Pertinacious

taken from: https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/pertinacious
pertinacious. If you won’t take no for an answer, you’re pertinacious. The same holds true if you stubbornly push on a door despite a sign that says “pull.” Pertinacious means unyielding or perversely persistent. We get pertinacious from the Latin pertinax, which combines per-, “thoroughly,” with tenax, “tenacious.”

This project has had many ups and downs. It has taken way longer than we ever anticipated. We expected to be sitting at anchor sipping drinks by now but we still have a lot of work to do before we are ready. To be completely honest there have been a couple of periods where we have simply lost interest. Akupara became more like an albatross than a dream. It has seemed like all we did for several years was work on her and write cheques, it has been downright depressing to say the least. We have had a few highs, the removal finally of those old stinking fuel tanks, even though the keel tank was the worst job an Akupara yet. When I finally installed the new electrical panel and had lights inside for the first time, when we installed the Cubic Mini Woodstove and had the first test fire! Those day were fun.
The biggest transformation and probably the most exciting has been the painting of Akupara’s hull! It took damn near 2 years but when it finally happened, my god, she is beautiful.
For the first time ever since owning Akupara, I had a small panic attack as we were removing the lifelines and a turnbuckle fell overboard dan near scratching the hull. That is a monumental step forward!!

So what has kept us going? Good question?
We have had many of these conversations over the last few days and we have now made it a priority to try to remember all of the reasons we started this project in an attempt to rekindle the fire! We have been talking about everything we enjoy, and everything we miss about sailing and generally being out on the water. With each new memory (things remembered) we can slowly feel the fire coming back.
It is of the utmost importance that now, especially now, we concentrate on all of the good things in order to make it through! If all goes well we have less than a year to finish her and get her in the water! It is just like running a marathon, you are tired, your feet hurt, your legs hurt, you are out of breath, you want to quit, but then you see that finish line and all of the negativity leaves and somehow you find the extra reserve of strength to push even harder!

Let’s hope we can find that last little bit! It’s time to get busy again!!

So are we pertinacious, or is there such a thing. Somehow I think that anyone who is described as such, consciously chooses to focus on the end results as opposed to the darkness and the hurdles that are immediately in front of them and I think they spend a lot of time forcing themselves to do so!

lifelines off
Hatches off
Admiral hard at work
Butyl tape, love it or hate it, but damn it works!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.