On and on...

We've finished spraying the sides of the hull and the 1st Mate is busy putting blue tape all over the deck in preparation of the new gel coat. Meanwhile, it falls to me to disassemble and remove the hardware we don't want painted or we're just not using anymore. The stern, shown below, had four pairs of brackets used to hold a Monitor wind vane steering system I installed prior to our trip to Mexico in 1997. The vane worked fine, using the water sweeping past the boat for power, and the wind telling it which way to turn the wheel, We would set it and forget for up to 24 hours as we made our way down the California coast. The prevailing NW winds didn't vary much until we entered Southern California at Point Conception. Since then, the winds have been either too light or too shifty for it to be much use to us, so we removed the vane and stored it (installing instead a electronic autopilot on the helm). The brackets have sat, stuck to the stern, dripping rust for thirteen years now and it's time to remove them. That part wasn't hard, the sealant I used held up well and the 16 quarter-inch bolts came out with just a little coaxing, but the rust under the brackets will keep me busy for awhile. I have to remove all the sealant so the epoxy filler I use will stick to it. Just another step along the way.

We're both feeling really good about how this project is shaping up, and we're losing a little weight because of the exercise. We get to the boat at 7am and work until lunchtime, nap for an hour and drive back to the boatyard to finish up the day when the shadows get long.

Today a Mexican yard worker next to me gave me a lesson on using polishing compound. I had been using it like rubbing compound, where you keep your powered buffer loaded up with compound and just swirl away until you get a shine... Nope, wrong.

The idea is to spread a thin coat of polishing compound over the area, let it dry for an hour or two and then come back with a clean buffing pad to shine it up. Here's the result of the stern, after a few days of filling, plugging and sanding... priming, painting and buffing.

And from the side...

and the port side hull using the new buffing technique... thanks, Arturo!

Hole in my heart

Last week I got a message to call my Uncle Dave in Santa Barbara. He's in his late eighties and is in the final stages of life with a brain tumor. I made the call and surprised myself with my own honest expression of my emotional state... something I normally keep, if not hidden, at least camouflaged.

Dave Smith is a highly regarded architect and has designed many of the larger homes in Santa Barbara. His use of Spanish tile roofing was quickly copied by others when in the '90s, Santa Barbara was hit by a series of large fires. The only houses left standing in the ravaged areas were Dave's tile-roofed structures.

When Jack in the Box Restaurants wanted a national redesign of their eateries, Dave got the contract.

He was very influential in my life. When I saw his gouache architectural renderings as a child, I chose to pursue art, which led to college-level classes on a scholarship at Carnegie Institute at age 14. Later, I chose commercial art (now called graphic design) as a way to keep myself in food and art at the same time. My graphic design business led to publishing, my current occupation.

In the early '90s, Bliss and I would stay at Dave's large cliffside home while we worked selling ads in Southern California for our fledgling Collector's Guide publication. Dave fed us tri-tip roasts from the barbie in the evenings, and made us pancakes in the morning. We would eat on his treetop patio, so high we could see the oil rigs seven miles out in the Pacific Ocean.

And he would take us sailing in his Santa Cruz 27 racing sloop. We learned to sail in and out of the Santa Barbara Yacht Club harbor without a motor, tacking through traffic to his slip. Dave was a charter member of the Santa Barbara Yacht Club, and in 2000, was told he no longer needed to pay his annual dues... the board felt he had paid enough in his lifetime.

We would go the SBYC for an occasional lunch, sitting in the glittering crystal finery, being served by immaculate uniformed waiters and waitresses.

Dave got us started in sailing.

We wait for the news, bags packed.

Semana Santa in SC

San Carlos is a beach town. So when Easter break comes to Mexico, Mexico comes to us. Our little town is home to about 4,000 residents, 3/4 of whom disappear to higher latitudes around this time of year. When Easter week gets here, our population swells to around 10,000. The party starts at 5pm and runs 'til 5am. Tecate beer tents pop up on every street corner to make sure nobody runs out. The music is LOUD. My friend, Greg Pyros took these grand photos of the event and I built a little slideshow with my Mac. If your browser can play Quicktime content, it should be just fine.

Painting in the wind...

This week I was just going to touch up a few spots on BLISS' hull and purchased some primer and gelcoat to do it. I sanded the entire boat from accent stripe to the bottom of the keel, and when I started shooting the gelcoat I was stunned at how good the boat looked... so I started painting the entire hull. It just has one coat on it now, with two more to come. Then  I'll tape off and paint the waterline stripe (the "bootstripe" it's called) and the accent stripe our favorite color of blue/green. Then two fresh coats of bottom paint. It will look better when that's done but I had to post this photo to keep my spirits up.

Life in the boatyard is complicated by the wind, which still "lingers" if you can call 50mph lingering! This is today's wind chart thus far.

When it gets windy, the painting stops. So, I've been going to the yard at 7am and shooting until noon or so. After that, I'm wiped out and ready for some down time. Sleep. Read. Eat. Blog.

In like a Lion, Out like a.. Lion

If you look at the wind speed for today, you see the extreme at 43 mph. That's not just the highest the wind reached today, that's just the last time it clocked in at 43. It's been hitting that speed all afternoon.

My boat BLISS, is in the workyard and I've been replacing the styrofoam in the dinghy (see The Three Dollar Cure). The stryofoam I used then was the open cell stuff and it didn't hold up. Now I'm using the closed cell foam that I bought for the FLASH. Trying to work with styro in a gale is foolhardy. So I came home and took a shower and wrote a blog. That's it.

Xmas in March- a new guitar

Tomorrow the 1st Mate and I are heading for Errorzona. I'm picking up a new jazz guitar and we're celebrating our 19th wedding anniversary in Tucson on Thursday, St Pat's Day.

We've been a couple since 1989, but it took her 3 years to finally propose. : )

Perspiration, then Inspiration...

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.
  - Frank Tibolt

The quote above popped up on my iGoogle home page this morning, and it's really tuned-in to my thinking these days.

A couple of weeks ago, the 1st Mate and I joined a group of cruising folk at a local pub and the instigator of the event, Jimmy B. of the Morgan 28 OI "Anne Marie" started bragging about my watercolor art.

He suggested that I start painting for money, and turn the money into materials and extra labor for the Green Flash project. That idea has been slowly revolving around in my brain since I heard it. One of the things I like to paint the most is water and boats, and there's a lot of that around here... this painting was done in Northern California. Unfortunately, I don't have a scanner large enough to accommodate this painting, so the photograph shows artifacts from lighting and the glass in the frame... and the colors are a little off. Oh well.

There are quite a few large yachts in the marinas hereabouts, whose owners may provide a market for my work.

Nothing would please me more than to be able to hire an army of workers to unleash on the Flash project. And painting for money can be fun. 

In other news, the 1st Mate and I are making plans to attend LoretoFest for the first time in late April. LoretoFest has been known as a big party for cruising families and musicians, with lots of performances and potlucks, boat races, etc. We'll leave San Carlos Easter week aboard SV BLISS and slowly cruise down the Baja coast to Loreto. If the 1st Mate approves, we'll continue down to her favorite city of La Paz for some R&R after LF concludes.