Paint and flies...

The weather is supposed to break and we will have rain at the weekend so I am trying to get the odd extra afternoon painting to complete the desk as soon as possible. I went down this afternoon with the intention of getting the second topcoat on the cockpit area.

Around the front of the mast is a sort of cowling with a flat sloping front. I had tried using a 'no-shed' mohair roller on all the flat pieces and found that no-shed meant 'doesn't shed after it has deposited all of the shedding hairs on the paint'. I couldn't help looking at it without thinking of Jacob's comment to Rebekah... no, not Jacob who helps with the boat, but in the Bible... he says 'My brother Esau is a hairy man...' Well, hairy man is OK, but hairy boat is not. So today, before starting the cockpit, I sanded down the cowl with 240 grit sandpaper and repainted.

It looked perfect.

Hmmm... in Arabic they have a phrase 'Only God is perfect'.

Then I started on the cockpit. The cockpit is fiddly and a pain, but it is looking nice now. I found that the cover for the sail locker had stuck and in unsticking a corner of the cover came away and will need re-fixing. Oh well... better now than on the high seas.

I had some paint left over so I went for'ard to paint the edge around the windlass locker. Then I noticed! It seemed like 250 flies had decided to make their coffin the cowl in front of the mast.

This photo was taken with the camera on my phone, so the very fact you can see all the flies is a testimony to how many there were. What I'm hoping is that when the paint has finally dried I will be able to very lightly re-sand it yet again and remove all their bodies. Hmmm... only God is perfect!