Surkha’s surpriseLa solpresa de Surkha

“She’s still floating” Jax said, when we parked the car in front of Surkha yesterday morning. We had driven most of the night, thanks to Martels’s words which kept us awake, and seeing our boat was all we wanted. We walked towards Surkha and hopped into the cockpit. The outside looked very clean, but we could see black mold all around the hatch, ” hopefully this is not a preview of what we’ll see inside” I said. We opened her up and an earthy smell came flying out. Yes, indeed our boat was covered with a dark mold. We looked at each other and said “We expected bad and I think that’s what we have, time to start working”.

Surkha, was only meant to stay in the water alone for a month, our decision to stay in Ecuador meant that she was left floating for 7 months without the proper preparation. We looked around the cabin and saw that the moldyist thing we had, were the “carpeted” walls our boat came with, these were later torn out.

We dropped off the car, picked up some cleaning supplies and started to work on Surkha at around 10:00am. We took EVERYTHING out – because it all had to be washed. The scene reminded me of when we first got her. Some food was lost, luckily the glass jar protected most of it, and some clothes were lost to really bad mold stains. Other than that, it was all cleanable. Inside, we found spiders, lots little larvae and a wasp nest equipped with its owners – they were cleaned too.

At around 11:00pm we ready to hit the sack, so we lay clean sheets in each one of the settees in the main cabin and for the first time in boat history, we slept apart. Today I am glad to see the day is cloudy, yesterday the sun was out all day and it would be fair to say that we both sweated our bodies weight working. After Jax wakes we will continue to work, focusing on the engine and interiors a little bit more. We hope we can make it out by tomorrow, we’ll see.

“Esta flotando” dijo Jaxon cuando parqueamos al frente de Surkha. Habíamos manejado toda la noche, gracias a las palabras de Martel que no nos mantuvieron bastante despiertos, ver el barco es lo único que queríamos. De un salto estábamos en Surkha, todo se veía bastante limpio con una excepción, la puerta a la cabina estaba cubierta de un hongo negro. “Ojalá esto no sea lo que nos espera adentro” dije yo, con un tono preocupada. Abrimos la compuerta y un olor a tierra inundo nuestras narices, efectivamente nuestro barco estaba cubierto de un hongo negro, especial mente las paredes originales que son de un material de como alfombra, las misma que terminaron en la basura un poco mas tarde.

Se suponía que Surkha solo iba a quedar en este muelle por 1 mes, pero nuestra decisión de quedarnos en Ecuador, significo que 6 meses extras pasaron. 

Decidimos ir a dejar el carro, comprar mas instrumentos de limpieza y comenzar con nuestro trabajo a las 10:00 de la mañana. Sacamos TODO, lo cual me hizo acuerdo a cuando compramos el barco. Aparte de un poco de comida y ropa que se perdió a unos bichitos y hongo, todo se pudo lavar. Además, de unos bichitos que invadieron nuestra comida, encontramos muchas arañas y un nido de avispas adentro de Surkha.

Tipo 11:00 de la noche estábamos listos para meternos en la cama. Pusimos sabanas limpias en los settees de la cabina principal y por primera vez en nuestra historia como marineros, dormimos separados. 

Al contrario de ayer, me alegra ver hoy el día se ve nublado. Una vez que Jaxon despierte, comenzaremos a trabajar otra vez. Hoy nos enfocaremos en el motor, la parte eléctrica y un poco mas a en la cabina.