Bid farewell to our guests this morning and proceeded to rearrange and unload the entire boat: mattresses, bed frames, furniture, kitchen goods, housewares, laundry, SCUBA gear and tanks, weights, the pictures on the walls, boutique items, extra line, a dryer, a fridge and freezer, the works. Everything not involved in the open ocean running of the boat and the essentials for six people to live for a couple of weeks came off the boat either by skiff to shore or by van once we were parked at the local industrial dock. Stuffed it all into storage spaces belonging to the company, and when I say stuffed I mean to the ceiling.
Cleared the entire dive deck of camera table and gear benches, which also went into storage, and replaced them with eight 250 gallon diesel drums, then loaded them with fuel. Took on new exterior doors to replace every door on the boat. New windshields, new shower enclosures, hundreds of square yards of carpeting, a workshop of power tools, a hundred yards of PVC pipe, etc.
The entire process was carried out by what I have come to think of as the Odyssey army. The local crew usually alternates weeks of work, so there are more than two complete crews as well as an auxiliary staff that shows up on Sundays to help get the boat ready for the next charter. Well, they were all here today, probably twenty-five people total. Everything that we moved, loaded, or unloaded was done as a line of humans passing gear from one to the next. Heavy items drew hordes of folks who piled on with ant-like determination. If we’d been moving limestone blocks we could have knocked together a passable pyramid by day’s end. Maybe that’s stretching it a bit, but many hands do indeed make light work. And thoroughly exhausted, smelly workers. I had one of the most blissful ocean swims of my life after the work day closed, though the fish probably resented my filthy presence.
The items we took aboard are headed with us to the Philippines, to be installed either on the way to or during drydock in that country. The plan is to leave tomorrow around noon and drive for eight days straight, a bit over 1600 miles. When we arrive, we will, if thing are on schedule, drive right on to a massive trailer and pull the boat out of the water. Then the real fun will begin as we take apart everything on the boat and rebuild, fix, or replace it. Weak sections of the steel hull will be cut out and replaced. Water and sewage tanks will be cut out and replaced. Walls will come down and be rebuilt. Then we coat the whole ship in new paint. The process is going to take two months; we are due back in Chuuk in early October. I am looking forward to visiting a new part of the world. Painting boats, not so much, but it ought to be an experience. One I will continue to update about as time goes by. Thanks again for tuning in.
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