I don't know how, but we've survived this week..

Paint is on!

Bathing platform is on!

The new dinghy and the engine to it have arrived!

The portholes are (almost) on!
The Internet antenna is here!

The watermaker is here!

The books have arrived!

The headache from all the stress is still here, but I'm sure we can solve it with some fine wine/rum/vodka and a delicious dinner with family and friends tonight. It's the last night out in real Barcelonian style...

Hasta Mañana amigos.

Internet

The Satellite unit arrived last night. I think I forgot some important information last time I wrote about it. It is a Thrane&Thrane hardware and nothing else. We're connecting to the Inmarsat Satellites and airtime is delivered by KVH. We don't have the time to install it before departure, but we'll let you know later on how it works. /T

Shiny

We got some very good help by a blog reader, who also recently re-sprayed his Hallberg Rassy 352, to find out which colors to choose from Awlgrip, for our Caos. Thans a lot for your help, Mark! 

The hull is now painted in Oyster White, and the Royal Blue tone will be added tomorrow. Unfortunately we will not have the time to paint the blue lower line, close to the water line, as we need to put the boat back into the water on Saturday, and this line would not be able to dry before the boat gets back into the sea. Will have to sort it out one day later on when we have left Barcelona. Because we're leaving on Sunday and nothing can stop that plan, remember!?

Can you tell how shiny and beautiful the hull is now? You can mirror yourself in it! /T

Patiently waiting

Isn't this beautiful? It's the valve for the watermaker. For the watermaker that should have left Switzerland last week but for some reason it will not hit the road before tomorrow. Will it be here on time, is the big question of today. What else are we awaiting? The book order. We ordered books from The Book Depository with the impression that the delivery would reach us no later than 3-7 days after placing the order, as they promise on the website. It has now gone 12 days and only one of 56 books have arrived. When I contacted the company to ask for the tracking number on our delivery, so that I could search for the rest of the books myself, they informed me that they do not send any packages with tracking possibilities. Excuse me, you don't do what? - Was my instant reaction and suddenly I regretted that we've placed a 600 Euro order with them in the first place - but there's not much to do now, I guess. Just wait and hope for the best. Stressed, frustrated and a bit pissed off - that's the mood of this sunny afternoon. /T

Morning view

This is the view we encounter first thing in the morning when getting out on deck, out hauled on the yard. It is a delightful and sunny day and so far we've been extremely lucky with the weather. It's like the weather gods knew that we only have a few days left and that we desperately need to finish the spraying process. Thanks for that.

From mess to reasonable

When we left the boat yesterday afternoon, she looked something like this. Imagine also all tools and things covered with sheets - and the sheet covered with a generous layer of dirty dust. The dirt was flying in through the open porthole-openings and if you didn't have asthma before, you'd probably get it in this mess. A real d i s a s t e r, that we simply just had to escape from for some hours.

So after a long (clean) nights sleep and a steady hotel breakfast, we went back to our little mess and threw out everything from the boat. I'm not kidding. Everything went out and although Alex insisted on waiting with the full house cleaning for some days when it all will be finishes, I made him understand that I needed to do it today. My brain simply can't function in such horrible, messy environments. If Alex is the tidy one with sails, lines and everything that has to do with the sailing part and the more messy one when it comes to our living area, I am the total contrary of it. So I sent him back out to work on the hull while I for three hours threw out every little piece of thing from the boat and carefully cleaned it in every nook and cranny. All loose stuff went out obviously, all cushions, everything that was kept inside of the lockers and drawers and when Alex came back in again and heard his own echo in the boat he said: Wow, this feels like the day when I bought her.. This boat has probably never been cleaner. 

Our cabin without any cushions or anything. Only some stored Blue Performance cases full of clothes. That's how we store most of our clothes, by the way. In some really good, hard cases with shelfs inside. Can much recommend the ones from Blue Performance. The white ones are from IKEA and are OK, although they do not have a cover on the opening. Usually we keep the cases on the right side, on the bed which we're not sleeping on. The wood in the back is still not fixed as you can see,  we'll get it back in place ones the bathing platform is up again.

So, now starts the rest of the project for today: To clean all the stuff that has been thrown out and get all those things back in the boat again. Also this cleaning process was a really good thing for us so that we could start contemplating about which stuff we actually need with us and which can go to the trash. We're having a new deal here right now: for every tool Alex have to throw out, I have to throw out one piece of garment or a shoe. It's pretty fair, I guess.

