Baby, it's cold outside....

[Hilde's log]

As I write this, it is cold out there (well, for us) at about 40 with a nasty wind chill. We are still not aboard, which is the good news and the bad news. The bad news is just that we miss being on the boat, which is still under construction, so to speak. The good news is, we are much more comfortable than we would be at the marina. It is not fun to walk to the cars, or to the outside (!) laundry, or to the bath house in cold weather. Not only is it a bit of a hike from our new slip, but we also have to walk past the open water of the Kemah channel, and when the wind blows it's some kind of freezing out there.

December was pretty much of a loss as far as the boat goes. We were both flattened for three weeks with the Great Gulf Coast Plague of 2016. Mine devolved into pneumonia! We are both fine now, but neither of us had any energy for doing anything but being sick for most of the month. The last week we traveled for Christmas and had a wonderful time, but again, not much time for the boat.

Before I was felled by the Plague, I did manage to finish the v-berth and the head. Since I took the photos below, we have put the cushions back in the berth and all doors are installed in the head. Such an improvement! The varnish is 90% finished below decks. I think I am down to a small door, a medium sized door, and two big doors. I'll post another photo when it's all done and liveable.

Before

After

Shiny new head, missing a door which has since been installed

Since we returned from our Christmas travels, David has been at full steam with the remaining repairs/upgrades. One of the huge upgrades is our new instrument array. David just built the new pedestal guard from scratch. Our old one was rusted in too many places and the new ones cost $200! So he built his own – check out the photo below (note the dark...he is working in the dark a lot right now). Next up is installing the new instruments and running wires hither and yon. 

David's new pedestal guard

The revised move-on date, hopefully the last one, is mid to late February. It usually warms up considerably here by that time and usually there is a lot more sun. Fingers crossed.

Behind, but movin' forward - New Digs

Raven in her new slip. David admiring the fine job he did stripping the toerail. We're getting there...

Mid-November and we're still in the 5^th wheel. Plans deferred are plans gone awry.

We somehow got sidetracked in October. Mostly we were just tired and wanted to do Something Else with our limited free time. So, we enjoyed the month and did do quite a bit on the boat, but not enough to get us back on board.

I have spent hours in the head, taping, painting, getting paint in my hair, wiping bits of paint off every conceivable surface, some of which weren't even in the head, removing paint from under the tape that was supposed to block the paint...Did I mention I really don't like to paint?? To add insult to injury, I think I did it wrong and I am anticipating the whole of the painted surface peeling off in my hand at the first scratch. Demoralizing, yes. But it does look nice, temporarily or not. Clean! The paint got rid of old stains, old yellowing, bits of mildew I couldn't reach, etc. If it stays put, I'm a happy woman. If not, gee, I just don't want to think about it. If you could stand in there with me, which you can't because there isn't enough floor space, we'd fill it up. But that tiny room took me about two weeks to finish.

So much for October. Now, with the time change, our time after work to do anything aboard is really, really limited.

On the positive side, we moved to a new marina. We'd been at Watergate Marina for eight years and had a really nice slip. We'd have stayed, had they allowed us to move back aboard. But they have instituted a new rule which decrees that your boat must be 40 feet long if you want to live aboard. So...36 feet is not long enough, and the fact that we have been there for 8 years and have been exemplary tenants makes not a whit of difference. Fine. I feel completely dissed.

They'll miss us now we're gone! Probably not. Bye bye.

In the long run, though, it was a blessing, as these things usually are. We have moved to PortoFino, right off the south side of the Kemah channel, and it has a completely different atmosphere. For one thing, the marina has mostly sailboats. For another, there is a lot of activity. We sat in the cockpit yesterday doing various tasks and watched a number of boats go in and out. We have a great view of the channel from the berm right in front of the boat. We met two very friendly couples who walked over to introduce themselves and welcome us to the neighborhood.

The new neighborhood. Kemah channel in the background. Raven's slip is off to the right and back about 30 feet.

Sitting out on the swing watching the Sunday night traffic, I felt my heart light within me. This is a good move. It sort of feels like the first step in setting off, in getting my life back again, in loving what I do. This is a good move.

View from the edge of the channel. Across the way there is Seabrook Marina. You can just see our slip, where we left on our first cruising adventure in April 2006. My fingernail tracks are still in the pier. :)

Eight months and counting - still at it.

[Hilde's Log]

I cannot understand how the days can pass so slowly and the weeks blink out of existence in a snap. It's already been a month since my last post. I'd hoped we'd be farther along by now, but we've been working on small things or intricate things, and they don't finish up very quickly.

