Seeing Aruba through a paintbrush

We didn't have to worry about fading hang-overs, because a Saturday night on Aruba, no matter where you are, sucks ... We hit the most popular haunts and it felt like some sort of plague had struck. There simply wasn't anyone out. When we spoke to some locals the following day our suspicions were confirmed: No one goes out on Saturdays. The good days to party on Aruba are Wednesday through Friday. After all, who wants to waste valuable weekend time being hung-over? This explains why people are slow as molasses in the mornings on weekdays: they are all hung-over!

The one good thing about us not staying out till stupid o'clock, getting completely obliterated, is that we were able to have an early morning. The task of the day was to sand the hull below the waterline, or more accurately: to sand the old anti-fouling, so that it will open up and be receptive to new paint. With the hulls squeaky clean from the pressure washing on Saturday, we rented a sander and went to work.

Petar got the sander (he likes playing with tools), while I went to work with normal sandpaper.

Just when work was starting to get a bit tedious, it started to rain. We were both devastated at this fine opportunity for a break.

There's nothing like a little break to get your mind off work. This sure beats working in an office ;-) The great thing about Aruba is that it never rains very long, so within an hour we were back to work again.

It took us all day to sand the hull and ... well ... Petar started loosing it by the end. Either that or he was working on a revolutionary new sanding tecnique.

We had to squeeze in a morning sanding session, before we returned the sander to the rental place. Then we hosed down the hull yet again, but this time to get all the sand and dust off, so that we could start painting.

We are now trying to put on as many coats as possible with the newly purchased 5 gallons of SeaHawk Islands 44 anti-fouling. I'm applying it on top of the CopperCoat I'm currently using, because it simply didn't work in warmer climates. Put it to you this way: I had stuff growing underneath while we were sailing across the Atlantic. I have seen the Islands 44 anti-fouling on some other boats down here and they had zero growth, hence the switch. From the looks of it, we'll be able to put on 3 full layers ... maybe even more.

We were supposed to go back on the water on Friday, but Arcos, the company bringing the mobile crane that were supposed to do it, all of a sudden backed out. The owner of the company David Fuente is a fickle man and for no apparent reason, he decided that he didn't want to do the job, leaving me high and dry ... in a very literal sense. Thankfully there is another crane company on the island, so now Albo will do it on Monday. Rumor has it that their crane is twice as large, so I'm kind of excited ... boys and toys.

Another exciting update is that both my brother Martin and my friend Topi (he worked with Petar and I on the Vision of the Seas) have pretty much confirmed that they will join the team. Topi will join mid February and Martin a month later. Both will by the looks of it stay onboard till we reach Norway.

I will simply put have a kick ass team, ready for any challenge ... No Poseidon, that was NOT a challenge!