All aboard Big Ron!
The Jacaranda trees are now in full flower and the Jasmin fills the morning air.
Spring in Greece is very beautiful and aromatic. We've been working flat out to get the boat ready to set off from the boatyard. Quite a lot of boats have left already.
We painted all the antifouling two weeks ago now and the new batteries are now installed and working. I've now finished painting the coachroofs completely and we've fitted the new halyard.
The boat was launched on a special large trailer onto which attach extension arms that allow the boat to be pushed into deep water to float and then be able to start the engine.
Petros - the yard owner - then gave us an extra shove and we floated off. Afloat again after 7 months!
The engine sounds good with a few transmission teething problems which we are gradually sorting out.
We had our first sail of the year and luckily remembered how to do it. We don't know where we are headed yet, just relaxing and catching up some energy.
I've been experimenting with my new gelli plate, which is really fun and I think will give me more textural effects to play with, possibly as backgrounds.
I tried painting the plate with different colours of acrylic, pressed seed heads of oat grasses onto the plate and printed directly onto printing paper. I then took the grasses carefully off the plate and printed it again..a different effect....lots of potential for experiment. I have just finished 'Proposal in Venice', and am halfway to finishing Tug in Khalkis. More about that one soon. Thanks for reading, I'll be sharing more shortly, under sail!