I've been sanding and varnishing some trim in the galley (the engine cover, for example), sanding and varnishing the plate rack, spice holders, and paper towel holder in the galley, and sanding and varnishing locker doors. Each door and each holder takes 2-3 coats of varnish on each side, and you have to sand and varnish one side and let it dry before you can turn it over to do the other side. In addition, the spice racks have pretty little rounded vertical wooden decorations that were a real pain to do!

I did manage to finish one bulkhead wall in the v-berth, but it's the only thing I can do in that area until we clear out the cushions, etc. currently stowed in there to keep the mess out of the main cabin.

First let me show you the galley. It's 90% done and I'm so happy with it. Bright, shiny, and clean!

This is a closeup of the spice racks, the plate rack, and the paper towel holder. They look great against the new white paint!

View of the whole galley. So much brighter!

Next, a couple of shots of some of the doors, in process.

Here are a set of 6 doors laid out for sanding on our port settee workspace. The three on the right are done. David had the clever idea of using a length of rolled cardboard to protect the surface of the settee. Great idea - wish we'd come up with it a couple of months ago.

First coat of varnish on the back of each door. The gleam is irresistable.

The most wonderful thing David has done for me this month is make shelves for various lockers. I had some shelves in two of the lockers that he made years before, but they were plywood. The new ones are made out of starboard and look great! I didn't have shelves in my "bedroom closet". It was supposed to be a hanging locker, but the back wall curves with the hull, which means everything hanging in the closet was bunched up and wrinkled. So David's new shelves have transformed that locker from a fairly useless design into a great dressar.

 Nav station shelves for my kitchen gadgets.

My new bedroom "dressar" - with painting/work clothes tossed carelessly on the middle shelf.

Had to show off the bulkhead wall by the new dressar. As you can see, I haven't done the dressar itself. Looks horrible next to that glossy shine. It's strange - I'm not a big fan of glossy furniture in a house, but I love the gloss on the boat.











 





Here are my new shelves in the main cabin. Last trip, the canned goods went there. I'm not sure what will be in there this trip.









David has been dodging weather for his outside varnish work. The cockpit has 5 coats (one more to go) and the durade boxes (the boxes the cowls sit on top of - see first photo below) have 2 (at least 4 more to go, because they are always in the sun. We've had storm after storm, so it's been hard to get anything done.

The durade box/vent/cowl. Looks like an alien life form, doesn't it? This is a vent that lets fresh air into the boat. Yes, the cowl is definitely going to be painted.

The starboard side of the cockpit. Doesn't the varnish shine? You can see the difference between 2 coats (above, on the durade) and 5 coats here on the coaming.

Here is a winch block, all spiffed up. I've done this devil a couple of times (and there are two of them). My efforts never looked this good.



















David has also been working with our single side band radio. He has his ham radio license, so he's tuning in and figuring out frequencies. The radio intimidates me completely, being a push-button monster with its own logic. I need to get over myself and learn to use it. Eventually.

Cap'n Dave on the SSB

We got the portside rubrail repaired, a repair we've been needing to do for years. We hired that out! Good move.

This is the mend on the toerail. You can't really tell anything because it's such a good job! Before, the wood was cracked and the rubrail (the metal strip) was sticking out. Now we can varnish this bit, too. Oh, joy.

David has installed supports in the quarter-berth for the new shelves he will lay in there in a week or so. The quarterberth is our "garage" so the space needs to be easy access and and be able to hold a lot of stuff. 

This is the quarterberth, minus all the stuff usually stowed here. It runs along the starboard side of the hull, from behind the nav station to the stern of the boat. David's project is to make sturdy shelves for all the flotsam we carry here. You can see the two lengths of support rail (the pale wood strips) that will hold the top shelf. The electrics are also going to have to be moved.

 All of which is a long-winded way of saying - we're still at it.

She's starting to look good!

[Hilde's log]

Fewer than 9 months to go, and we are making good progress. For those of us who like to finish things, it can be pretty frustrating to have everything out all over the place all the time. We are forever hunting this or that thing that has disappeared into the mess. Yesterday I was far enough along to wash and replace items that go in the galley, and that lessened the chaos a bit. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Portside work station

Starboard settee holding area...also known as the Bermuda triangle

Passageway

The galley is being redone and is serving as a work station at the same time. In the first picture below, you can see the new white walls. They have really lightened the interior. I haven't yet sanded and varnished the dish/spice/paper towel holders yet. As a point of reference, the second photo below is one of the galley "before". The third picture below shows it in use, covered with various half-finished doors.

The NAV station is almost done. There are so many parts to it! On the left is the NAV station locker "before" - icky, that is. On the right is the locker after varnishing the outside and painting the interior bright blue. You can see the contrast in the unfinished area. David is going to re-install my shelves here. It's where I store my galley appliances, like my small crockpot. On the bottom go our work / sailing gloves. Strange bedfellows on a boat abound.

