Graft in Nazaré.

     The luscious leaves of June are strugging with a westerly gale back here in County Clare, though the sun is shining brightly. I flew home yesterday for a ten day break from graft on the 'Anna M' in Nazaré. I've been at it for over six weeks, and settled on a good steady routine, living in a little flat over Mario's Waves Restaurant. At the front it looks over the Praça da

Life support team.

Fonte Velha, while at the back the view over all those Atlantic waves is

softened by the cooing of pigeons and the crazy acrobatics of the swifts.

My main job recently has been routing out between the planks, where Anatole has been gluing wooden splines, and Dario has been following along to clean off. The routing would be straightforward with sharp bits,- if it weren't so awkward to work on some parts of the hull, and if the wood were not so hard and laced with the odd bit of rivet or screw. They can be hard to spot, especially with a visor on, without which one would end up with bits of debris in the eyes half the time, even with glasses on. Between this and the hardness of the wood, I've been going through a lot of those router bits, and spending time scouring the country for them,- one not inconsiderable expense that I had not allowed for. I need someone to recycle them!

It will remain to glass over the whole hull with epoxy and glassfibre cloth. At last, with another month's work, the old hull should be sea-worthy again and indeed beautiful and very strong. Hopefully I will even be able to live aboard, and if Alec gets the electric drive installed, we shall move into the next phase of 'The Nazaré Project', testing and demonstrating the said drive.

      What a lot has happened since we first mooted the idea; yet everything seemed to have only emphasized how good and timely it is! More than ever, we need to get out of oil-dependence. Perhaps the best thing about it is the fun of it all, and if there is one thing we need these days more than ever, it is fun; but it seems to me there is not much fun in a holiday that has to begin and end with an airport nightmare, nor in driving or even cruising when fuel costs so much.  There is also comfort in feeling one does not have to contribute to the dodgy types who generally supply oil, nor to climate change, and there is the prospect of a more exciting, challenging but pleasant kind of cruising. Imagine, besides no huge fuel costs, no smelly diesel in the boat, nor racket and vibration!  

     Besides all this, there is the huge satisfaction of bringing that lovely old wooden boat back to life, and in the process of 'bringing home' a great deal of the technology involved. Alec has done a great job of the new hydraulic steering gear, inderneath the new cockpit that Anatole is building. The big question now is how successful will he be with the electric drive? The control side seems to be the most challenging bit. Well, once the hull is liveable-in, I hope to be able to sit back and watch the fun rather more!

 

     If only those pesky Putin poodles, and everyone else including covid cowboys, could get out of nihilistic places and find positive things to do, I'm sure there would be a great deal more fun in the world. For all the shocks and disillusion we have suffered lately, the answer to evil remains not primarily with weapons, nor money; and indeed there's not so very much that governments nor anyone else can do about the many crises, when people lose the ability to enjoy life and to show a better way of living. It's just a shame that so often when nihilists see such things, it can make them more madly resentful! But even if we go down fighting evil, as sometimes we must, we shall overcome in the end, and meanwhile, every little victory counts.