We’re in the water, but the boatwork hasn’t stopped.

We’re now at the “finishing” stage though.  Not as in finished, but things like varnishing, oiling the teak, and other more cosmetic items.  Two days ago we sanded the rest of the rails.  Yesterday we bleached all the wood that has been sanded in prep for oil in the case of the cockpit where varnish is too slippery and varnish (cetol) in the case of the rails.   Today we taped the rails in prep for varnishing (hopefully-weather permitting) tomorrow and Ann put the first of three coats of oil on the cockpit.

Taping the wood in preparation for varnishing

Taped and ready for varnishing tomorrow.

Getting ready to oil the cockpit wood.

Oil really brings out the color of the teak and helps protect it from sun and saltwater

Before the oil...

...and after the oil. We'll put on two more coats over the next couple days.

All this work has made for one messy cabin. Can't wait to be done and able to put stuff back away.

I also forgot to mention the other day that once we drove around to our spot here in the marina, I had the engine shop come and pull the injectors for cleaning.  You’re supposed to have them cleaned around 1000 hours and Charisma’s engine has 2900 hours and to my knowledge they have never been cleaned.  Crossing fingers they are good since it can get expensive to repair them.

Since it’s Sunday, we quit a bit early and Ann’s gone for a hike with her girlfriends Ann and Lisa.  They have a five to six mile loop that goes up the river, into the hills and tops out above town with expansive views of Whangarei.  Also since it’s Sunday, Ann made a delicious breakfast with farmer’s market fresh eggs, bacon and artisan bread.  Yum, yum and yum!

The eggs are so fresh the yolks are almost orange.

That’s the sound of happiness!  It’s also what we say when our boat goes back into the water-as in; “We splashed today” after 21 days.  I can’t remember the last time I worked 21 days straight without a break.  Neither can Ann.

Yippeee!

It feels so good to be back in the water.  Charisma’s happy and we’re happy.  Nice to not have to climb the ladder-up and down 10, 15 times per day, wipe our dirty feet on a mat at the base of the ladder and several other not to be mentioned indignities of being “on the hard”.

So-did I say we launched this morning?  Here’s a few of the latest pics.

Here's our view from the last night. The crane was positioned Thursday night so we would be ready to go in first thing Friday morning.

All ready and the sun's coming up...

It's been fun (OK, not exactly) but this is a great yard and they have taken exceptional care of us. In case you can't read the crane; "Riverside Drive Marina" is the place to go. Just ask for; "Ray Roberts' place" and they will take care of you like family.

Like a dog when you pull out the leash to go for a walk. I swear she was ready to leap in the water herself.

All that's left of our spot is some red paint on the ground...

Yup, that's a happy (and highly polished) boat. She's floating much better on her lines with the new paint job at the boot top.

So, what now?  I spent the rest of the day almost finishing up the sanding.  Tomorrow I hope to bleach the raw wood (oxolic acid) so it’s all the same color then we start varnishing (cetol).  Taping and at least three coats on each side plus midships trim-probably seven days give or take depending on weather.

Then we’ll spend at least a week or two touring New Zealand by car before we start thinking about next steps on the cruising agenda.

Oh and did you hear we decided to elope to New Zealand?  Ann’s researching some spots where we might get married (we’ll have a reception back in the US in December some time).

So that’s today’s news from Kiwi-land.

Okay, I know that Bob is exhausted and so is telling me that people want to hear from me, but he deserves a break from blogging too, so here I am to tell you what life on the hard is like.  The good and the bad!

So where do I start?  Right here, right now.  We just came back from the Sunday evening barbecue with the folks from Riverside Drive Marina and those of us on the hard.  The folks from the marina are those that walk by and offer encouragement  all day long.  Very necessary.  The folks on the hard are thrilled to be doing something other than working on our boats.  And the food, everyone brings something to share, is spectacular.  I love a good pot luck!

