Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure

[Giles]

We just roll with it, when you are playing a GT, you often have to back the boat up to bulldoze a large fish out of a reef, and more often than not a a large fish will drag you 360 around the boat, a rope hanging out of the back would be a recipe for a lost fish.

[Giles]

So, it has been tough fishing. The GT’s (primary target species), were just not playing ball. We had a few hits between us (probably about 30), but the fish were very nervous and coming up short, the only one of us to land a few was Szymon.

We had amazing sport on light tackle and caught lots and lots of lots of different species.

Have booked for next year, a month earlier when the weather will be more settled.

[Tago Mago]

@Giles Did you get to see any of Oman or was that not part of the plan?

[Giles]

Saw a lot of Halanyat, it’s a brutal place. Hot, arid and barren. Lots of civil engineering going on, it’s mainly government and military as they try and get on top of people, gun and drug smuggling, Yemen and Somalia being the active in all 3.

Most peoples idea of a desert island will not be this

[Giles]

We have a 4 hour drive to Salalah tomorrow, but the scenery will be mostly, hot arid and brutal

[Tago Mago]

@Giles you make it sound so appealing

[Giles]

I like it like this

[Giles]

came back to mainland Oman yesterday. 10km from home, we saw birds working the water, so we diverted to take a look. The sea was a mass of sardines and busting fish, we pulled a load out, then finished the journey....

Mahi Mahi for dinner.

[Giles]

I thought I may be able to get away without antifouling UKIYO, just dive her a couple of times a year and get the growth of with an abrasive sponge.

WRONG

The weed growth is ridiculous.

So I pulled her out today and started the ultra-shit job of wet and drying the hull, then applying primer and antfoul.

I managed one coat of primer today before my body said - fuck that.

As I said to @goosehd earlier, funny that today, I suddenly had no friends

I also got the "2 MESSY" logo off, so I can apply the UKIYO one.

[Matt]

I would have helped you. She looks great.

[Giles]

Up at Sparrow's and got a 2nd coat of primer on early doors. Then managed do 2 coats of antifoul, weather was complicit. Will lift her off the blocks tomorrow morning and touch up the bits that I could not get to (where the blocks and jacks are holding her upright), then back into the water in time to catch a flight to Hamburg (for Bremen) on Thursday.

I am very pleased, but ache like crap from groveling around in gravel for 2 days

And the 2Messy decal has been removed, will try and get UKIYO decal applied before she gets put back in the water.

[Giles]

I may have mentioned. UKIYO has a rubbish manual windscreen wiper. To drive, I need one hand on the steering wheel and one on the throttle, that leaves me with nothing spare to dick around with a wiper blade. And of course, the more spray on the windscreen, the worse the conditions, the more I need 2 hands to drive the boat...

So I'm fitting an electric wiper. I've never fitted one before and there are a lot of unknowns and variables. So, I rigged up a ply windscreen and did a test install in the garden, I had a 12volt lawnmower battery lying around, so that provided me with the DC. I'm glad I did, there were a number of issues to resolve, which would have been another level of pain, doing it on the boat.

Not least of which is that I installed the motor upside down, took me ages, and a lot of cursing (of the Dutch), to work out why the blade was parking on the left when it should have been parking on the right