Voodoo is going in the water tomorrow!! She will be yet again hoisted on the crane, but this time set in the salty sea, not just moved across the yard. I'm super excited..have champagne on ice, ropes ready to go, and hopefully will be able to find a berth at the marina! Photos to follow, and maybe even some posts catching up on the work that I've done.
Until tomorrow...
Monday, May 5, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
What a difference a day makes!
After dreaming nightly of sanding Voodoo's deck while aboard Undersea last week, I thought I would come back to Port with a fresh determination to wield my various paint removal implements. Over the last few weeks, I have tried what seems like a workshop full of ways to remove the cracking and peeling deck paint. First I used a gurney in combination with a paint scraper (there is nothing like the bliss of peeling a massive chunk of paint off in one go...), then 
tried a heat gun and three different sanders before discovering the wonders of the 4" angle grinder. It WAS my favorite tool, until yesterday's accident...but I'll get to that later. I'm guessing the decks haven't been properly done in years, from the number of layers of paint that I painstakingly removed.
In any case, upon returning to the boat on Sunday morning (if 10 AM counts as morning) after my shark and manta ray extravaganza, I quickly realized that my "fresh determination" was seriously lacking. Before I had been at the boat for 30 minutes, two of my main sources of advice (Leeroy and Gus) independently suggested that I wasn't nearly as close to being finished with sanding as I wanted to be, which only got them a grumpy Q for their troubles. Gus suggested that I ask shipwright John Oliver (who has helped me heaps with sanding and removing my deck hardware), for a second opinion, but when I went to find his boat and learned that he'd gone back down to Cairns, my foul mood got even worse. He did turn up later, and had both good news and bad...sanding's nearly done, he said, but next you've got to bog and sand again. To add insult to injury, when I asked Nick on the boat next door to come aboard and offer his opinion, he replied quite shortly "You've got enough opinions, now get on with it!" That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I started silently sobbing, mentally berating myself for getting involved in a project I had no idea how to complete, all by myself. What in the hell was I thinking? Why didn't I listen to all of those people who, upon seeing the boat for the first time, all said the same thing. "It's a lot of work..." Nick must have heard me sniffling, because 5 minutes later he gruffly said "you know, you should be proud of yourself! Look at what you've taken on." I poked my head out from under the tarp, conscious of the tear tracks in the paint dust on my cheeks and the quaver in my voice, and said "sometimes I'm proud, but sometimes I feel like a complete idiot!" I was about ready to throw the towel in then and there.
Somehow, though, with the help of chocolate and iced coffee, I made it through the rest of the afternoon and evening. As dark fell, I cleaned up and popped my head into the yacht club to say goodbye to Gus. He prevailed upon me to stay for a beer with him and Steve the Carpenter, which eventually led to what has recently become a typical Gus/Qamar maneuver. To make a long story short, Steve and Gus come to check Voodoo out, I ask Steve lots of questions about how he'd fix my V-berth, and we discuss multiple solutions. He rows us to Penny Lane, his motorcruiser (what a sweet boat!), to show us what he'd done in his V-berth, and there Gus browbeats him into doing my job for a very very reasonable price.
By this point, it is after 11, and I still haven't finished my submission for the state's coastal management plan, so I hightail it back home and work on the computer until 1:30.
The next day, Monday, I experienced a complete emotional turnaround. I sanded again for most of the day, and even my grinder accident couldn't dampen my good mood. (Mom, you should stop reading at this point!) There I was, sanding along the edge of the main hatch, when the grinder ricocheted off of the metal track. Before you could say "Makita", the sanding wheel got caught up in my shirt, and I was left clinging to a madly vibrating grinder, all tangled up in my shirt and sports bra, a shallow gash on my arm and scratches on my chest. Nick yelled out "are you ok?" and, as per usual, I said tentatively "yeah, I'm fine," though I had no idea if I was or not! I finally found the off button and spent 10 minutes extracting myself from the grinder, while I waited for my heart to stop racing. Lucky it wasn't a cutting wheel! Still, my favorite Miallo State School refit shirt (that I found on the boat) now has a huge tear in it, very conveniently located directly at breast level.
Later, when Steve and Gus came over for beers at sunset, I had accomplished so much that I could well and truly say that I was finished sanding the deck! (at least until after I put the bog on and have to re-fair it all.) As we looked at the V-berth situation again, I said to Gus, in all seriousness, "This is the coolest thing I have ever done in my entire life!"