 

 

Below is part of the NAV station as it was being stripped. Now look below to see it all shiny with new varnish. Still have to clear out the shelves above and below that hold the radio, binoculars, boat horn, etc.

 

Above is a glimpse of the worst/best job - fixing up the head. That's the floor. The part that slants up has been painteed. The bottom with the grate has not. You can see what a difference the paint makes! I need to sand and refinish the grate, clean out under it, and then paint the rest of the floor. David did most of the head lockers (my arms aren't long enough to reach the back) as well as the main cabin locker and the v-berth locker. As you can imagine, the whole boat reeks of paint.

And we're also getting around to the trim on the outside! I use the royal "we" here - this is all David's doing. It took days of sanding to get the coaming clear of dirt, old varnish, stains, etc. This is two coats of Cetol clear (no color). Only 8 more to go. It's quite the challenge in this heat. He got it all ready and then had to wait a week for the random rain showers to disappear. Then it got so hot he could only put on the varnish in the morning after the dew had dried. Short time window. You can see the contrast with the toerail below.

I sincerely hope the next post will show everything DONE and us moved in. David says September 1. I'm more inclined to say October 1. I hope he is right.

On the hook at Beaufort, SC 12-15-07

[Hilde's log]

And what does one do on the hook in a strange harbor? Depends entirely on the day! Our first full day here, yesterday, was sunny and warm, so we took advantage of the weather to enjoy a walk along the waterfront and through the small downtown to stretch our legs and Schnitzel’s. We peeked into the shops lining the downtown, peered at a few gorgeously preserved Southern mansions, and sat on a bench watching a big traffic jam on the Lady Island Bridge. Then back to the boat. We knew bad weather was coming, so we decided to do some overdue work on deck while the temperatures were mild and the sun was out.

My first chore was to swab the deck with a bucket of water and a brush, dislodging the mud that trickles into the cracks and crannies from the anchor and chain whenever we drop anchor in a muddy spot. So far, I can count on one hand the number of anchorages that have not been muddy, so swabbing is a recurring sport. I even wiped off the deck with a wet rag, and it looked great until Schnitzel came trotting down the side to admire my efforts and left little doggy footprints everywhere.

Swabbing complete, I started in to strip teak. I began stripping teak the first week we were at the dock in New Bern, in October, 2006, and I’m still stripping it. I finished the port handrail, bowsprit, the “eyebrows” (the little strips of wood down the cabin roof over the portholes), and most of the port and starboard toe rails before winter showed up in 2006. In the month or so before we left November 30, I stripped the rest of the toe rails, the stern, and the cockpit combings. As I finish any area of wood, David follows along behind me with teak wash and brightener, and then once the wood is dry we brush on several coats of teak oil and sit back to admire the result. It’s beautiful!! It is my dearest wish never to strip another inch of wood, so let’s hope the teak oil stands up. So far, two weeks into the trip, it has done just fine.

I have no idea how to spell “combings” and neither does Microsoft – sailing words are often spelled completely differently from the way they sound, such as “gunwales” which is pronounced “gunnels”. So pronounce “combing” and you will know what the word is, if not how to spell it.

Yesterday I stripped the starboard handrail, and this morning, before the rain blew in, I stripped the sides of the sliding hatch pocket (the raised bit on the coach roof that the hatch slides into when you push it open). We are going to take a slip at the marina for the three days of forecast cold weather, having had quite enough of freezing our little tushies off at Pipeline Creek. We will have access to fresh water, so David can clean, brighten, and oil the teak I just stripped. When we’re done, we’ll have renewed all the wood but the winch blocks, the Dorade vent blocks, and the companionway.

While I was hacking away at the teak (I started out last year worrying so about the grain of the wood and was I pushing too hard, etc., and have ended up whacking at it and yelling “come OFF!” to the leprous old varnish), David was polishing the stanchions with Collinite, which is, hands down, the best stainless polish we have come across. Raven must feel as though she has been to the spa. The old girl looks like she’s just had a dye job and a manicure!

Chores done, we cleaned up (which is the thing you do after everything – get up, clean up, make tea, clean up, eat, clean up, do a chore, clean up…) and dinghied into shore with Schnitzel for the evening run and then enjoyed a couple of beers and a can of nuts while reading our latest Sue Grafton mystery to each other. Then dinner (clean up) and I am embarrassed to admit I was in bed at 8:30 p.m. Which is how I see all those sunrises.

And thus passes the day on the hook, for those of you who were wondering.