A day in the life of a refit

So we're several days into repairs now, and settling into a routine.

At 7.15am the captain comes round and wakes us all up - fifteen minutes until breakfast. At 7.25am he comes round again and tells us it's five minutes to go, in case of snoozers.

Up on deck one of the cooks has put out breakfast. There's always cereal, coffee and tea, and toast, and something cooked too; usually eggs of some description. Just before 8am there's a brief meeting. Captain Jim gives a weather report and any notes, and then first mate Nic assigns jobs to everyone and we go and get started. Currently I'm involved in making over the starboard cabins, which all got water damage during the storm/leak affair and needed a refresh. So I've been sanding and chipping and grinding and generally getting thoroughly mucky.

At 10am the conch is blown and we all down tools for morning smoko - coffee, tea and fruit. By 10.20am we're back at work, until the conch goes again for lunch at 12.30pm. Recently every meal has involved beef as the freezer containing all the beef broke down, so the cooks are trying to get through it. Today we had pasta with a beef and pumpkin sauce.

Just after 1pm we're back to it for a hard graft until 3.30pm, which is afternoon smoko. The cooks try to bake something to eat for this one; today we had mini eclairs which went down enormously well. Then back to work again until about 5.45pm, when it's clean-up time to leave the ship tidy for the night. Dinner's about 6.30pm or 7pm, and we all eat together in the deckhouse or on deck, before settling down to check email, read or play music, and have showers! The ship's currently got three guitars, one ukelele, and two South American recorder/flute things. I want to get a fiddle if I can find a really cheap one. I think the ship needs one.

By 9 or 10pm we're all in bed, ready for the next day.

I think things are running generally to schedule; the plan is to turn the ship around on May 10th or 11th to start work on the port side.