Ever been at a grocery store and seen “Italian Seasoning” or “Asian Spice” and wondered what an “American” item might be in a foreign country?
Wonder no more!
At a local grocery store in the Azores they sell “American Style” cookies! To be honest, they were delicious.
What are they? Really thick chocolate chip cookies! They were delicious and greatly appreciated.
The Azores were created by volcanic activity, rising from the floor of the ocean in a mountain of fire!
Humans don’t exactly thrive on cliffs, so they carved stairs into the sides of these cliffs. What are these stairs leading to? An excellent fishing spot!
The tall cliffs of these islands mean that the waters edge can lead right up to very deep water. Fish will frequently run along the edge of the land in the very deep water and are easily hooked by landslide fishermen. Yes, right up against the shore you can experience water that is well over 100 feet deep! Deep water fishing at the bottom of a staircase.
That is the splendor of the stairs in the Azores. They could lead to an abandon fort, a great fishing hole, or a beautiful lookout.
Off the south coast of Terceira, exists a small pair of islets affectionately dubbed “Split Rock” for obvious reasons. The real name of the islands is Goat island, but Split Rock sells better to the tourists.
When we sailed into Angra do Heroísmo, we saw Split Rock in the distance, but we never got a view as magnificent as this!
On the south side of the island are these incredible lava formations which create a natural swimming pool. At high tide, the waves feed fresh water and nutrients to these small pools, and at low tide, these pools warm up.
Even more amazing are the incredible worlds of life inside the pools. Plants, fish, and all sorts of life that has washed into these pools live out their lives isolated from the ocean across the rock.
It is very interesting to look at the fish in these pools. They live out their entire lives in these pools completely unaware of the universe of the ocean right next to them. So close yet so removed from the world beyond them. It makes me think about our lives. Incredible adventure might exist just beyond what we think of as our “world” and yet completely out of mind. We do not know about it and we do not see it, yet we could just reach out and enter this amazing realm.
Just the same applies with our boat in the harbor. We exist and live out our time in a protected pool just across from the ocean beyond the breakwater. When we finally leave the Azores for Porto, Portugal, we will slip out of our “pool” and out into the great ocean beyond. We will be the fish that leave the pool while the other fish who remain will wonder what ever came of us. The only difference between the fish and us is we have the power of the internet.
We are able to keep in touch with the fish who remain in the pool and let the know about the wonders that exist beyond the stone wall.
With the construction of the new head completed, we are finally able to convert the head from a rainbow of colors from all the different materials used to a single monochromatic creation on serenity. White walls, white floor, white everything.
on the side of the shower that has the shower head, I painted a layer of epoxy just to make sure that the shower water doesn’t work it’s way into the wood.
On the other side, I did not because the shower water isn’t as intensely spraying onto it’s surface.
What paint am I using? Why am I not using primer?
I’m painting the entire head with bilgekote from Interlux. I don’t use primer under bilgekote because I find that it works just fine when painted onto a bare surface.
Bilges are wet and so are showers, so it makes sense to paint the entire shower with it. Right?
In a few years, we will all know for sure. In the mean time, I’m going on a hunch that I feel will work out in the end!
The rough fitting of the wood is competed, now it is time to make everything fit better and more smoothly.
The walls and lower cabinet are competed but the cabinet above the sink is still awaiting construction.
I trimmed the top of the table to make the countertop fit better in there and also rounded all the corners of the wood. Nothing is more dangerous in a boat than a sharp corner! Having a rounded edge means that if you bump into the wood while underway, you won’t stab yourself!
The fiddleblock for the shelf was an inspiration from Maddie. She wanted it to “swoop out of nothing” and then I set a random diagonal offcut on the shelf. Maddie was walking by the head and loved the look of the diagonal piece of wood!
The fiddleblock was then cut out of Cryptomeria and fastened to the edge of the shelf. I made sure that the blonde parts of the wood met up at the edge of the shelf so that the fiddleblock would then “emerge” from the blonde and return to the red look of the rest of the head.
