner having painted the hull and water line a different colour – originally red, then green, pale blue, turquoise and navy.  When we got down to the gel coat we detected some tiny spots of the start of osmosis but only on the front port side for some reason so it is good that we are able to  treat this at the same time – drilling out each tiny blister  and allowing it to dry in the sun  before filling and painting. 

We have also attached the copper  grounding plate for the SSB to the hull and connected it to the copper strip running from the chart table to the aerial.

I am not quite sure if this was part of ‘the dream’ (??) but we are in a good location for the work we have to do.  The chandlers are all next door with bars and restaurants within a minute’s walk and there are excellent loos and showers with a pay as you go washing machine – hence the boat looking like a Chinese laundry!  The bow of our boat is actually stuck in palm tree and we all go about our daily chores, cooking, eating, hanging out the washing etc high above the pavements!

Fuengirola itself is a mass of high rise buildings with English named bars and beach beds from the pavements to the sea , catering for the mainly British tourism market.  It is so strange to hear English spoken everywhere – so different from Almunecar in Granada where we have lived for 6 years - there it is still predominantly Spanish

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      OSCAR AND VIC ANTI PAINT STRIPPING!