Mates Log 2.18.09

Well, we made it back to Marsh Harbour and we have a four month visa! We spent 2 days in FL running errands and driving down to the Keys to visit Jared and Ruthie, who are now in Marathon at this time living in a large friendly boat community. Ruthie’s mom and a dear friend of hers were down visiting for Ruthie’s birthday. It was wonderful seeing all of them again!

Both Carey and I felt out of it, to some degree. I’m not sure how to explain this but things seemed wrong, odd, or weird. I would call it culture shock. I felt this same way after returning to the states from living in New Zealand years ago. We missed our simple life style, our small footprint on the planet, and our own cooking. Yes, can you believe it, we missed MY cooking! I felt this was a great triumph and one worth noting. We felt as though we were returning home when we landed in Marsh Harbour and getting back to the boat was a joy. How weird is that! It was fun to see the Abaco area from the air.

We had hoped to visit with friends and make lots of phone calls but it's amazing how little time there is in Ft Lauderdale and how fast that time moves! We came back to the hotel room after visiting Jared and Ruthie to find our computer compromised. We have no idea what happened but all our settings were changed, tool bars were missing, and passwords were deleted on some sites. The desktop was rearranged, programs were missing from the start bar, the trash was dumped, and all history was deleted. We ran our antivirus and didn’t find anything so are not sure what happened but we felt violated in some weird way.

We are back in the grind, working on the boat. We plan to paint the bottom this Sat and get back in the water next week. I won’t hold my breath but I think we can do it. Again, I can’t tell you how much I miss being on the water.

The picture was taken today and hopefully you can see how much better SongBird looks. We’re worse for the wear but the boat is great!

Cheers to you all! Carey and Lisa

Mates Log 2.12.09

Well it’s official, we are now illegal aliens. We aren’t sure how we acquired this status but we did. Tomorrow, Friday Feb. 13th, we will be flying back to FL until Monday Feb 16th so we can avoid being jailed, fined and deported, never to return to the Bahamas and losing our boat. There is so much that we are still learning and not always in good time. We’ll let you know how it goes, no one thinks we will be detained at the airport but we can’t be sure. If you don’t hear from us in two weeks please send someone to find us, you can start in Marsh Harbour, Abaco and if we are not there you may want to try Nassau, New Providence.

Seriously though, somehow we misunderstood when our visas expired. We thought they expired on the 18th of this month when in reality they expired a month and a half ago. We went today to get them renewed and the woman told us we had to leave… now… not in a few days, when we would be done with the boat. We could not get out of here fast enough!

We hope to post some more pics while we are in Ft Lauderdale, we don’t know where we are staying yet but we can let you know in case you need or want to reach us while we are in the states. Anyway, that is the short of it for now.

Hiding and lying low, Carey and Lisa

Lessons Learned:

OH YEAH!!

Mates Log 2.3.09

We are happy to report that we got both hulls and the bridge deck painted and all in one day!! This, of course, does not include all that happened before the paint… the prep work…

There were cracks between the bridge deck and the amas that required grinding out, fiber glassing, filling, more sanding, and priming… there were unused thru- hulls that were removed, filled, sanded and primed… there were dings that were sanded, filled, more sanding, and primed… there was taping off… there was sanding the entire boat and wiping it down… whew! There were backs and shoulders thrown-out and new muscles developed that had never before been developed… and there were days where getting out of bed was the first big chore to face…

Carey has done an amazing job… he still is. All this does not include the bottom of the boat. He is furiously sanding all the barnacles off. We don’t have much in the way of trick power tools so for the most part all of this is done by hand. He completely wore out one sander, which we replaced but has not really been of much use.

Last week we put the first coat of paint on… I am Roller and Carey is Tipper. This means that I first roll a section of paint; Carey comes behind me and goes over it with a paint brush. It sounds rather simple really, but doing it in 25 knots of wind proved to be a challenge! The paint Gremlins came by and threw the plastic paint tray liner right past us, so we taped it to the tray. Then every time we tried pouring the paint out of the gallon container the wind would blow the paint right on by if we had not created enough of a wind block. The boat isn’t quite high enough off of the ground so by the time we were finished Carey had a head full of paint. Fortunately we did not have to shave his head but it was touch and go there for awhile.

Carey painted the trim piece he had to replace (the rub rail which we are sure we will get much use out of!) blue, which is the same color we had painted the door and the dinghy trim. We included a pinstripe on the area where the side windows are on the salon. Now we are looking for a good pair of 'eyes' to put on the bows. We had chosen to paint SongBird all white because this color has the longest wear against UV damage and is the coolest, but white has no character so we had to do something!

The boat looks perfect from 10 feet back and at night it’s incredible, so we are quite pleased. We still have the bottom to do. This is the messiest part of the project. Ablative paint has copper in it so is toxic and sticks to everything. A shower is required after working on it for the day and this is no easy task in 28 knots of wind. As I have mentioned prior we have to take our showers outside and try and create some kind of privacy shield… so last night Carey put up some plastic that we could sit under. We tied it down under the locker lids and hung it from a line above the bimini. I know… you have no idea what I am talking about and unfortunately I did not take any pictures…. next time.

I have been painting the deck, the swim steps and putting the second coat of paint on in the cockpit area… again in 25 plus knots of wind. The weather has been really nasty for here. Gail force winds and rain are making it a challenge. I would also say something about the temperature…. But…

I will try and include some pictures of the local money, it’s really very lovely and we enjoy spending it when we get the chance… unfortunately that’s not very often. Bahamian and US money is all used interchangeably here.

Cheers! Roller and Tipper

Definitions:

Amas: the hulls of a catamaran (or the outer hulls of a trimaran)

Rub Rail: this used to be the rubber rail that went down the sides of SongBird. They are used for running into things so you don’t damage your boat. Carey says we try not to rub them but if that was true then they would be called don’t-rub rails. Men just don’t get it. We replaced them with fir.

Salon: this is the top inside area of a catamaran. Our galley, nav station and seating area are located here.

Thru-hull: these are holes in the hulls or amas, with valves, below the water line for such things as the toilet dump, and salt water intakes.

Lessons Learned

Don’t paint in 25 knot winds if you can at all help it.
Wear a hat when painting
Take lots of Advil
Sleep vertical so it’s easier to get out of bed in the morning

P.S. We have both coats of paint on the boat now… the bottom is still in progress.