Well, we're still here

Tuesday's weather meant that the hull-blacking job had to wait. Perched what felt precariously at times on our sleeper supports, we experienced incredibly strong wind, rain and hail throughout the day and the night. Wednesday was better, and work continued. The baseplate was completed, albeit with the wrong paint, for which utter goof they waived the cost of that part of the job. When the hull was almost finished, Kantara was craned onto a trailer and towed to a hardstanding where a behemoth crane lifted her, and lowered her onto wooden blocks.

Waiting for the trailer

We've been here for two nights now. They couldn't put the boat back in the water yesterday, because various bits of touching-up still had to be done. It should happen today, then we'll pack up and go back to St Albans for a few days, leaving Kantara moored near John's painting shed. Next week, we'll be back. But more of that next week.

We've had a few meetings with John to sort out some remaining details of the paint job. He's a great guy to work with. He really knows his craft, and has loads of experience to bring to discussions like these. He knows how to please his customers, but there's no way he'll do something simply because you want him to. He knows what works and what doesn't. He also has a strong sense of what's "right" in terms of tradition, though he is prepared to put that aside if he's pushed. He's done so for us over a couple of details. We're really looking forward to seeing the job completed.

John's co-worker, Dave, took us back to Yelvertoft on Wednesday, to collect the car and bring it back here, and yesterday we drove to a carpet shop we'd already found some weeks ago, there to place an order for new carpet throughout the boat. Only for the floor. The existing dado of original carpet will stay put.

So, here we are, almost twiddling our fingers, waiting to be put back in the water so we can moor up and leave. We have the worst outlook from our windows that we've ever had. Wooden fence on one side and a large corrugated shed wall on the other. Entrance and exit is from the stern only, via a set of steps. Worst of all, the boat is totally motionless! We actually miss the normal background movement on the water. It sounds silly, I know, but we both feel it's disturbing our sleep.