Tuesday December 25: Merry Christmas!

We left Yesterday's Dream last Monday decorated for the holidays and flew to San Diego to spend Christmas with our daughters and son-in-law.


Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Linda, Steve, Wendy, Matt, Rebecca, Trevi and London

Leaving today for a visit to Ohio and in a week gratefully returning to the warmth of the Florida Keys :-)

Thursday December 13: Teak Repair 101

Surgery last Friday went very well. Thursday we had driven to a hotel 15 minutes from the clinic since I was to be at the outpatient desk at 7 am to check in. Definitely better than leaving Marathon at 4 am to make the 3 hour drive to the clinic!

The wait for the surgery etc. was longer than we thought it would be but we were still back to the boat by 5 pm.

It was very nice to be welcomed home with flowers and chocolates - thanks to Sharon on Stevedore. She is always so thoughtful :-)

The work has stopped for me for the time being but Steve continues.

Before we drove north Steve decided the headlights on the cruiser needed attention. Seems that we rarely drive at night down here so old yellowed headlights are not a big deal.   

 But if we were held up with my surgery and ended up needing to come back after dark it would not have been pretty!


So he bought a kit to restore the plastic. 4 steps to polish and clean using the drill. It actually worked great! Now if someone would just wash that car :-)

Talk about that good feeling you get when a dramatic change happens that is so visible!

On to the next job: fix the last remaining damage from Hurricane Irma. There was just one more rather small chunk out of the gunnel teak that just didn't get done last year - definitely very low on the priority list compared to the whole front port railing being gone!

Steve has learned a LOT about how to fix this kind of damage from Randy on Love You More. He and Cindy are still up in the frozen tundras of Ontario but they will be headed this way before too long. Randy will be impressed with how well his student Steve had done :-)

Use jig saw to remove bad piece

Step 1: Use the multi tool saw to remove the damaged area

Fill seam with epoxy and sawdust mixture.

Step 2: Screw the new wood on and fill the seam with a mixture of slow cure epoxy and sawdust.

Sand smooth. Repeat.

Step 3: sand smooth. Fill and repeat until it looks great!!

In the meantime Sharon has been working away with the final sanding of the gunnel teak and Steve has taped the wood off - getting ready for the final step: multiple layers of the cetol finish!!

This will have to wait for the weather to get a bit warmer though.

It's been unseasonably cool for the last few days with strong north-west winds. Of course when I say cool, I use the term loosely as cool means it was in the 60's :-)

Gary, Karen, Linda, Sharon and Stephen

But it was cold enough to force docktails to take place on the flybridge - with a small heater to add a little warmth to cut those north winds!

Steve and Skip.

Sure am happy that the last thing Steve 'made' me construct in the basement of our house were the pieces for the flybridge plastic!







Natalie joined us as well :-)

Wednesday December 5: Happy Birthday!

Today is Steve's birthday! There will be a celebration dinner tonight but right now it's docktail time so he's up on the flybridge putting the plastic enclosure up.

It's quite windy and cool (can you say jeans?) but then it's going to be like this for the next week so might as well have someplace to hide from the wind :-)

This past week has again been one of mostly working on the teak and a couple of other projects.

Sharon with heat gun and scraper.

       Once the teak has been sanded, it's time for the Cetol to be put on. Three coats so far on the port railings - maybe more to come. Sharon says she puts 6 coats on so maybe that's what we'll (translate: Steve) will do. The teak on Stevedore always looked good!

Sharon has been back and working like a lady possessed. I just don't understand how it can be that much fun as she terms it. I mean I get that the results of your work are so visible but still .....

Maybe some day I will long for that sense of accomplishment but in the meantime? Welcome aboard, Sharon :-)






Another major project started was the repair of a soft spot in the walk around deck. Something else that was done 10 years ago!

Steve working on covering the
decks in 2008.

The original teak decks on the boat were so sanded down and leaking beyond repair that we decided to simply cover the decks with plywood and fiberglass.

It had worked well but at some point water was able to make it's way into the plywood with the result being a few soft areas in the deck. One spot in particular needed to be repaired.

First step then was to grind and cut the fiberglass and rotted plywood. Next seal the cut edges with JB Waterweld to seal the cut edges of the plywood.

Since this is a work in progress, we'll update when the next step in the process (fiberglassing) begins. Maybe next week!

Meanwhile the bases of the stools in the cabin were showing the effects of the saltwater environment - very rusty.

Solution? Clean with steel wool and spray paint.

Like new :-)

And if that wasn't enough, I finally finished all of the new screens for the windows and Steve put on the snaps.

He did a nice job fitting the covers so there weren't any sags or wrinkles in the finished product!



They look so much better :-)

And Sharon continues working her way around the boat - now at the sanding phase. The first phase was to use a heat gun and scraper to remove the old finish.

But it's not all work and no play! Steve was able to go out fishing two days this week!

It always depends on the winds as to whether or not he goes. If it's less than 5 mph - off he goes. For the next week and a half there will be no fishing as the winds will be over 10 mph.

Go when you can is what I say - work on the boat will wait :-)
     

Pretty good two days of fishing although he couldn't fish in his favorite spot because of the shark again.

Talk about a freeloader! It waits until the fish is hooked - then the shark can easily catch and eat it :-)







So tomorrow the Clinic will call and let me know when to be there for my thumb surgery. Hopefully I'm scheduled early in the day on Friday - we can go up on Thursday, go to a show and spend an enjoyable night at a hotel near the Clinic.

Monday November 26: Nice Weather

The weather has been crazy nice for the past week - enough so that Steve, and his fun little engine that runs so well, have been out dinghy fishing under the bridge 3 times.

And he's out again today! By himself today but Flint and Bill have accompanied him other days.

Lots of fish being caught - just not always the kind being sought!

