Yesterday (August 15), our friend lent us a pressure washer so we could clean the boat. It washed away the moss and dirt that brushes couldn’t remove. And wow.. I could literally see the boat transform before my eyes! The yellow stains on the deck were simply blasted away by the jet! And the wooden parts, which had turned grey, became bright and clean (although a little worn — but that's not a big deal, we'll have to replace them anyway). We also washed the cockpit and cleaned the scuppers. So the outside cleaning is finished, and now it's time to go inside! I can't wait to see Eliefrood clean 😁

It all started with washing the cockpit. Me and my dad raked it out, I collected all the trash, and we started pouring water… but it didn’t go away - the scuppers were clogged. First, I tried rinsing them with a hose, but it didn’t help! So we climbed inside and found hoses attached to the scuppers. The thing is, the scupper system looked like a tree. It was a bundle of two hoses. One was attached to a scupper on the deck and went straight out to sea. Attached to this large hose was another small one, which led to the scupper in the cockpit. The whole bunch of scuppers worked well; water passed between them. But the exit to the sea itself was clogged. I tried flushing it with water pressure, but in the end, the small hose from the cockpit scupper just burst. It all ended with the fact that while dad was studying what was going on there, I was dismantling the bulkhead between the aft cabin and the space where this system was located (because it was blocking the view and there was no way to clean the system). We attached the hose from the scupper in the cockpit back. And then, Dad decided to crawl up from the other side. Instead of pushing the mud through like a cork in a hose, he leaned over the side and started poking at the exit with a piece of old wire. The dirt has come out, but not all of it, so we will continue tomorrow. (And it also looked pretty funny. Dad overboard, and I holding his legs so he wouldn't fall) That's all the updates for now. Work is in full swing! Lots of mud, water and fun😁

It's done!.. Well, almost done. I've got the key from my boat! I want to call her Eliefrood. But for now, she's Sepia. Yesterday we've started to clean her. I found A LOT of things. Really old things, right from the moment she was built. There are documents. Manuals (GPS and engine - Volvo Penta). I also found a book to learn how to tie knots. AND! Kind of cool detail! There was a journal called "Optima 92-98". A little "guide" for this boat. There I saw some photos with this boat. There was also a photo with some orange mugs on her. And guess what? The same mugs were there, aboard! They had the same age as the boat and still were there!😁 Now, it's time for the next step: to find €2000 more until September 1st👀 So let's continue this journey! :)

I'm Vita. And I'm 15 years old. I don't really have much to tell, but here's what I do :) At first, I wasn’t ready for life on a boat. Well, I didn’t even know what it was like. And that’s no surprise. Imagine yourself as an 11-year-old child who’s lived their whole life in an apartment, with a spacious bed. And then suddenly, you’re thrown into a cramped space, constant rocking, and everything is always kind of wet… I remember how enthusiastically my dad spoke about the sea. “It’s not just a way of life, it’s a great teacher,” he used to say. He saw my life among the waves, while I, observing the not-so-comfortable conditions, just nodded hesitantly. “Well… Dad said so. So I guess it must be right 👀” Maybe that’s how the greatest relationships begin. With misunderstanding. You don’t yet realize what you have or what it might turn into. But later, I came to understand… And I’m sure I still have a lot more to realize :) I lived on a boat. Once I got used to that lifestyle, I didn’t see anything special about it. It was just how things were. And there was nothing else. Not that I needed anything else 😕 My mom already told this story in her post — the one about the mast falling. I was sitting inside, on the starboard side, eating pasta. Everything felt so calm, I wasn’t really thinking about anything. Just staring at the kitchen cabinet and chewing. Then suddenly I heard this loud creak and my dad shouting. I got scared and spilled my plate. I peeked outside — and there was half the mast in the water, and my parents trying to pull it out. Yeah, maybe it would’ve made more sense to cut all the ropes and drop it. But my dad was stubborn and wanted to save it. Not everything was lost yet. They were calling for help over the radio, but no one could hear us. Except for one boat… or rather, a yacht. A massive, giant yacht. Their dinghy was almost bigger than our whole boat 👀 You can read the full story in my mom’s post, so I won’t go into all the details. They towed us to Marmaris, where we lived for a while. It was a small tourist town. I went to a sailing school there. And overall, I was completely adapted to that life.