New Projects

Oyster Creek Marina, Saint Augustine
N 29 53.17 W 081 19.27

Well, yesterday morning at 0400 Pete left to return home. He rode to the airport on the St Augustine Jacksonville Airport Express bus. We had a great time hen you were here Pete. You are welcome to sail with us any time.

There is not much to do here while waiting for our packages, so we started some projects. Yesterday, I refinished the tiller. Today I started work on refinishing the boomkin.

I encountered some dry rot under the mounts for the stern pulpit. Rot is worrisome. I cleaned it out, and sanded the best I could. I also bought some penetrating epoxy at West Marine and treated those areas to prevent further rot. Despite all that, I must think about replacing the boomkin and bowsprit wooden parts. Bud Taplin told me that the price of stainless steel went sky high this year. We have quite enough expensive projects for this year thank you. We may have to settle for wooden
replacements. Does anyone else have experience with this?

Meanwhile, Libby repainted the top deck, starboard side. This is the third time in less than a year that we repainted the desk. The first paint job didn't stick. It began peeling off right away. It was no doubt our fault because of insufficient surface preparation. The second time, we sanded the deck well before painting. However I bought some urethane floor and deck paint at Home Depot, thinking that it would be suitable. This paint stuck well, but it seemed to show all dirt and oil
as stains on the surface. It looked terrible. This time, we're overpainting the Home Depot paint with some Interlux Topsider paint that we hope has better properties.

Good news. This afternoon, we received the new part for the toilet. I hadn't expected it until tomorrow. I promptly reassembled the toilet. It works again, hopefully for a long time without further maintenance. That's crippling to be without a head.

More good news. I got my main computer back. It isn't repaired, thought. The repair company said, "Claim rejected - liquid damage." I don't agree with them, but how does one prove it? The next time I'm offered to purchase an extended warranty on a purchased item, I'll be more skeptical. It is too easy for them to reject claims on false pretenses. For the sake of a few hundred dollars, you can't afford to fight them or to hire a lawyer. I'll use the computer as is for a while. I prefer
the Averatec computer over the Acer computer. It is a better (albeit less reliable) . The vertical line on the screen isn't crippling. One day though, I'll try to take it apart and spray the ribbon connectors with corrosion block. That might repair it.

We could leave tomorrow, but now we're in the middle of paint projects. We'll probably stay tomorrow and leave Friday morning. I don't know yet what weather to expect.