Friday September 30: Taking Advantage of the Shade

After we tried spending a leisure morning in Birmingham (housekeeping knocked 3 times apparently to see if we were up yet - which neither of us were - until I stumbled to the door and probably not very nicely indicated that we were still sleeping) we just gave up and got up.

Yes, I know - we should have put the do not disturb sign up ....

Regardless, we found a Waffle House for breakfast. Bonus - there was a nice grocery store for Steve and a place for me to get a haircut.

Arrived back to the boat by early afternoon.

After unpacking, returning the rental car and stopping at the hardware yet again for the bolts we needed to finish the flybridge, we declared it a day.

Early start Wednesday morning to complete attaching the pontoon furniture but again needed to go the hardware store yet again! No problem though as we combined the trip with a lunch stop at Kora's for the BEST catfish sandwich we have found anywhere - and this from a person who usually doesn't like catfish!

Sanding the railing.

Anyway the flybridge is finished!! And we gained a bit of space as well ... not sure what we'll use it for.

Thursday it was time to tackle the rest of the teak Steve wanted to refinish while we could take advantage of being in a covered slip.

Sanding of piece of the hatband.

He started by sanding the remaining 1/4 of the walkaround railing.

Next was to remove the "hatband" which is the teak trim around the bottom of the flybridge A zillion screws but way easier and faster than sanding and painting while on the boat.

Hatband is off!

Once off of the boat, these  curved pieces become much more manageable.

Today it was time to continue painting - the third coat on half of the railing, second coat on 1/4 of the railing, first coat on the other 1/4.

Plus the first coat on the hatband pieces.

Note: Steve did all of the sanding but he had some help with the painting .....

The Plan: over the next 2 - 3 days finish everything else  we want done and then continue traveling the 217 miles to Mobile on the Gulf of Mexico. We'll be anchoring out the four days on the way there with likely no internet :-(