spring cleaning

Lynne and I walked out one evening and had a closer look around the old whaling station. Lynne had not had the chance to look closely at the place (needing to go through a hole in the fence ,( its not obviously free access )

It is however fascinating.

I will admit at this point to having a bit of a problem with the amount of graffiti in Spain, There is an awful lot of graffiti in public places, it is a bit of an eyesore. I do not however have any issues with decorating an abandoned structure with art, this is neither vandalism or pointless ego massage. Art is what it is and again in a country I first visited when it was a fascist regime in the late 60s and early 70s I can sympathise completely with graffiti as a means of self  expression and political rebellion. freedom of expression should be tolerated even when its sometimes difficult or obtuse. Having seen cave paintings from the beginning of human existence which say the same thing, namely " I was here and this was what was important to me" We are all part of the same family.

I also suppose that we all have had to bunk off work at some point.
which is how Lynne and I found ourselves on the beach at Playa Rodeiera again watching the local dolphins perform, unfortunately it was very difficult to capture them on a phone camera.

However I did catch this shot of a cetacean whos fin exactly lines up with the whaling station in the distance.......................
Later in the day the sun developed a great halo, the cloudless sky was not giving much credence to the old weather lore " ring around the moon , rain soon"

We  had decided to repaint the non slip paint on Dark Tarns decks, our friends on Merry Mood had been kind enough to deliver a large tin of Masonry Paint ( Sandtex) this was recommended by Paul Fay, Dark Tarns original builder who has been using it on  Ti-Gitu for a few years. it is very much cheaper than yachting alternatives which we had run out of and was difficult to obtain in Spain. We worked until the heat became to much and took ourselves off to the beach for a swim. As I say we all bunk off work sometime.......

First we needed to remove items like the life raft and mask off most deck fittings, so a trip to the local Chinese bazar was needed. These establishments are the Spanish equivalent of pound shops in the U.K and are simply everywhere. So loaded up with masking tape and cheap brushes before we got on with the job. We managed two coats on the coach roof and continued on one of the side decks into the cool of the evening.

we managed to get half finished before the weather took a turn for the worse. We were enjoying an evening drink with a couple of British yachtsmen who had arrived the previous evening and enjoying a beer as Manchester United managed to beat Vigo 1-0  on the TV. The dark clouds gathered and just after midnight the downpour began.
No excuse the Sun Halo had predicted just that................
we now wait for better weather to finish the decks, what we have done looks splendid and the non slip is superior to our normal finish.