We have just returned to Charisma, climbed the 12 stairs, 12 feet up to the boat and are gifted with a spectacular sunset on Whangarei River.  Every night it has been this gorgeous.  And the view of the river from 12 feet high is really stunning.  This is the good.

The ladder, approximately 12-15 times a day, ascent, descent, crap I forgot something, going back up….has been a great work out.  We needed it after enjoying our family and friends at home.  Seriously, who could resist Bob’s Mom’s cookies?  No one in their right mind.  So the ladder can be a plus. Just not  in the middle of the night when I need to pee.  So I have learned to hold it.  Bob can use a bottle.  Men, count yourself lucky!

The good thing about boat work is most often you can see progress.  And I think Charisma is smiling with the progress.  Lots of elbow grease has gone into the polishing and it is almost done.   Bob, although he has tougher jobs, has jobs that end.  A plus.  I am hopefully a day from completing the cleaning and waxing and on to the stainless polishing.

As we head to the restroom one last time at night we have to take down our grey water – the water that we have used through the day to lightly rinse things and can not just spill out the bottom of the boat like normal.  This is a pain but not impossible.  Recently we have had issues holding onto our toothbrushes as we descend and so that can be a problem too.  (You can imagine how thrilled I was when I managed to carry an entire plate of warm brownies down to dinner tonight without spilling them! Simple pleasures.)

Being on the hard puts us 10 minutes walk further from town.  I like to walk and this is a plus.  Since we can’t really use the refrigerator on the hard we keep very little in the ice box so I get to walk daily.  Actually today, Sunday, we gave ourselves a late start day.  Bob spent his relaxing; I spent mine hiking to Look Out point, an hour long steep hike up the hill behind us, with Lisa from Orcinius and Anne from Blue Rodeo.  Well worth the effort.

And when I returned Bob was religiously working on stripping the cetol.  He is half way around the boat now. Exhausting work. Glad it’s on his list.  I returned from the hike to continue the cleaning and polishing and have half of the cockpit left!!!  Yay!

So there you have it…. life on the hard.  Can’t wait to back in the water where midnight bathroom runs are not an issue and moving things up and down a ladder aren’t an issue either.  And besides, when we are back in the water I move onto my next big task…(which as a few of you have hinted ) planning our New Zealand wedding.  Yep, the Skipper realized we were perfect for each other and I agreed!  Unfortunately destination weddings are too much to ask of anyone so we will get married among cruising friends here and celebrate with family and friends next time we are in the States.

Life on the hard makes you really appreciate being in the water.  Can’t wait to watch the mullet fish jumping at sunset right off our stern!

Tell the truth I was so exhausted today I just took a long nap this afternoon.  We can hardly believe we’re been at this non-stop for two weeks.  We also had a good excuse to take a break today since the “boys” sprayed the bottom paint on the boat today.  Two coats, four (roughly) gallons-each costing $250/can.  Ouch.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the continuing adventure of being on the hard.

Taking the heat gun to the toe-rail. Don't try and dry your cat with this. It's about 2000 watts and I already burned my chest hair.

It gets very detailed. You have to get every last bit of the old varnish or it shows through on the new.

We had a sign painter touch up Charisma's name.

He was a real pro. Look closely at the "M". The original left off the shadow, which he noticed and fixed as shown in the next pic

Oh yeah, Charisma is smiling with all this attention (see the drop shadow on the "M"?)

Time to tape. We're spray painting the bottom paint

Mixing the paint. Four gallons at $250/gallon (actually it's in metric and I have no clue as to the actual quantity-it looks about a gallon per can). Yikes!

Here we go. Wow, that's RED! It's getting more subtle as it dries.

All done. Can't wait for the great unveiling tomorrow.

OK, so that’s my excuse.  Ann kept on polishing.  You go girl!

So…on another subject, here’s a great recipe for dinner.  We bought some snapper fillets (any nice whitefish filet will do-flounder would be good), wrapped them in foil with butter, chopped garlic, chopped basil, chopped parsley, salt, pepper and a couple slices of lemon.  Put on the barbie for about five minutes and…delicious!  Go do it tonight!

