Diesel Delay 2 Days

I telephoned Colin this morning and he said that he planned to pick up the head today. He mentioned several jobs that he had to do and to call him tomorrow and he'd try to install the head in the afternoon. He sounded harried and a bit defensive.

I told him 'Look Colin, you are a one man band in big demand. I've got some time so do my job when you can.' He sounded relieved and told me that Thursday would be a better day for him, so we agreed that I would call him on Thursday, the day after tomorrow. He thanked me for being so understanding.

I've been faulted for being too ... er ... undemanding of contractors, and I have at times paid the price. One March I came to an agreement about quite a bit of canvas work for my boat. 'When do you need it?' she asked. 'There's plenty of time. I've got until Christmas.' 'You shouldn't have said that' she replied, and it took close to 12 months for her to finish the job. Another contractor who kept putting me off actually told me that he wanted me to hound and pester him.

But nagging and pestering and queue jumping and lying about when when I need something is against my nature because we are all supposed to be dealing as adults.

I planned to leave La Paz before the end of April, which is still 10 days ahead. I don't think that it will come to that but if by the middle of next week nothing has happened with the engine I'll have to start putting on the pressure citing the Central America hurricane zone that I must get through be preferably mid May but definitely the end of May.

In the meantime I have kept busy. I spent a full 8 hours yesterday in the hot sun replacing the netting on the port side. Removing the old netting took longer than I expected. I had a look down after I removed the net and it was scary, even though I have sailed this boat half way around the world. The foredeck is narrow, extremely curved, and the rails are low, only 2 ft high. In a rough sea way it would be very easy to either slip under a rail or fly over the top. The netting improves my chances because in rough conditions I work low - crawling and kneeling - and in the event of an incident would rely on the netting to hold me in long enough for me to grab something. And I don't know how many tools, hats, etc have been saved by that netting.

I am using proper nylon netting and dacron cord which I purchased at West Marine in San Diego in a rare exhibition of foresight.

Before putting on the new netting I tightened the rails with new cord, using spectra for the top one. Most of the time involved fitting the netting and threading the cord. Fitting isn't easy. If you simply thread the top of the netting nice and tight the bottom of the net will reach only half way to the deck. So one has to work with an interaction between the stretch of the upper and lower edges and the vertical stretch. Then there is the threading of meters of cord in and out of the loops. At the end of the day I had a net that maybe was not as neat as it could have been but was taught and strong.

It looks like today will be another day of low wind so I will replace the starboard net. I will wear long sleeves and put on plenty of sunblock as I did yesterday, and will also wear a hat.

The photos are of the old starboard netting where tears can be seen, and the new port netting.