Refitting The Cabin Interior

Been having a debate with myself and still haven’t quite reached a conclusion. Despite the fact I wear a mask, I still get to taste dust when I’m sanding back the old paintwork and the wood in the cabin. The debate? Well, which tastes worse – plywood dust, paint or GRP? At the moment I think the paint.

This job is progressing really slowly, there are a number of reasons – I have lots of other things to do and most of them are marginally more appealing than laying on my back with an electric sander pouring cabin-roof dust over my face. When the weather is good, I don’t want to be in that hot cabin and when the weather is bad I find excuses for doing other things.

And then there was the bomb, two in fact, and that slowed me down somewhat! There is a road bridge not too far from the village where I live. It takes traffic across the estuary at a point where the valley narrows. In 1944, the Americans bombed the bridge to confine the Germans prior to attacking St Malo. A couple of weeks ago a yachtsman fouled his anchor under the new bridge and couldn’t raise it so he enlisted a friend with diving equipment to see if he could go down and free it. He followed the anchor cable to the bed and discovered the anchor was firmly wedged between two 9000lb unexploded American bombs. People on both sides of the estuary were evacuated for two days.

And then, the port authorities decided to dredge the harbour so boats had to be moved and shore-power wasn't available for a while. 

And then, there is Joe’s bar.  Joe sets up a bar from an old caravan by the beach each summer. I can see it from the boat and it sings like a siren – pulls like a magnate. Ten minutes sanding = twenty minutes hanging out at Joe’s, chillin’ and talking boats and blues with the rest of the guys who can’t resist sunshine and ice cold beer either.

So despite the above, I guess I have made some progress. All the old black varnish has been removed and the wood furniture now look new and ready for coating and the gloss paint on the GRP is now mat and keyed ready for painting again. The colour scheme planned for the cabin is not of my choosing. It will be white and blue because the berth cushions are blue and too good to throw away or re-cover. The white bits will be mat however, and the wood will be oiled but not coloured so hopefully the cabin will be lighter and brighter than before.

With luck I’ll be painting next week. Once I've got the dust out of the cabin. I always knew the cordless Dyson would come in handy.

Seaward