Cleaning and painting

The jobs are being tackled and crossed off the list and each day brings additions to the list. Our early season boat life is all about getting things done. Those lists which you need but hate, have a life of their own! After a while I have a hard time remembering what we did each day so I’ll just summarize it all the best I can!

Tuesday was a job day in the morning only. Mark worked on the first process of our deck painting – a good washing. After that he retrieved our sun shade cover from our storage spot and also brought back the sawhorses and plywood to give us a nice table for the rest of our jobs. I finished the Semco treatment on the hand rails and the winch bases.

We had a lovely treat for lunch on Tuesday. We went to Woodpeckers (a very popular BBQ place close to us) with all our cruising friends at Reynolds! We had lunch with – Julia/Brad (Alizarin), Jane/Steve (Daydreams), Barb/John (Mojo) and Jackie/Tom (Soaring Eagles). The food was awesome – brisket, ribs, turkey, etc are just some of the meats available. This place is super popular with the working folks and it was very busy when we arrived at 12:30pm. It was so nice to relax with friends and have a great meal.

After we enjoyed our lunch with friends, we did a bit of shopping. Home Depot was one of our stops and we got all the necessary supplies for the deck painting. We also went to Costco to see what they had but mostly to buy a 1.75 litre bottle of my favourite bourbon – Woodford Reserve. Even with the exchange, this bottle is cheap!! A 750ml bottle of this bourbon in Canada is $54. This super-sized bottle was only $86 (Canadian)!! Crazy!

The trip back to the marina was very interesting. The BBQ place and all our shopping was on the east side of the St. John River. There is only one bridge close to us and that’s the way we always cross to the east side. This bridge is single lane and very busy during rush hour. We arrived at the left turn to the bridge around 3:30pm and found a huge line of traffic. We decided to drive about 25 miles south to Palatka to cross the river instead of waiting in the traffic. It took us about 1.5 hours to do this detour but it was worth the drive! And we got to see a part of Florida we hadn’t seen before!!

Today (Wednesday) was a very big day – we started the deck painting!! It’s a huge job but boy will it make our boat look amazing!! It took most of the morning to prep for painting the primer. While Mark washed the aft deck (on the port – left side), I painted our new anchor chain to mark the footage in 25ft increments. As the aft deck was drying, we taped the bow. After lunch we did the primer on the bow and the aft port side deck. It already looks amazing!!! It will take 2 days to do the 2 coats of colour. We’ve decided to break the deck up into zones so we can still move around. As the deck is drying, we can work on all the interior jobs!!

Today we ended our day with a fantastic happy hour with Jane and Steve and Julia and Brad! What a great way to end the day!!