Vibration White Finger.

I can’t believe I’m about to write this. It’s the last night of the needle hire and the forward accommodation is done. The engine room is done. The stuff on deck is done enough. The bosun’s store and trim are not done. I’ve done it, even though it’s September.
My hands and arms really hurt. The muscles in my forearms and back are singing to me and I may has well have whacked my palms, elbows and brain repeatedly with a hammer. But I did it.
Amazingly my grand attack plan for needlegunning has so far come to fruition and everything’s on target (whatever that is), phase one complete, the upshot of which is that after a massive dust off those areas can be painted. I am overjoyed in a mangled kind of way.

The weekend was not without it’s diversions, firstly my working capacity was considerably boosted by the graceful presence of our student couple, Supersam and Marianne, both of whom are into structural engineering and seemed happy to chuck power tools around on deck all day- in fact Sam’s always been weirdly into the boat. They both did some great work on the bollards and forward superstructure, and Sam turned our cranky old anchor winch into a clean lined working item again. Nice one!
Cleverly I’d decided against purchasing more pink diesel, figuring we’d have enough- but obviously we ended up eventually running the compressor right down to the last puddle of fuel. Before that; this morning the damn thing wouldn’t start. Properly would not start, and umpteen tries it took to get the sodding engine to run for longer than twenty seconds. I got a bit sweated with anxiety for a little while. So the equipment that I’m returning might be a wee bit ill, oh dear.

By the end of today I had royally had enough of needle guns. By lunchtime I found myself in full attack thinking no more than ‘aaarghh goddd make it stopp’. They say that the human mind has no memory of pain and they’re wrong. I shan’t forget feeling so sick to the teeth of physical torment for a long long while.
Right. Me for a long hot bath and a lie down in a darkened room.