We arrived in Culebra a few days before Christmas. We have had a good stay, but it is time to leave. We are eager with anticipation of the next several days. Our kids - Jessica and Craig - and their son ( our grandson) Lyric are coming to visit us for the first time since we have been on the boat.
In preparation for their visit and routine maintenance of the boat, we have been working on the teak. All the exterior has a minimum of 10 coats of varnish on it and all the interior has been oiled and hand rubbed. Most of the hull has been rubbed with a multi-step process before applying wax. The bottom is going to get cleaned prior to our sail to Puerto Rico. When we get to the marina in Fajardo, she is gonna get cleaned til she sparkles! She is gonna be so pretty!!
After the visit with our family, we are doing some major provisioning. As many of you recall, we canned a lot of meat before we left Key Largo - which is now all gone. We are going to do some more canning. These stores have been very helpful along the way.
We have also begun preparations to rework all the canvas on the boat - hard to believe ours is 3 1/2 years old! It is pretty threadbare in places. The fabric and notions are ordered and should arrive while we are at the marina. It is nice to be able to do the two things I love the most on our boat - maintaining the teak varnish and sewing. Now, I just have to figure out how to make a living doing these!!
Sometime soon, we have to start thinking about a haul-out. This means getting the boat out of the water to check hull and thru-hulls for integrity, sand and paint the bottom , and any other issues found in the process. We did this two years ago in Key Largo (wow, has it really been that long?). New coats of bottom paint will give us more speed and efficiency in the water and minimize the build up of sea critters on the bottom of the boat. This is generally a few days and it is called "on the hard" - as in ground. We power wash her off, block her up on stands and go to work. Something we are used to after owning two dive boats for those years. Only difference this time, is that it will just be me and Darrell - Capt. Al and the crew aren't here to help us! Hope we can muddle through - lol.
