For those of you that may think owning a yacht is a life full of glamour, let me tell you I'm still waiting to see that chapter. As for now seems like I have a love affair with cleaning brushes and other similar tools.
John got the nice part of the deal despite the many hours of flight just for a weekend looking at the yacht and enjoying the sea trial!
As for me, I got a week of cleaning on dry dock.
Can't say didn't have enough exercise climbing the ladder a million times to get all the things I forgot, or thought I did but actually didn't.
The list of chores for the week:
Do an inventory of all safety gear on board and other movable items. ✅
Remove all seat cushions and mattress covers, for washing at mums house ❌ (everything was quite clean so got to skip this one).
Deep clean of heads (the most hated cleaning job. Can anyone imagine doing it without running water??). ✅
Clean all lockers and hatches (as deep as possible). ✅
General cleaning of salon and cabins ✅
Placing dehumidifier boxes etc in all lockers ❌ (not needed, The Dream was dry as I could only wish).
Repair attempt of the zippers in the Bimini ✅ and then during our Shakedown Sail I found out that I need to do a similar job on the dodger.
Clean the teak (outdoor) with salt water to avoid fungus and mould ❌ our spot in the boatyard is quite far from the water and the sea level is quite low so I skipped this one until we splash for good).
Apply oil to cockpit table with linseed oil ❌ (that's a Johns job)
Bomb the entire boat with insect killer ✅✅ (there will be no living soul on that boat for a long time after, all was vacuumed, cleaned with a vinegar solution and sprayed with lots and lots of insect killer).
I didn't manage to complete all tasks but got a really nice feel of what our future home will be. I had a huge hand from my mum.
It wasn't all just work, we also had truly enjoyable moments having picnics up on the deck while watching Team AkzoNobel from Volvo Ocean Race 2017/18 do their sea trials right in front of our boatyard. After all, the VOC boatyard in Lisbon is right next "door" from ours.