/Taru

Still some stuff to do...

When you see Caos now, it might be hard to understand that she will be ready to begin a circumnavigation in 8 days from today, no? Anyway: the portholes are out, the bathing platform's off again, the paint is stripped off the hull and now we're ready to start the preparations for the spraying process. We'll get it all finished in time, don't worry. (Or was that just something I said to myself to not feel stressed..) Action! /T

Next up

Sorry for the lack of sexy blogs lately, it's just that our life isn't very sexy at the moment... This porthole project has got a bit delayed as of other projects gotten in the way but now we've started. It is a serious mess for all people involved. Alex is now cutting out the old ones, I'm trying to cover up and organize things get moved around in this mess so we don't get metals all over the place and a guy we've hired is sanding the hull outside so we can get started with the painting preparations asap. Along with this mess we're also trying to decide which exact shade of white and blue to order for the paint from Awlgrip.

UPDATE: Off white and Royal blue it will be. /T

For the watermaker

This collection of bronze is the main project of the night. Fun? Not at all. I feel sorry for Alex who has so incredibly much to install on this boat and having to live with a women who's completely useless when it comes to working on this type of things. Although I'm giving a hand when I can, it still feels like it isn't enough - at least when considering the few days we have left here. I'll stick to the painting and polishing and maintaing this blog while Alex unfortunately has to deal with the rest of the 3459 projects.. Glad though we're having some very helpful friends who're helping out as much as they can.

Think I'll need to cook my man his favorite dish tonight and give him some very well deserved massage, later on - for all the hard work he's been going through this week./T

Bathing platform up!

The guys removed the wind pilot for a while to install the new bathing platform. It looks perfect! We realized by the way that we would need (not need really, but we want) to repaint the whole boat after taking off the portholes and before we'll installing the new ones, so tomorrow starts another project... When was it we're leaving again? In 45 days? Well then there's perfectly enough time for it all... Ha! The stress!! 9,5 days left!! /T

Hauled out

The new, beautiful Ocean hatches from Lewmar are up. Next on the schedule: Mounting of new portholes and exchanging the toe rails. Caos is hauled up for the rest of this week so we'll have plenty of time to fulfill the exterior work on her. The Katadyn watermaker will be here after the weekend, inshallah, so we will also take care of the installation of the new seacocks, later this week. Also, Alex came home with a gift for me last night, it was not roses, lingerie nor champagne, but a Fein angle polisher. Ha! So very thoughtful. So now you know where to find me for the rest of this week. On the yard, polishing the hull of the boat. /T

Windpilot up!

Haven't had the time to try it out as yet but at least it looks good where it's mounted at the stern. And one more heavy task gone from the list.

Wine break

Much needed in between windvane installations, hatch mountings, teak gluing, winch installations, arch weldings and mental breakdowns. Cheers and good night.

Our saloon

Oh, we haven't showed you how the new saloon cushions looks like. It is a great relief to have exchanged the 28 year old fabrics to something crisp and fresh and this navy tone goes very well with the mahogany of the boat, doesn't it? The fabric is made of a cotton-teflon mix and is not only very comfortable to look at and sit in, but also very easy to clean as nothing sticks to it. We're trying to keep things simple inside the saloon and putting a bit more effort into our cabin instead. As you could read in my SA-story; there's where it all's happening anyway. Maybe we'll show you what it looks like in there, one day. /T

Do not get fooled by the tidiness on the photo, this is NOT how it looks like in this very moment. It still looks like a bomb was detonated in here. Pic was taken a couple of weeks ago.

Details

Definitely the hardest work of this week: measure the exact dimensions for the new sails (16 pages to fill in!). Glad though for very quick and helpful assistance by North Sails Denmark. Hopefully the sails will be awaiting us in Gibraltar in some weeks from now, despite the last-minute order.

