Gearing Up To GO SOUTH

"All the sweat, blood, and tears will be worth it once you're sailing South", I keep telling myself as we layer up in hazmat suits and gas masks to begin another day of grinding the decks and treating all the rust.

It WILL be worth it!

For the time being our life is dominated by sanding, grinding, finding rust, painting rust, and repeat. A small boat suddenly feels very large when you have to scrape and paint every inch.

Elvis looked up at me, pleading to pass another battery for the grinder. He was caged in behind 3 tarps as we tried (in vain) to prevent the clouds of dust falling into the water. I could see from his eyes he was asking for something, but the husky Darth Vader like noises that came from his dust mask were completely incomprehensible. Moreso, I cannot take him seriously caked head-to-toe in yellow paint. Even his eyelashes had turned a distinctly puke shade of blonde.

Romance is dead.

Although I do believe that the shared suffering of this mammoth task is bringing us closer together and if our relationship can withstand this, it can withstand anything. Now there a positive! And another positive, in just a couple weeks, the boat will no longer be yellow!

Major life changes:

• I've handed in my resignation at work, to leave at the end of September. It feels like a Golden Era (or my high-vis era) coming to an end, but I'm ready. Ready for a change and ready for some time at sea.

• Which leads seamlessly into the second exciting mention: we're taking the wee boat around the South Island of New Zealand from December through till April. Or till whenever the funds run out really!

• And lastly! Once we've reached Oban by boat, which is the main town on New Zealand's most southerly island Rakiura, our real journey begins. We're sailing Oban, NZ, to Oban on the Scottish West Coast! Let's see how far we get. Dreams are free.

  
  

On the weekends, we still participate in the crazy wild night life scene in Nelson - regulars in the silent disco DANCE ZONE.