Later that night, at Tara's birthday celebration at the Beach Shack, she summed it up with this philosophy: "I think life is at its best when you experience the full spectrum of emotion in a short period of time. The highest highs, and the lowest lows, but you know then that you are truly living."
tried a heat gun and three different sanders before discovering the wonders of the 4" angle grinder. It WAS my favorite tool, until yesterday's accident...but I'll get to that later. I'm guessing the decks haven't been properly done in years, from the number of layers of paint that I painstakingly removed.In any case, upon returning to the boat on Sunday morning (if 10 AM counts as morning) after my shark and manta ray extravaganza, I quickly realized that my "fresh determination" was seriously lacking. Before I had been at the boat for 30 minutes, two of my main sources of advice (Leeroy and Gus) independently suggested that I wasn't nearly as close to being finished with sanding as I wanted to be, which only got them a grumpy Q for their troubles. Gus suggested that I ask shipwright John Oliver (who has helped me heaps with sanding and removing my deck hardware), for a second opinion, but when I went to find his boat and learned that he'd gone back down to Cairns, my foul mood got even worse. He did turn up later, and had both good news and bad...sanding's nearly done, he said, but next you've got to bog and sand again. To add insult to injury, when I asked Nick on the boat next door to come aboard and offer his opinion, he replied quite shortly "You've got enough opinions, now get on with it!" That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I started silently sobbing, mentally berating myself for getting involved in a project I had no idea how to complete, all by myself. What in the hell was I thinking? Why didn't I listen to all of those people who, upon seeing the boat for the first time, all said the same thing. "It's a lot of work..." Nick must have heard me sniffling, because 5 minutes later he gruffly said "you know, you should be proud of yourself! Look at what you've taken on." I poked my head out from under the tarp, conscious of the tear tracks in the paint dust on my cheeks and the quaver in my voice, and said "sometimes I'm proud, but sometimes I feel like a complete idiot!" I was about ready to throw the towel in then and there.
Somehow, though, with the help of chocolate and iced coffee, I made it through the rest of the afternoon and evening. As dark fell, I cleaned up and popped my head into the yacht club to say goodbye to Gus. He prevailed upon me to stay for a beer with him and Steve the Carpenter, which eventually led to what has recently become a typical Gus/Qamar maneuver. To make a long story short, Steve and Gus come to check Voodoo out, I ask Steve lots of questions about how he'd fix my V-berth, and we discuss multiple solutions. He rows us to Penny Lane, his motorcruiser (what a sweet boat!), to show us what he'd done in his V-berth, and there Gus browbeats him into doing my job for a very very reasonable price.
By this point, it is after 11, and I still haven't finished my submission for the state's coastal management plan, so I hightail it back home and work on the computer until 1:30.
The next day, Monday, I experienced a complete emotional turnaround. I sanded again for most of the day, and even my grinder accident couldn't dampen my good mood. (Mom, you should stop reading at this point!) There I was, sanding along the edge of the main hatch, when the grinder ricocheted off of the metal track. Before you could say "Makita", the sanding wheel got caught up in my shirt, and I was left clinging to a madly vibrating grinder, all tangled up in my shirt and sports bra, a shallow gash on my arm and scratches on my chest. Nick yelled out "are you ok?" and, as per usual, I said tentatively "yeah, I'm fine," though I had no idea if I was or not! I finally found the off button and spent 10 minutes extracting myself from the grinder, while I waited for my heart to stop racing. Lucky it wasn't a cutting wheel! Still, my favorite Miallo State School refit shirt (that I found on the boat) now has a huge tear in it, very conveniently located directly at breast level.
Later, when Steve and Gus came over for beers at sunset, I had accomplished so much that I could well and truly say that I was finished sanding the deck! (at least until after I put the bog on and have to re-fair it all.) As we looked at the V-berth situation again, I said to Gus, in all seriousness, "This is the coolest thing I have ever done in my entire life!"
Later that night, at Tara's birthday celebration at the Beach Shack, she summed it up with this philosophy: "I think life is at its best when you experience the full spectrum of emotion in a short period of time. The highest highs, and the lowest lows, but you know then that you are truly living."
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Mantas and sharks and cod, Oh my!