Yup, we’re still here.  But progress is being made.  The new waterline is looking good, the bowsprit fitting is almost ready to go on (I put one more coat of thickened epoxy on tonight to fair it into the hull), the bowsprit painting is done (yay!-and it looks lovely), the hatches are one more coat of paint from being done and there’re only another two days of cabin polishing left to be done.

The downside is the new project I started-stripping off some of the old varnish, is going to take a while.  Even though it’s just the toe-rail and rub-rail on each side of the boat, just stripping those is going to take a couple days (37 feet times two for each side).  Then they have to be sanded, bleached and at least three coats of new finish (Cetol).

Oh well, at least we’re enjoying the people here.  Tonight we had dinner with Jim and Linda Fair from Berkeley Yacht Club.  They actually live in Mountain View, but it turns out I knew Jim back in the day when I was at UC Berkeley and sailing at the Cal Sailing Club. Re-aquainted after 38 years!!?  How’s that for the small world department?

OK, have to sign off for tonight so I can beat Ann again at cards.  I’d show the picture of Ann EATING the scoresheet from last night so I couldn’t tape it to the wall, but it’s not a pretty sight.

Did you ever wonder how they plug the screw holes in the teak? Here's step one-expoxy the holes and hammer teaks plugs in. Step two is to trim these with a chisel and step three is sand them smooth.

Here's stripping the old varnish (old is at bottom)

Another view of the transition from old varnish to virgin teak (in foreground).

If you look closely you can see "green" tape. That's where the old waterline (i.e. red paint) was. We've lowered it in the stern. Looks much better and this is only the first coat.

And Charisma is going to get her name re-touched. Hard to see in the picture, but the paint is wearing off. She needs a little touching up. !

So…the projects are coming along.  Charisma is getting a bigger overhaul than I had planned, but a better one to boot.  Today Ann finished painting the bowsprit (probably-we’ll have to see what it looks like tomorrow), I got a bunch of final touches on the two hatches I’ve been rebuilding-they should be done in another day or two.  Gavin, the painter made up a good color for changing the waterline and put a first coat on that (we’re lowering the waterline on the aft part of Charisma-it was always painted in the wrong place), and we have a bid that we have accepted for touching up the boat name.

On the sort of minus side-the epoxy I put on a big chip on the bow at the bowsprit fitting didn’t kick off yesterday so I had to dig it out and mix another batch.  Today’s batch did kick so tomorrow I can grind it down and see if it needs a final fairing touch or is OK as is. Also I started to work on the port rub-rail and toe-rail for varnishing and found that it is time to just take all the old layers off.  So, out with the heat gun and I’m stripping 15 years of old varnish (actually Cetol) which is a MUCH bigger job than it sounds.  I’m guessing that just stripping the port and starboard sides will take 2 1/2 days, then another 2 days of sanding/fairing/bleaching, 1 day to tape and probably 4 days to put a couple coats of Cetol back on.  We have to stay with Cetol because all the other wood is still OK and uses that product.  So….probably another nine days of work although I don’t imagine we’ll do all those on the hard.  We can put on the Cetol once we’re back in the water.

So, that’s today…We finished with a lovely Red Snapper wrapped in foil with vegetables.  One of the folks here (Michael from Zimbabwe) was up at the BBQ and saw our dinner and asked me what I used to do for work.  After answering him, he looked at me, then at the food and said; “Well, you missed your calling, that looks delicious”.  Score one for Bob.

The Snapper is worth a few words.  At 8AM this morning we heard someone climbing up the ladder.  I went outside and there was Shane, one of the boatyard guys.  You might recall that we gave Shane our old foul weather pants and he was thrilled.  Anyway, with a grand Kiwi smile he reached into the large plastic bag he had in his hand and pulled out an equally large (and beautiful) Red Snapper.  “Here ya go Buddy, caught ‘er this morning”.  He then carefully kept the bag and handed me the fish by the tail.  So, our dinner was delivered.  He also noted; “I’ve left the head on, but if yer don’t want the head, just give it back to me later!”  OK.  Nice.  (BTW, it was delicious)

OK, a little Beatles nostalgia for any of those old enough to remember.  We’ve now been on the hard and WORKING for eight days.

