Schadenfreude

I'm currently in the old city of Stade, just outside of Hamburg. I went for a walk this morning and spotted these neat old traders down in the local port. Then I had a good chuckle when I noticed the guy up the mast - scraping, scraping, scraping.   What's that German word I'm looking for...?

Kamalii Under Sail

A few nice pics our neighbours on La Palama took the other weekend. Shame we didn't have the mizzen up, but you know, we're lazy.

Not Quite Summer

Here I am thinking it's a good time to decamp to Europe, but I just checked the weather in Hamburg and it's -1℃ and "freezing drizzle". WTF?!

Summer

Scrubbage

I just scrubbed the aft deck and cabin top. It had been a while. Bloody hell. I think I just flushed a couple of kilos of dirt down the scuppers. Didn't take a "before" shot, but trust me, it's a whole different colour.

Off to Hamburg at the end of this week, so Kamalii is being put to sleep for a few weeks. Hopefully when I get back we will have one more decent weekend out before winter hits hard.

Easter

Went out for a few days over Easter. A bit of a mixed bag really, but that's Easter in these parts. Finally got the new house batteries installed in a last-minute rush before we left. Thanks to Stephanie for her awesome winch work!

My new "vang". Works a treat.

They don't make 'em like they used to!

Long-time followers of the blog may recall when we inflated one of the life-rafts that came with Kamalii, back in California. The two rafts (serial numbers 100A and 100B) were manufactured in 1978, and last serviced in 1994.

Well, we still had the other raft, so we thought rather than just dump it (it's beyond ancient as far as life-rafts are concerned) we would use it as an educational experience. We arranged to take it to the kid's school and inflate it there, so they can see what a life-raft is all about. It all went very well; bloody amazed the raft inflated, and even more amazed when the rather ancient smoke flare that was packed inside actually went off.

Now the kids have got the raft in the lobby outside their classroom!

Rain, rain.....f*** off.

So NZ has been hit by the remains of Cyclone Debbie. And it. has. rained.

Here's the marina.

The aft bilge pump started going off; had a look and the rain was overwhelming the drains on the lazarette hatches and pouring in. Then we found that so much rain was pouring into the saloon window housings the drains couldn't keep up and it started leaking into the engine room.

That was a LOT of rain.

Good Morning

Off sailing on The Pearl today (converted 80' Maxi) which should be a different mode of sailing...if there's any wind!