Sun March 6: More Work, More Play

It's been a nice week since we arrived here at Treasure Harbor. The artist's colony right across the road is quite interesting. It's the place with the giant lobster that is a memorable item in the Keys. Lots of fun stuff in the many booths/stores/workshops here. Steve particularly liked the scuba diving frog! Good thing there isn't room for him on the boat :-) Iguanasare quite plentiful here - and they are great camouflage artists! See if you can pick out the one in the tree in the first picture. He's circled in the second picture (you'll have to click on the picture twice to see the red circle around his head) if you can't find it. It was really a pretty big one. Apparently they are considered an invasive species in this area. I don't think that's a good thing. Work on the aft cabin is finally under way. The winds have been too strong to do any snorkeling or diving at Hens & Chicks reef so it's a perfect time to tackle this project that just requires time as much as anything. First step is to make a mess out of the entire boat by emptying the aft cabin into the main cabin. Next is Steve sanding all of the teak that is deemed salvageable (which means it isn't totally destroyed by water damage when the windows used to leak). Then two coats of Cetol (kind of like varnish but made for marine use) on this 'good' teak. What a difference in the bathroom door! Makes me wonder why it took us 5 years to tackle this project :-) Once the cetol is dry, the next step is to tape off any walls that will get wallpaper (to hide the ruined mahogany/teak). These areas are trimmed in paint which matches the wallpaper as I have found it much easier to do this before wallpapering rather than after. Makes the papering much easier if I have a bit of a cushion on the edges! Of course it hasn't been all work. Other than the wind, the weather has been perfect. Highs in the low 80's, breeze and sunny. A kayak break was in order for Steve but the report back was it was VERY windy and I would not have liked it. Nice to have a kayak scout aboard :-) There was also a road trip back to Marathon (about 40 miles) to pick up some engine parts we ordered and forgot to pick up at Banana Bay. Dan (on Ty and Bonnie's boat) was kind enough to drive us down so we had him over for dinner last night (Ty and Bonnie are out of town for a few days). Barbecue on the aft deck - perfect! Spotted on the way to breakfast this morning: a really colorful peacock. Too bad he didn't put on a show with his great feather tail. FYI: breakfast place was 4.5 miles away - yea - I made it there and back with no problem :-)!!!