I haven't done much work on Voodoo this week, because I just got back from one of my best weeks ever at sea! Undersea was chartered by Richard Fitzpatrick, our friendly neighborhood filmmaker/shark researcher/crazy tiger shark man, for a Discovery Channel show for shark week! It's pretty huge...everyone who has a TV should check it out when it comes out, I suppose sometime later on this year. We had lots of very cool people on board, all of whom had great stories! I'm too exhausted now to add photos or write much more, but the basic gist of the week was that we caught and tagged 25 sharks (mostly grey reef whalers, but also several white tips and one silvertip!) and 3 potato cod, and put out 25 data loggers all around Osprey reef, which will record the presence of any of the sharks passing by. This way, we can see how far the sharks actually move. It's all very exciting, we can't wait to see the data!
But that's not all...I also had the best manta ray experience of my life! Jon and I went for a dive at Raging Horn to put down a crittercam. They sit on a coral outcrop at 30 metres, and record for up to 6 hours. We've seen all sorts of things on the camera - manta rays, lots of different kinds of sharks, and even a whale shark once! In any case, when we went down to deploy it, what should I see but four huge manta rays, just sitting in the current. Often they are a bit skittish of divers, and don't stick around much when there are bubbles, but these didn't budge. We watched them for about 20 minutes as they hovered and made passes over the reef. Incredible.
The weather was absolutely perfect for the week. So good that we were able to dive on Shark Reef, just south of Osprey. If there is any wind or swell, we don't go there, because the shallowest part of the reef is still 16 metres down, so there is no protection from wind or waves. But we were insanely lucky, and it was blowing less than 10 knots, so we headed down there to put in some data loggers. I got to go on a dive, and the visibility was unreal! Probably about 40 metres or more. Wow. We didn't see many sharks, though, even when we chummed up, trying to get some sharks to tag. A couple of silver tips, a couple of grey reefies, but not much else. I was hoping for some hammerheads, but no luck.
I was sad to come back to land, as usual, but it was SO great to get back out to sea, especially since it's been so long. Between Alaska, bad weather cancellations, Brazil, and refit, I hadn't been diving for 3 1/2 months! And what a way to be welcomed back to diving.
But that's not all...I also had the best manta ray experience of my life! Jon and I went for a dive at Raging Horn to put down a crittercam. They sit on a coral outcrop at 30 metres, and record for up to 6 hours. We've seen all sorts of things on the camera - manta rays, lots of different kinds of sharks, and even a whale shark once! In any case, when we went down to deploy it, what should I see but four huge manta rays, just sitting in the current. Often they are a bit skittish of divers, and don't stick around much when there are bubbles, but these didn't budge. We watched them for about 20 minutes as they hovered and made passes over the reef. Incredible.
The weather was absolutely perfect for the week. So good that we were able to dive on Shark Reef, just south of Osprey. If there is any wind or swell, we don't go there, because the shallowest part of the reef is still 16 metres down, so there is no protection from wind or waves. But we were insanely lucky, and it was blowing less than 10 knots, so we headed down there to put in some data loggers. I got to go on a dive, and the visibility was unreal! Probably about 40 metres or more. Wow. We didn't see many sharks, though, even when we chummed up, trying to get some sharks to tag. A couple of silver tips, a couple of grey reefies, but not much else. I was hoping for some hammerheads, but no luck.
I was sad to come back to land, as usual, but it was SO great to get back out to sea, especially since it's been so long. Between Alaska, bad weather cancellations, Brazil, and refit, I hadn't been diving for 3 1/2 months! And what a way to be welcomed back to diving.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Welcome to Voodoo Madness
Well, it's happened. I finally broke down and posted to a blog. As with most internet related things (Myspace, Friendster, etc) I actually established an account, months ago, but haven't bothered to write until now. So, what inspired me? My new boat, Voodoo! Well, she's new to me, anyway, not brand new. She's actually the same age as I am...pretty old, for a boat!So, here she is, the day I made an offer on her, which was accepted, conditionally upon the results of the surveyors report.
I won't mention all of the back and forth I went through AFTER making that offer (yes folks, I AM a true Libra), as ultimately I did become the proud owner of a yacht, as the Australians like to call her. I just love that word...it makes her sound much more exotic than she really is. It can be very difficult to think of her as a yacht when the paint dust is flying thick around my face!
In any case, I guess this blog was originally inspired by Voodoo, but I have no doubt that future posts (if indeed there are any) will be inspired not only by Voodoo, but by lots of other bizarro Australian experiences that are sure to come about.P.S. These photos were taken before I dyed my hair Hypnotic red (yes, that's the actual name of the color, not just the desired effect!). I will post some of those once my camera battery revives itself.
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