Springtime on Kent Island: 4/23 - 4/25

—Blogpost written by Bob 

Friday, April 23

Even though the high wind has died down we were still experiencing an extremely low tide in the morning.  Again this morning, we had to crawl off the boat to get to the showers.

This photograph of Lola was taken late yesterday
afternoon.  (You can see the nearby residential
housing development in the background.)

It was a bit warmer last night but the heater still came on quite frequently.  Today will be my last radiation treatment on a Friday (since my very last treatment is next Thursday)--I'm really looking forward to them being over!

I applied the fourth coat of 50% thinned oil finish on my knife handle this morning.  I like the appearance of the thinned oil finish as applied.  It dries quickly and allows me to apply coatings more frequently.  Later in the day I steel wooled the knife handle and applied two more coats.  I burnished the finish with steel wool between coats.)

Saturday, April 24

Even though rain was in the forecast for the afternoon, the first half the day couldn't have been more beautiful--it was warm and sunny!  We went out for a breakfast sandwich at the island's only bakery, Fields of Lavender Bakery--it's just across Route 50 from our marina.  (Breakfast and coffee were delicious!).  After breakfast we looked at a nearby self storage unit.  We were considering moving our stored stuff from Annapolis to Kent Island.  The storage units we looked at were not climate controlled (and did not even include an overhead light).  They were about half the price of a similarly sized unit is Annapolis.  We decided to wait until we have significantly reduced the volume of our stored things before seriously considering such a move, even though we prefer a climate-controlled unit (primarily for my three shotguns worth about $5K and a lot of artwork that we had in our house in Annapolis).

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Today I was able to apply three more coats of oil finish to my knife handle--it is really looking great but I plan to apply at least 12 more coats in the next 6 days.

Our big fluff ball on the cabintop
patiently waiting for attention.

In the afternoon, Maggie drove to our storage unit in Annapolis to inventory the items she wants to give to her daughters in the near future and get a better idea of our needed storage area for the future.  (We think we can reduce the volume to fit within a 5' x 5' x 8' high storage unit.)

One of the most unusually named boats in
our new marina.  It may have been
named after the Mad River ski
area in Vermont.

The cabintop of s/v Mad River.  This boat was last
registered in Vermont.  There are two 4000
BTU air conditioners stored on deck which
would not adequately cool this boat
during the Maryland summer.

At the end of the day after I applied the third coat of oil finish I mixed up a small batch of 50% thinned oil finish in an old shot glass for use tomorrow and during the remainder of next week. (I will also be switching to #0 steel wool for burnishing.)

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The sky clouded up late in the afternoon and it looked like rain was on its way.  The rain actually started about 7:30 PM and continued into the night.

Sunday, April 25

Of course, I was up early to burnish with #0 steel wool and apply the first coat of the 33% thinned oil finish on my knife handle.  I could feel that it was thicker when I applied it with my index finger.  (It is really nice being able to work in our enclosed cockpit!)

It was still raining outside and it was windy (14 knots) at 7:30 AM.  Fortunately, it was not cold (low 50's) and the tide wasn't super low like it has been lately.  The weather was expected to improve as the day progressed.

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With a promising good weather forecast for next week, after the rain cleared up, I spent some time on preparation of the dinghy bottom.  I cleaned the last little bit of waterline remaining to be cleaned plus I tried to remove more loose scaling paint using a razor knife-type paint scraper.

In this image one can see some scaling loose
paint on our dinghy bottom--it was on the
fiberglass portion of the RIB and
not on the inflatable portion.

The day turned out to be pretty uneventful not that it is a bad thing but it makes for very little blog writing.  Stay tuned for my last week of radiation treatments and more spring boat work.  

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