Yesterday there was a quite large shark picking off many of the fish he or Flint had on the line.


Flint suggested that perhaps Steve needed a larger dinghy when he caught a glimpse of the shark! No worries though as it just wants their fish!

In the meantime the manatee have really been in the harbor. Several with "babies" that aren't all that small!

The young manatee will travel with mom for up to two years before taking off on its own.

We always enjoy seeing them visit.

Old screening.

New screening.

Much of my time lately has been spent making the new screens for the windows.

The old ones work fine but just don't clean up anymore after 10 years of being up almost all of the time. So much better!

New on the left, old on the right.

Since the screening is made from pvc I thought that a spray paint for plastic might be a solution so I tried that last winter on the two large windows port side.

That seemed to sort of work but just didn't hold up.

Check out the new screening on the left window vs the old screening on the right window. No contest :-)

So I continue to get the screens made ASAP. We visited my hand surgeon and set the date of Friday Dec 7 for him to fuse my right thumb - which means 2 months of a cast or splint. So my deadline for the screens have been set! Somehow I didn't expect the surgery to happen so fast but it is definitely the sooner the better :-)

Old runner - 18 years old!

New runner - here's to another 18 years!

I've also been shopping on the internet!

Finally, I was able to convince Steve that it really was time to replace the runner that was in our last home for 9 years and on this boat for another 9 years.

It held up amazingly well and of course the history of buying it made for nice memories. Guess it's finally time though to make new memories with the new runner, right?

It wasn't the first runner I ordered though. The first one was the wrong length! The length I ordered was what we received - oops. A slip of the 'order now' button :-)


We decided to just trim it a bit and use it in the aft cabin.

It was a win all around :-)

Nicer than getting up on the bare wood floor!!

I had also wanted to replace the shower curtain for the past 3 years or so .... Finally did that as well. Do you know how many shower curtains there are available on the internet?

Kind of crazy. But I am quite happy with the result of the change to white rather than a dark blue. Not sure what I was thinking when I picked that one out - again 9 years ago (at least).





Thanksgiving was very low keyed around here this year.

Steve baked a couple of cornish hens. Worked great and it was all in all a good day - and we do have so much to be thankful for .....






Steve's back from fishing - I will make my usual contribution by cleaning the yellowtail snappers he caught.

The shark was back and eating but Steve managed to get these three into the boat :-)

I see fish on the list for dinner tonight .....

Sunday November 18: Enjoying Being Back

We have been here at Banana Bay for just over a week now and are really enjoying being here. A number of the 'regulars' are back and it's enjoyable catching back up with everyone.

And as always we're still catching up getting the boat up to snuff.

The washing machine didn't like sitting for 7 months either and finally gave it up. It was having timer issues at the end of last season but we had a workaround so never took the time to replace the in theory working used timing unit we bought last Feb.

I was feeling particularly ambitious one morning and decided to swap out the old timer with the new.

The biggest challenge? Work with the main control wires - 16 wires that had to be removed all at the same time and put back on the new control in the same position.

But with a box of different magic markers and good notes along with many pictures, it was successful!!!




Sadly though the 'new' timer didn't work any better and actually was worse than the old one. So unfortunate.

Well, we installed the washer/dryer unit 10 years ago and it was used when we bought it so we didn't feel too bad about that.

Scott the dockmaster helped Steve get it out of the aft cabin. Only the top and the washer door had to be removed so not really too bad!

When we first moved to the boat and were constantly traveling it was great to have the unit; Now it's not such a big deal to do the laundry here at Banana Bay. Seriously not worth replacing at this point.

The manatee have been very active in the harbor since we arrived. Most days there will be one or more hanging around.

Manatee lying on it's back
to drink the dripping fresh water.

They come in for the fresh water which drips from a small leak in the faucet just in front of our boat.

The one left is lying on it's back and letting the water drip into it's mouth. This particular manatee has been here in other years - it's tail with two cuts from a boat prop is kind of hard to miss.

It's rare to see a manatee that DOESN'T have some kind of scar from a boat - either on it's back or tail.


It just seems like it's been all work again but Steve did manage to make time for a kayak ride along the shoreline east of us.

Not a lot to see yet as the water is not terribly clear but we look for improvement as the winter goes on.

Painting the deck of the forward cabin.

Steve decided he wanted to finish up the last of the painting on the outside of the boat.

The top of both the forward and aft cabin decks needed to be painted and that will be the end of the painting.

The aft deck cabin - the end of the painting!

Both of these surfaces will be covered with Raptor. It's actually made for a truck bed liner but works great on these decks. Goes on relatively easy and holds up very well.




I keep thinking we must be finished but Steve keeps finding more things that need to be done! Seems like there would be an end to it at some point :-)

And of course most afternoons end with docktails.

This is Stephen from Stevedore - we thought our Ironman son-in-law Matt would enjoy Stephen's shirt :-)

I couldn't help but add the second line to the shirt!!




And finally it was time to get some bottom paint on our dinghy. Usually we just have it sitting out of the water on the swim platform but now we'll leave it in the water while we're here in Banana Bay.

It's way quicker for Steve to just jump in the dinghy and go rather than put the dinghy down and hoist the engine on when he wants to fishing.

And since he just bought a new Suzuki engine - he can't wait!!

Hopefully he'll be able to get out while grouper are still in season!!





In the meantime I finally have everything I need to start making the new shade covers for the boat.





The ones on are now 10 years old and are just not even cleaning up any more. Not bad for their age but easy to replace and relatively inexpensive when I do the sewing myself. I figure about a two week project - which means they will be done in a month :-)





Tomorrow we head to Ft Lauderdale to see my hand surgeon to hopefully schedule part 4 of the 4 part work on my hands: fuse the right thumb!!!