I'm so pleased. This weekend and a little bit of last bank hol weekend we have finally managed to shrug Winter from the boat and get quite a bit of spring cleaning done, but more importantly to get more of our lining boards up. Now, instead of gazing at walls lined with dustsheets, I can lie in bed in the morning and look out through our portholes to the sky (and trees) above. It reminds me of days in the van when we woke up in the forest - days which I sorely miss.
The beauty of our portholes is that, because we're so low down in the boat, people can't really see in so easily and see you lounging around in bed breastfeeding and looking at the sky ;)
We've also almost - but almost - finished the first coat of exterior undercoat so the boat is now proudly and beautifully green rather than camo grey and green patches! Only another 6 coats to go...
Our visible progress is small and there is still tons to do everywhere, but after months of imposed boatbuilding inertia it feels like we've moved a mountain!
Not the nicest of jobs today on board. A very far cry from the "good life" that many would think of when they learn you live on a boat which you are building yourself. The bald and distasteful truth is, I have spent the last 3 hours scrubbing black and blooming mould off the wooden lining panels in our bow, which were only installed a few months ago.
The area has been curtained off from our living space as we hadn't finished it, and we were storing (amongst other things) our remaining lining boards. Now all of those, too, are covered in a significant amount of mould and I'm worried that the spores are here to stay.
The problem has been that our only heat source as yet is our woodburner which is situated at the stern - so the bow gets little to no heat but lots of condensation. It's a real quandary. If we put in a gas heater it produces more condensation; we haven't got the electricity required to run a dehumidifier, and to put in another woodburning stove in the bow (though a nice idea as this will be our bedroom eventually) is well outwith our budget at the moment.
For now I've doused it all in tea tree oil and we'll have to keep an eye on it until the warmer weather ensues!
