You’ve heard never to get your wife a vacuum cleaner for her birthday haven’t you?
Well, possibly our friend Michael hasn’t heard. See for yourself what he bought his lovely wife Charmaine for her birthday the other day
Wow! This looks pretty exciting...!
er, um, oh--how exciting, a generator. Just what I've always wanted.
.
We first met Rand in Aitutaki in the Cook Islands. Little did we know back then we would end up in his home town, Whangarei. He has recently started a great new business selling artisan bread. It is the best. We devour it the minute he shows up and then beg for more. What fun to have a good friend who is a bread man come down to the dock with fresh (and often still warm bread)! We do our part by pitching how good it is to the other cruisers and I think he’s developing quite a following. (Now if he’d only sell us his home-brew)
So here’s Rand!
Our friend Rand the Bread Man.
Oh yeah. The projects never quit. You start on one and then it magically gets bigger. I was going to just take off the varnish on the companionway hatch since it was peeling – but that led to stripping the “eyebrow” a strip of teak that goes all the way around the cabin. Once I did that, it led to the cockpit where the teak has not been redone since I bought Charisma in 2007, so I said; “what the hell…” and jumped in on that. Well, once I took a really close look at the wood to deck joint that led to a whole caulking exercise – which added another two full days of gouging old caulk out, taping the area and all day today putting the new caulk back in.
And you know what? Unless you know what you are looking at you would never notice all the work. Oh, well.
Taking off about ten years of old Cetol with the heat gun and a putty knife. Notice the ear protection-this thing shrieks and the project takes all day...
Taping the seam for the new caulk which is basically a very gooey mess until it hardens - hence the need for careful taping of the work.
Some of the caulking requires backbreaking contortions.
While waiting for stuff to dry-there are other projects waiting in the wings.
Ann enjoying her contortion skills polishing the hull. Only 54 more feet to go!
I was just going to "inspect" the windlass. I ended up taking it off the boat, stripping it down and painting it. Now that means a couple more coats over the next several days (if the weather holds) and then reinstalling.