Ann’s new favorite job is painting the bowsprit!  Well not exactly.  She was pretty cranky this morning knowing that was her main job today.

We built a scaffold to get up to paint the bowsprit

Not the most fun job. It's a little scarier than it looks and very tedious. Almost takes more time to sand and tape than to just pain the thing. We also have to sand in between coats.

But, someone’s gotta do it.  For my part, I spent most of the day working on the detail work on the lazarette hatches.  After epoxying the plywood backing, I now have to put a couple pieces of teak trim back on (step one-epoxy), I’ve already taken out a couple seams that were leaking, have taped them and tomorrow will fill them with black polysulfide (also know as caulking-step two) and then need to finish the new plywood backing which will need a primer coat (step three) and several coats of polyurethane (steps four, five and maybe six).  Nothing’s easy.

Today’s other highlight was the Sunday Yachties BBQ.  A pot luck at the gazebo where the BBQ is.  Fun as usual to get together with a couple dozen other folks who are sailing the South Pacific.  We sat with a French couple, a Swiss couple and an American couple-who it turns out knew one of my good friends from University days.  Very small world.

A good day.  Well, any day not spent grinding fiberglass in the bow is a good day, but we ARE progressing.  Ann is one day away from finishing polishing and waxing the hull!  Yay!  Charisma is looking beautiful.  It has taken almost an entire can of Carnuba wax so far.  That’s a lot of elbow grease.  And that’s after she went over the entire hull with polishing compound to remove the oxidation.  Wow.

For my part I did some miscellaneous stuff today, but it was nice to get a LOT of things going that are actually on the list!

-Ordered spare oil and fuel filters for the engine and a spare alternator belt

-Got the wood shop to cut plywood backing for the lazarette hatches off of the pattern I made from some scrap cardboard.  I have already primed the backs of the plywood and will epoxy them on to the teak hatches on Sunday.  With any luck the hatches should be as good as new in a few days.

-Ugly job alert.  I spent a couple hours down in the lazaratte digging out old packing from the stuffing box.  Sorry there’s no pictures to describe this-it’s just a really terrible job jammed into a small space under the cockpit.   There’s really no extra room to take a pic. Contortionists would love the project.  It’s definitely a three Tylenol job.  BUT, I got all the old packing out and put three new pieces in.  Basically this is the thingy where the propeller shaft goes out through the hull.  The packing is a kind of wax/hemp combination (looks like square piece of rope) that when “stuffed” into the stuffing box, has a tight enough fit that it keeps water from coming in through the prop shaft hole.  At least not much water.  The ideal according to most experts is that you tighten the gland that compresses the packing just enough so it drips about one drip/30 seconds when the engine is off and one drip per 10 seconds when the shaft is turning.   OK, got that?  I didn’t think so.  Forget it unless you own a boat, then very important to figure out.   😉

-While I was in the lazarette, I greased and exercised the through hulls (don’t ask) and greased the rudder bearing.  Very easy to ignore these things, but they will “bite” you if you do.

So, tomorrow, we’re going to do more work, but in the morning we’ll take a bit of a break and walk over to the Saturday Farmer’s Market.  Then on the way back stop by the cruiser’s swap meet up on the bridge.  We’ll try and take some pics to explain.

So that’s it for today.  Oh, also, Shane, one of the boatyard guys who we gave our old foulies to, brought us a beautiful Red Snapper this morning.  It was really one of the most fresh, gorgeous fish I have ever seen and I put it on ice until dinner when we filleted it and wrapped it in foil with some veggies and tossed in the BBQ for a delicious dinner.

That’s all from the boatyard for today…