… a little quiet, it’s not lack of enthusiasm for the project, but lack of time – and post-sailing ’smooshiness’. Or healthy knackeredness, if you prefer. After a full day, much of it spent out on the water being fairly active with some hectic spells thrown in, we have an hour’s drive through heavy traffic before we finally get back to the apartment. Evening meals, preparing lunch and breakfast for the following day, answering emails, packing togs for the following day’s sailing – well, there’s not a lot of evening left for things like blogging. Not a lot of energy, either: in fact it’s serious blob time once everything’s done that must be done – and that means bed. Ah well, so much for the excuses …
Several times a day, we sail (well, motor) past Butterfly as we to and fro in and out of the marina – and it’s an odd sensation seeing her there. In fact, knowing she will soon be what we call ‘home’ – it feels slightly weird not to be calling in on her, seeing how things progress. But there are reasons, which are: (a) we’re kept busy enough with Neil and James aboard the L34 Standfast and (b) by the time we’re through sailing for the day, the guys have finished working on her and she’s all locked up.
There again, it’s good this way. We’re not getting in the way, holding things up – and it’s a lot easier on us, because finding ourselves so busy, the days are just flying by, so it doesn’t feel quite so much like playing an eternal waiting game. All the same, it’s hard not to sneak in an affectionate glance at her whenever possible. It’s also good to know that Steven, who, bless him, has so much on his plate – and Ken and Doug – will be there, ensuring things get done right.
This week has also been very useful in familiarising ourselves with the marina and all the nautical furniture around these waters – including a disintegrating tub that’s been abandoned on the edges of the marina’s main channel. Perhaps it’s me, but it’s not only fascinating, but quite, quite beautiful in its own way – and a photographer’s dream for a maritime fine art subject. The rust, the acute angles of broken spars, the hulls rapidly disappearing under expanding colonies of barnacles – there’s something very touching and rather human about its demise.
Another useful gain this week – and this is very much thanks to Neil – we’re getting a little more clued up on local weather patterns and the peculiarities of sea state beyond the port’s enclosure. Local maritime knowledge is not just desirable, but can be a vital tool – and although we still have much more to learn, we’re chipping away at things, bit by bit.
Back to Butterfly for a moment: the sails and sailbag were delivered this week – we know because while stepping aboard the L34 we could look down the pontoon and see the sailmaker scratching his head aboard our boat, looking up at a crisp, smart genoa that fully unfurled, was hugging the spreaders rather too enthusiastically. The bad news is the sail will need to be re-cut and refitted (though no big deal, really); the good news is the sail trim is a lovely shade of blue! Sounds daft? Ha! You wouldn’t believe the fretting I’ve done (Dick will bear testimony) – about the colour scheme of the sail trim, sailbag, cockpit covers etc. It wasn’t so much deciding on the colour, as being sure we would get what we thought we’d ordered. As some of you may already have discovered, choosing from a shade chart displayed on a computer screen is a thoroughly unreliable business. Few people bother to calibrate their laptop screens and computer monitors, so colours – even those displayed by manufacturers – can be way off target. Therefore, what looks like a fetchingly elegant navy blue on screen can, in reality, turn out to be a virulent psychedelic, migraine-inducing funky ‘Azure’. All very well if you like surprises; not so good if you don’t. My advice to future FastCat buyers would be to physically get hold of a sample of the blue (or black or green or whatever) you want – though am not suggesting for one minute that you cut little samples out of other boat-owners’ sailbags or cushion covers, however perfect that particular shade of eau-de-nil green is – and hand it over to Gideon or Steven. It also, so you can show them precisely which colour you want. It also makes it much easier for them to then colour match the paintwork on the hulls – if that’s applicable. It also helps enormously when manufacturers change their colour charts and descriptive names, which the swines do just at the point when you decide on your chosen colour theme. But enough of all that. Suffice to say I’m just glad – and so is Dick (very – it would have been a costly error) – that our hopes of a smart navy blue have produced just that.
Okay, apologies to the guys, that’s the girly colour thang outta the way. Next time we report back here, I’ll make sure we discuss knobs and dials and whir-y bits – with a smattering of low-down dirty engine-speak chucked in for good measure … once Dick’s drawn me lots of pretty diagrams that is – and – darnit! – perhaps it’s best I finagle the Skipper into writing it himself. Watch this space …
(Uh-oh. The Skipper’s just read this. “You’ll be lucky,” he says.)
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