This past weekend brought the cool north wind into Green Cove Springs, just when we needed the warmer temp for painting. The weather has definitely slowed our progress on the painting job but it hasn’t stopped us completely.
Saturday we spent the morning prepping the forward deck and the starboard side (right side) aft deck for painting. Prep includes washing with Pinesol and then a second wash with a cleaner called “tsp” which is a degreaser. Once the deck has thoroughly dried, we tape all the areas that need protection from the paint. The taping is a very tedious job but also super important. You don’t want to rush the taping or you’ll not be happy with the end result!
On Saturday afternoon Ralph Miller stopped by to give us some advice. We first met Ralph about 2 years ago when we needed a new survey of our boat done for insurance purposes. Ralph did an awesome job with the survey and also gave Mark some pointers on items that should be repaired or replaced. Since this survey, Mark has asked Ralph for recommendations and other help. This time Ralph was helping us with a leak we have on the port (left) side. This leak has troubled us for a few years now and we just can’t pin down the source. We see the end result of this leak with water in our galley. It took about 1.5 hours for Mark and Ralph to look over the possible leak sites and now Mark has some strategies for dealing with it.
We were lucky enough to end our Saturday with a happy hour on Jane and Steve’s boat, Daydreams II. Julia and Brad also joined us and we had a lovely evening chatting and eating some yummy food.
We woke on Sunday to a cold, damp day. It was overcast and not warm enough to paint so Mark moved on to a few other jobs. He worked a bit on the windlass (the device at the bow that lowers and hoists the anchor) and made a plan for the chain locker. He also got the binnacle (the structure in the cockpit that holds instruments and the wheel) all ready for painting. I spent the day helping Mark with the binnacle but mostly I worked on a crochet project!
Today (Monday) the weather warmed up enough in the morning for us to get the first coat of primer down! It’s so great to see even more of the boat covered. It looks brand new!! It took a couple of hours to do all the areas this morning, including the binnacle in the cockpit. Once we were done, we drove into St. Augustine for lunch and to do a bit of shopping for boat items! There’s always a list of parts and products needed for all these jobs!
Crimson Kathryn and her crew 