Thursday September 22: San Diego!!

Sunday morning we headed off to Tuscaloosa for breakfast at a Waffle House and then found the Home Depot we needed.

Seems the new flybridge furniture was not designed to be free-standing. Who knew?! Didn't say that on the web-site and the old stuff didn't need to be supported by anything so we thought about how we were going to do that since the L shape was definitely not going to be supported along one of the sides.

After throwing out several ideas, we decided using 3/4 inch plywood inside and outside would do the trick.

Fortunately Home Depot will cut an 8 x 4 sheet of plywood into whatever pieces we needed! Especially good since the rental car ($35 for Friday - Monday - can't beat the price :-)) could no way haul a full sheet of plywood but easily held the cut pieces.


First paint the plywood with a sealer to keep the water out then cover it with vinyl to give it a finished look.

Steve works on the inside with the small 14" x 9" pieces of plywood that are being bolted to the large piece on the outside as I line up the bolt holes from the outside.

End result is a nice support for the back of the L shaped furniture.


The table needed to be relocated so those holes are drilled. To keep water from getting to the wood that is in the floor, we filled the holes with Git-Rot.

It's great stuff that is essentially a two part epoxy that cures slowly so it can be absorbed by the wood - thus sealing the wood off should any water get past the caulking we'll use for the screws.

I expect this furniture to last another 10 years!!

This project will be put on hold until we return from our trip to San Diego!

Off to Birmingham to the airport. It's a 2 hour drive so we went up on Tuesday for our Wednesday morning flight and relaxed a bit at the airport. Better early than late, right?


There was the neatest wall of growing plants at the airport. Never saw anything like it before. It was stone with built in vase like holders for the plants. Not sure how all of the plants get their water though. Fun design!

We were headed to San Diego to be a part of the cheering team for Matt as he was going to compete in the Ironman 70.3 Superfrog race on Sunday. Becky would drive down from LA to join us for the weekend - sounds like a party!

But first a surprise!! Craig and Karen from Rahn de Vous - we met them on the Trent Canal in Canada - had told us they would drive down from San Juan Capistrano and spend the night.

I had given them the info on where we were staying but imagine our surprise when we opened the door to our Airbnb place and there they were!!

With Manhattan mix, snacks and best of all Bada Bing cherries :-) What friends :-) It had been a long day ....

Thursday morning we headed up to the Hotel Del Coronado. Built in 1888, it is totally made of wood and quite unique. Very interesting place. For more info,click here.

The Crown Room

After walking around the hotel a bit, we parted ways - they were headed north home and we headed south back to the place we are staying.



We'll see Craig and Karen in November when we're back out this way to see Becky.

Plus their boat is in New York for the winter - maybe we'll cross paths with them in Guppy!

The Hotel del Coronado

Meantime, Matt and Wendy arrive today and Becky on Saturday!