We now excel at multitasking! While the paint in the bilge dries, we attend the hull related jobs: Heiner is taping the hull to mark the water line...and of course, there were the 2 coats antifouling paint that needed to be applied: the first one being more critical as it had to be applied onto a still very fresh epoxy paint.  That makes for long long days.......thank God, our weather is now excellent (dry, sunny, and around 20-22C): it sometimes crosses our mind that, had we done the sandblasting in the Caribbean, we would have had to work with temperatures of 30C!

 We could not have much of a birthday celebration - calorie wise - because Heiner had to fit in the bilge (or basement as we like to refer to in landlubber's jargon)..Thanks to my shapely female figure, I cannot go in as deep as Heiner can! So, I was allowed to eat more birthday cake than he was ! After all, cheer leading takes energy!

In a way, it was easier to weld plates from outside than to continue the repair from inside the bilge.  Loose rust needed to be removed, sanding and hammering ..in those really small spaces, not at all easy! Heiner did a great job, though...

 ALMOST DISAPPEARED!

For my dear captain's bithday, we usually have pre- and post-celebrations! Yesterday, May 29th, was a really really tough pre-birth day! Heiner spent all day welding and fixing La Buena Vida's beautiful body! Grrrrrrrrrr...he finished the work and was quite exhausted when we got back home! He even had difficulty lifting his beer glass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But our friends Karen and Lindsay came for supper...Thanks to good company, good food and rum, he managed to blow all the candles without difficulty!

 After the boat work, we like to come home and relax in the garden: the trees and flowers are just gorgeous at the moment...

Butyl caulking on steel and wood needs to be removed

 Time flies...when you are having fun! We are making good progress: our neighbours at the yard are impressed with our stamina! So are we! After all, we are older than 15 years ago (!) when we bought the boat!!!

All cleaned up, rust removed, and ready to be epoxied!

So, today, we began painting the windows with epoxy...it took a lot of time to remove the butyl caulking from the steel and from the wood, then Heiner took his big power tool out and wiped out the rust! No more: virgin steel window frames! It was fun to apply our clear epoxy on this virgin steel!!!! because it looks like it would NEVER rust again!!!!

The cabin topside had a nice wooden trimming: also gone.  There were several spots with serious rust building underneath...

REMOVING WOOD TRIMMING

REMOVING WOOD TRIMMING

THE NAKED TRUTH

The lexan panels covering the 4 large windows were also removed: messy, messy job due to the butyl caulking.  It was a very efficient caulking material...as long as one does not need to remove it! 

And last but not least, the pads for the winches as well as seats have been removed: rust, rust, rust. First coat of clear epoxy has been put on tonight.

Now can work on the deck. Wood on steel is a combination calling for trouble: water gets trapped in and it rusts.  With two years in the salt water environment, the rust issue is even worse.  OK, the wooden  toe rail has to be taken down...and the rust sanded away.  It takes 2 good days of work to do both sides, to paint one coat of clear epoxy and 2 coats of gray!!!Ouch! our poor knees!

Oh! already empty!!!!!

Second coat done...

Smoothhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

BETWEEN TRAVELS...we read, cook, walk and now that the weather has finally gotten less rainy and warmer, we started the LBVRP (La Buena Vida big renovation project)... Monday, May 9th at 8 am, the sandblasting company started putting tarps and sheets on, around and below La Buena Vida. Heiner got there in time to oversee the work and apparently behaving like an expectant father, exhibing a mixture of thrill and nervousness. And it was a difficult beginning, indeed, with only 75% of one side of the hull taking 6 hours of blasting. The white epoxy is still adhering too well to the hull on certain spots, and not at all on other areas. So, at about 5pm, we penetrated the plastic tent around the boat and tried to clean the hull as well as possible before painting with our gray epoxy. A lot of sand on the boat and on the plastic sheet on the floor...After 3/4 of an hour, we had covered the sandblasted surface with the gray epoxy: it looks smooth ! Heiner did a great job with the rolling, which went very well even with undiluted epoxy mixture.

75% of one side in 6 hours of blasting

Looks like snow but it is sand!

A boat is always big enough if YOU do the painting!!!!

Tuesday....the whole boat will be finished, hopefully...

 
Ciao amici! The first phase of our trip to Italy is done: we just booked the first 5 nights at a pretty hostel in Rome, in Travestere to be more precise. Travestere is across the river Tiber (that's what the name means!) and used to be the artisan area of the city in classical times.  Well into the 20th century, Travestere was inhabited by artisans and immigrants which gave it a strong personality...still today, the area is characterized and praised by visitors for its narrow streets, closeted squares, beautiful churches, trattorias with tables set along the cobblestones streets and animated night scene ! http://www.colorshotel.com/pictures.html

Monday March 14th: for us, the end of our Panama sojourn. For Lutz and Gabi a new phase of their trip begins!

We enjoyed being with them and are thankful for that fun Canal transit experience! We wish them good luck for the sail across the Pacific and will follow their adventures thanks to their blog ! Hasta luego amigos!!!

Last day before our departure: we had a visit of Panama city with Gabi and Lutz. We know the town well by now and we had fun showing them our preferred spots!  There was spring in the air and trees in bloom added to the charm of the Plaza Major and the Casco Viejo.  We all treated ourselves to freshly pressed pineapple juice!

The trip by bus on the Amador Causeway was quite enjoyable and offered nice views of the city.

 Despite our excitement to have reached the pacific ocean, we were all tired: we said goodbye to Steve, our line handler who returned to his boat and his wife in Colon. We had a nice supper (sandwiches!) while enjoying the feeling of being anchored in the Pacific and went to bed early!

Adios Canal and hello Pacific! This was a great experience thanks to this wonderful crew aboard SuAn!

 We had an easier time today because we had trained the night before but also because we were descending... after the Pedro Miguel lock, we are entering the Miraflores lock, the last one before the Pacific.

After long hours of travel in the sun, we finally arrived to the locks: this time, we were three sailboats tied together and a fully loaded tourist boat who took hundreds of picture of us! What a treat for them!