Sunday 1^st February  Well it’s hard to differentiate one day from another in this private secluded island world….the days roll one into another, yachties come and yachties go and our time is punctuated by cookery classes on a Thursday at 12.30 on the resort lawns, the fruit and vegetable run on a Friday, which particular ‘special’ evening meal is on offer at the Hard Dock Café - usefully identifying which day of the week it is - and how far down the decks we have sanded.  Film night on a Wednesday is temporarily ‘off’ as the projector is broken but with hundreds of unwatched films on our own hard drives that isn’t such a handicap.

 

 

The complimentary cookery class getting set up

with linen backed chairs……

 

 

All the ingredients ready chopped

 

 

Instruction given…..and platefuls to taste!!

 

 

Off on the complimentary fruit, meat and veggie

run……

 

How bad is this!!!

 

 

Pretty good selection of frozen Australian meat,

fresh vegetables and fruit, cheese, yogurts, eggs

…..certainly enough to keep us going.

 

 

And at last the decks are done – the big wash-down

was such a delight

 

 

…..and they look like new!

 

 

 

 

So here we are in 35 degrees, perched up high on the hard shoulder getting on with our self imposed list of jobs.  Initially we estimated six days to complete the decks but once we started to sand off the caulking the true extent of the work ahead emerged resulting in 15 days hard labour.  For those of us who may never have had any experience of caulking, plugging and sanding a teak deck (me included) let me elaborate. 

 

Our decks are the original ones laid in Taiwan over 26 years ago and thankfully in those days the depth of teak was more generous than it is today.  Years of saltwater, sun, jet washing, harsh chemicals and just plain erosion had taken their toll.  Before we left Spain Paul had taken off all the locker lids and re-caulked, plugged and sanded them in our garage but there was no time to do the bulk of the work which was subsequently done in Bali.  Between each strip of teak is a groove where black mastic is smeared carefully so as not to get air bubbles – this takes a day or two to go ‘off’ and is then sanded down with various grades of sandpaper lifting off the top ragged layer of decking at the same time.  There are literally thousands of stainless steal screws keeping the teak deck strips in place and each one of these has a teak ‘plug’ stopper.  Ideally these should, as near as possible, be the same colour as that particular bit of deck with the grain running the same way.

 

Once we began the sanding (for ‘we’ please read ‘Paul’) it became obvious that hundreds of plugs had been forgotten in Bali revealing the stainless steel screws, many of them now poking up above the level of the deck.  Ugh!  Each one had to have its ‘slot’ picked out so that a screw driver could extract it, a deeper hole then needed to be drilled, two pack resin introduced, a new stainless steel screw put in, more resin, a teak plug hammered in and left to ‘cure’ before sanding off the excess wood. We have found teak scraps in the yard and Paul has cut out over 300 plugs by hand in varying shades to match up. Many off the screw heads broke off during the extraction so those holes had to be filled with a mixture of resin and sawdust to affect a reasonably ascetic solution.  But at last we have finished, and the result looks terrific…..lets hope it lasts a long long time!!

 

Now for years and years, certainly since we owned Anahi we have had a series of leaks – just where the mast rigging reaches the chain plates which obviously penetrate the deck, being secured underneath.  It has been a complete puzzle, a constant irritation and a nuisance as none of the lockers along the sides have ever been waterproof.  We have glued, spread mastic, tried to stop the penetration from the inside out – you name it, we have tried it…………..now let me tell you what must have been an old Taiwanese proverb………’if there’s a gap around the chain plates……..put a sock in it!!  As a very last resort we chipped an inch of teak out all  around each of the ten chain plates  having had the local stainless steel man make up bigger covers….and there was the 26 year old culprit……socks…..yes socks…… stuffed into the gaps (damp ones at that).  Problem solved..

 

Meanwhile, yours truly has been trying to off load some of our gubbins to make room inside.  There is a massive Burmese refugee/political shelter in Langkawi desperate for cooking utensils and clothing – they are in luck!  All the mosquito nets on the portholes had disintegrated so they have been replaced, clothes washed and mended and flags repaired – such is the minutia of our tranquil lives………

 

 

…improvised washing line…..

 

The next ‘job’ is the mast…..its times like this when you wish you had a small one

 

 

We have stripped it of all its rigging, wires and everything which moves or can be removed – there is surface corrosion which needs to come off and the whole surface needs to be flatted off prior to etch priming and spray painting – we have bought the gun and the yard will rent us a compressor.

 

 

Surface corrosion

 

 

A hole in our radar reflector

 

 

…and a badly chaffed halyard which was undetected on the inside of the mast….could have been a tricky moment……..

 

All this is being done whilst a Rally CD blares out over the Marina – the sweet voice of Tessa on Heidenskip, the dulcet tones of Jeremy on Hakuna Matata and aptly ‘I’m going to build me a boat’ from Lee on Glendora……very happy memories……

 

 

Enough is enough…….the pool calls!