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)