Now that Adagio is out of the water, we have started our projects. The big project of raising the waterline and repainting the bottom won’t be completed until just before we go back into the water in January. When you apply the antifouling paint to the bottom, you have to go back into the water pretty quickly, so the final paint won’t go on until after the holidays.
It’s been 2 years since we’ve painted the bottom. It really doesn’t look that bad, but if we didn’t do it now, we probably would only get another 6 months or so out of it anyway. But, as I’ve mentioned many, many times, our waterline is a mess. In the stern, we are probably 6 inches of topside below the actual waterline. So, the new bottom paint has to go much higher.
We considered repainting the top sides too, but it is just cost prohibitive. We just repainted the top sides 2 years ago, and we should have gotten 10 years out of that paint. But, there are places above the waterline where it is starting to bubble. It’s just cosmetic, but annoying. We used good Awlgrip paint and had a professional do it, so we don’t know what went wrong. We’ll have to deal with it eventually.
Inside the boat, we’ve pulled everything out of every cabinet, hanging locker and drawer. Even the fridge and freezer got emptied and cleaned. We are cleaning every surface, throwing things away and reorganizing. I’m a bit surprised at our clutter after 2 years, but it is time to start purging! I think we’ve now resolved to do a “spring cleaning” every year on the boat.
This is why we’re not living on the boat in the yard…
Today, all of floor boards of the cabin sole also came out to be revarnished. I think they have the original 1979 varnish on them. They were looking a bit shabby with some damage in some places. We are really looking forward to a fresh looking floor to walk on.
Mike is also in the process of replumbing our holding tank and replacing the macerator pump to make our holding tank system work better (fun job…) The good news is that all our thru holes seem to be in good shape. Mike is just doing some clean up and fixed the one that was leaking.
Next, we have all of the outside teak to clean and seal and all of the stainless to polish. We also have some sewing projects to repair some canvas and create new canvas covers. Whew!
We’re still hoping to complete everything in a month (other than the bottom paint) to do some land travel before the holidays. I would love suggestions for travel in Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. I’m trying to do some research into feasible (and inexpensive) trips from here. Any id as would be really helpful!
~Katie