Off we go - again!

We finished our refit today - after a month of very hard work, the awnings came off, the staging came down and Soren Larsen looks like a ship again. At high tide tomorrow we set off for the Bay of Islands where we'll get fuel, a few more people, and clear Customs. On Friday, we set sail for Rarotonga. Again. Hopefully this time, after all the work that's been done on filling in seams and plugging leaks, we'll get there! I'll check in again when/if we do. :)

Almost done

The refit's nearly over; we're working now on getting the ship back together and shipshape before leaving Whangarei. The original plan was to sail down to Auckland tomorrow, but the weather forecast is nasty so we're staying put until Thursday morning. This is good as it gives us a little longer to get things done and dusted. Hopefully we'll then be able to clear Customs in the Bay of Islands and not have to travel further south before heading towards the Cooks. We've all got a half-day off today or tomorrow, so I've been uploading photos again; won't get another chance.

It's been a fun month though tiring and I've come down with a bit of a cold now. I've completely lost my voice, which is a pain because it's difficult asking questions and telling people where the black enamel's gone! :)

On Saturday we all got dressed up in outrageously unfashionable clothes from the opshop and went out to celebrate the bo'sun's 30th birthday. She left quite early but the rest of us had a blast at the Irish pub - including Captain Jim in a fetching yellow Hawaiian shirt! Good fun, but everyone slept in yesterday morning and spent the day nursing headaches. However we all worked a full day too on top of the hangovers.

Anyway, last batch of photos on Flickr. Will upload plenty more from Rarotonga, weather gods permitting.

A week to go

We're planning to finish the refit next Sunday, leaving us a few days to tidy up before setting sail for Rarotonga. It looks like we'll be good to go, which is a relief.

The last couple of days have been fine, a blessing after a week of rain. The sunshine means we've been able to repaint the starboard side and the starboard waterways (the bits of the deck next to the hull) and finish the caulking on that side too. All the new hanging knees are up inside the ship, and we're cracking on with the cabins. It's all looking good.

Today's my day off, potentially the last one before we go (though there's another tentatively scheduled in for a week on Tuesday). I borrowed one of the ship's bikes and cycled up to Whangarei Falls, which are pretty impressive, and then on down to the AH Reed Memorial Kauri Park, a nice bit of bush with a canopy walk through a kauri grove. It's nice to get off the ship occasionally and breathe in fresh air untainted by the paint fumes!

More pictures up on Flickr.

Dolphins and paint

Work aboard Soren continues apace - two weeks until we're due to set sail. After turning around on Monday, we spent a day or so putting up the awnings again and now most of the crew are busy scraping paint off the port side of the ship. The caulking team spent yesterday and today, which were mostly fine, finishing off the open seams on starboard and I helped the mate with painting the side. That involved some amusing manoeuvres with paddles in the ship's boat as well as getting wet feet on the wooden staging things we have to put over the side. Generally I think we're still on schedule, but the rain has not been helpful.

Yesterday there was a huge pod of large dolphins swimming upriver. They swam up about lunchtime and came back an hour or so later. Some were being especially acrobatic. That lifted everyone's spirits (together with the lovely weather). Dolphins are always nice to see, and it's good to see them so close to the ship.

Turned around

A fortnight into the refit, we turned the ship around today. That involved quite a lot of work - taking off the frame supporting the awnings, taking down some of the awnings and tarpaulins lining the ship's side, casting off the mooring lines and weighing anchor (covered in grey gloopy Whangarei mud). Captain Jim turned the ship on a dime, beautifully, and we went back in bow first. We dropped the anchor again only to give the guys who work at the shipyard a heart attack; they reckoned we'd dropped it on their railway that lifts ships into dry dock. Jim disagreed, but we lifted it again anyway to keep them happy and attached a long rope borrowed from the dockyard to the bows. It's shackled around a pohutukawa tree on the opposite bank and should enable us to bring the starboard side out so we can get it painted. The awnings and so on are mostly up again, and work's already begun on the port side. Meanwhile below decks we're wrestling with the appalling paint job that had been done in the ship's larder - it's all peeling, so we're trying to find the quickest way to get it off before repainting it properly. Anyway, all on schedule still, which is good news.

Opshop excitement

It's possible I've been aboard too long - the highlight of today was a trip to the hospice shop in Whangarei where you could buy a whole bag of clothes for $1. Bargain! I got some clothes to trash while painting and thus preserve my own.

Otherwise the refit is progressing well, I think. On deck there are big holes where they're raking out the seams and then re-caulking them, and the holes in the hull are slowly being filled up by other caulkers. I spent yesterday and the day before rolling oakum; oakum is hemp, tarred with Stockholm tar. It comes in bales of ribbons and smells lovely, but it has to be rolled into ropes before you can use it. Rolling is incredibly dull but we need loads of it, so we're taking turns.

Down below the cabins are slowly starting to look presentable, with new paint and varnish. They should be lovely when done.

On Sunday we're turning the ship around to start work on the other side.