SV Sister Nightingale is Operational

Being at the cutting edge of technology on board Sister Midnight, I decided I should make preparations in case any of the ship’s crew ( i.e. me) come down with the virus. To this end I have fully equipped the ship with an emergency ward known as Sister Nightingale.
For those not familiar with British myths and legends, Florence Nightingale sort of invented hospitals in the old empire, and is thought of highly there, however some of her first ideas, which were experimental, killed off an awful lot of the british public unnecessary, so quite fitting the my government have decided to follow her example and build these ‘Nightingale hospitals’ around the UK.

This all started as a byproduct of installing the fan I had promised Kathy a few years ago. Once this was in I realised I was well on the way to having my own nightingale ward. Just needed to add a few extra items….

I have instigated a quick checklist I will have to follow before I can admit myself into the ward. Details below

Now I feel fully equipped to take on whatever comes my way.

Seriously, I hope you are all well, everything is great here. I’m working on the boat, I go ashore every 3 or 4 days for fresh bread and drinks, and spend the rest of the time being lazy, reading zillions of tweets, or doing boat jobs.

Last Saturday I polished the steel on the bowsprit pulpit, this gets mucky quickly as it’s in the firing line for spray when bouncing around on passage. I have found this pink cleaning liquid that everyone uses here. It’s magic on stainless steel. It’s basically oxalic acid with some other stuff. you just rub it on and the rust disappears and everything is shiny. If you wait a minute, it goes dull and grey, so you have to wash it off with fresh water fairly quickly, then a quick rub with a cloth and it looks like new. The only problem is if you get it on your skin, which of course I specialise in, then it stings like hell for a long time.

My tooth which had been hurting for a few days now was getting bad, so I made an emergency appointment with the dentist for Monday.
On Sunday my tooth was not so bad, so I had a lazy day and did a bit more cleaning in the main cabin.

On Monday I headed over to the dentist to find I have an infection and will need root canal treatment, and a crown. What joy, a lot of money, but worse a lot of time, it might take as many as 5 visits to the dentist, and the crown has to be made in Mexico city and sent down here. I can’t return home during this process so I’m wondering what to do. The pain has almost gone now and I have antibiotics to take should I need them. I also don’t think it’s the safest of things for me or the dentist to be doing at this time given the rapid increase in virus cases in Mexico.
After the dentist, I headed off to the Supermercado and stocked up on supplies, then back to the Marina. I had dumped a load of washing into the launderette machine on my way to the shops and it was ready now to be dried back at the boat.
Once all the washing was up and drying on the boat I remembered the main job I had been putting off, the toilet! It seems like only yesterday I was getting acquainted with the pipes and valves, but I think it was March last year when I last had it in bits. The lower valve was sticking, so I took it apart and cleaned it all up, and once it was reassembled it seems to be working a lot better. I usually flush it through very thoroughly, then let some bleach sit in the system before I start work, it’s quite a clean operation, what always gets me is the amount of calcium that is built up in the pipes and valves, this scrapes off easily enough, but as I’m looking at it I’m always thinking, ‘Is that really my bones that are wasting away’.

Wednesday was spent rubbing down the teak trim on the coach roof in preparation for varnishing. Thursday I popped ashore again, did some shopping and back to the boat in record time. More rubbing down of the teak, ready to varnish now.
Friday was meant to be varnish day, but by the time I was up and about the sun was already heating the boat up way too much, the wood was very warm, so the varnish will have to wait for a cloudy day or I will have to get up earlier. So I decided to do a bit of polishing today.
One of the things I love about the indefinite shutdown is I don’t have any deadlines at all right now. So I don’t have any excuses for not doing a proper job. Usually I have to weigh how long a piece of work takes and consider that I will be leaving port, or flying home, or some other event in x days time, hence giving me a great get out clause for only doing part of the job, or even rushing it. Now I have no excuse for not taking as long as it takes to do it properly.
Today I started at the bow, starboard side and worked my way back doing everything I could see that needed attention. Starting at the windlas, some ropes were fraying, so they were tidied, then I remembered that while Tim was here the windlass clutch was sticking a bit when he was deploying the anchor.

So I took the gypsey/clutch apart and gave it the best cleaning its ever had. It runs lovely now.
Next onto the stanchions/shrouds and lifelines. These came up lovely as well.

Earlier today I managed to catch some fish being chased acros the bay, there’s a little video below

Finally a very happy golden wedding anniversary to Kathy’s sister Bobbie and her husband Bruno, I’m sorry you aren’t able to get out to celebrate, but I hope you have a great day all the same.

Paul Collister