Livin' The Dream

It doesn't get any better than this. Ready to attack the barnacles.

At our last haulout, we had nothing growing on the bottom, so a pressure wash and scotch-brite scrub was all that was necessary to prep for the anti-fouling paint.

This time, we had barnacles on the bottom that had been scraped off by the yard guys when we got here last March..

The place where the barnacles grew to the boat had the remains of it's shell and glue, or whatever makes them stick so well. I was hoping that 10 months of dry Sonoran desert climate or searing summer heat would have loosened them up.  Wrong.  The entire bottom had to be sanded.

In Grenada I dry sanded and the dust was atrocious.  It went everywhere.  This year the plan was to wet sand so I made a dust shroud out of fiberglass, mounted a hose to one of the handles, and used wet sandpaper.  It was still a mess but at least I wasn't breathing the toxic dust.  After two full days of water spraying, paint flinging sanding and it was ready to paint.  I had two gallons left over from Honduras and we brought 3 new gallons when we drove here in May.
That gave 2 full coats and plenty of extra coverage at the waterline and other turbulent areas.

Booker's Birthday

We planned and had a bonfire down by the water for Booker's birthday. It was a Mexican Night Potluck. Go figure.

A boat recently came in with a family from Austria. The 2 boys, Noah and Jan, are 6 & 8 but the 8 year old's birthday is Feb 4 so we also made the birthday party for him.

 They left Austria 2 years ago.  They sailed the Northwest_Passage over the top of Canada and then spent last winter in Seward, Alaska.  They were the only boat in the marina.  The water was frozen around them and the snow was level with the deck.

They will be going to the South Pacific this year so we look forward to seeing much more of them.