Fresh water tank

Other funny things we're messing around with.. The inspection plates on the water tank were badly oxidized, so we needed to take them out, clean the tank and change the plates. Not sure of how these type of things are mounted in newer boats but this was a bit of a tricky thing to sort out. The screw holders which were holding the aluminum plates needed to get cut out with the grinder in order to get the plates out and the cleaning of the tanks inside weren't that easy as it might sound. Alex will now make new plates in stainless steel to minimize the risk of getting new oxidation in the tank. Glad to have it all done before the watermaker is getting installed. /T

THE list

We're checking off thing after thing on our lists. But with only 19 days left, we still have a crazy amount of things to accomplish before we can leave Barcelona. Here we go:

• Deck and exterior refit - Including replacement of hatches, new 46ST genoa winches in cockpit, the teak needs to get refitted (that goddamn teak's still not done and the rain doesn't quite help the process!!), portholes (will arrive this week), wind-vane installation's under development, bathing platform needs to get mounted. The watermaker is ordered and on the way. A new set of sails is also ordered and will probably not be here on time, but await us in Gibraltar. Need to haul out the boat to install new seacocks and at the same time we'll need to make some serious polishing of the hull.
• Interior refit - Including new mahogany for the galley working area, new curtains up, need to invent a better system for storing the kitchenware and glasses.
• Book order from Amazon - There will come plenty of times when one needs to get entertained and also times when one needs to fill up the knowledge bank - so books have been/will be ordered with a wide variety of subjects such as: Globalization, Nihilism, Kite Surfing, World War I & II, Fruits in the tropics, Film Noir, French/Swedish lexicon, The philosophy of Immanuel Kant, Cruising in the Windward islands, Islands of the Pacific, Introduction to capitalism, Cooking with sprouts, Ocean fishing, Haruki Murakami collection etc...
• Music list - One thing we'll seriously be missing is the access to Spotify. The detachment from this little digital wonder requires us to download millions of cd's to our ipod's and computers. A major time-consuming task, that's for sure..
• Provisioning - The boat needs to get filled up with food and wine of course, most of it done.
• Movie downloading - All those classics and everything we still haven't had the time to watch.
• Documentation equipment - We'll need to upgrade our equipment and this is under progress as well. Just ordered our dream camera from Canon with HD video possibility and it will hopefully arrive in next week. Some new lenses to that and we're all set.
• Sport section - Kite gear, new cylinders for diving, two foldable bikes... holy shit, where's that bigger boat when we need it!
• Medicine section - Not even started.
• Insurance - Under development.
• Internet - Under development...

We have exactly 27.360 minutes to fulfill these tasks, shouldn't be impossible, what do you think?

Time for a break

It is a ridiculous amount of rain that is showering Barcelona and nearby regions at the moment. Perfect in time for the current mounting of our new Lewmar hatches and the associated applying of new fiber glass around them. Not!! Although we should worry about how much water there's actually leaking in through the not-yet-sealed-hatch-openings, we have totally decided to leave that project aside for some hours and instead we're chilling down with a couple of (not homemade) pizzas and a movie on the laptop. /T

Work under progress

Our Sailomat 760 came with us in the flight from Sweden and is now getting mounted. Exciting!

We received a lot of great feedback when we asked for advice on Cruisers Forum regarding two different windvanes from Sailomat and Windpilot - and after contemplating, we figured that the one from Sailomat would fulfill all of our requirements. What a great luck also that Stellan Knöös, the owner and designer at Sailomat believed in our project and wanted to support our journey with a great discount on the system. Looking forward to get it installed this afternoon and hopefully having the chance to try it out this weekend.

For all of you who're not into sailing (yet), I'll give you a simple lesson: This huge piece of metal is a self steering system, which allows us to sail in the right direction to the wind without having to actually steer the helm (wheel). Sitting by the helm all day long can be very exhausting and requires tons of attention and focus, therefore are mechanisms such as the autopilot and/or a windvane used. This windvane system will give us the freedom to do all kinds of other things when sailing long or short passages, instead of always having to have one person in the cockpit. The boat will simply sail herself along. This windvane steers the boat with a constant point of sail - which you will manually set for your boat when the perfect wind has been found, this unlike the autopilot - which steers a constant compass course with an electric steering motor connected to the rudder. /T

For the senses

It is not only teak and electronics that have been replaced, mounted and installed on this boat lately, finally we have also had the time to take care of the interior and at last it starts to feel like the boat is a real home and not only a boat. New cushions have arrived for both cabins and the saloon, new delicate pillows and sleeping sheets for different temperatures, wonderful designer cookware which brings harmony into our petite galley, some discreet pieces of art on the walls, scented candles to add an aromatic fragrance in the night time hours and a few, robust plants. (Any tips on how to keep the plants long lasting on a boat and through stormy weathers are most welcome!)

I might have gotten rid of a lot of stuff/clothes/shoes for this tour we have ahead of us, but one thing I can't see myself living without neither on land or on water, is a peaceful home where lights, scents, tones and design are in perfect harmony with one another and I must say that we're so slowly getting there, in the boat as well. /Taru