Summertime on Kent Island: 7/12 - 7/15

—Blogpost written by Bob 

Monday, July 12  

At 7 AM, it was already 78 degrees outside, headed for a high temperature of 89 degrees.  For us on the Chesapeake Bay, this summer hasn’t been as severely hot as experienced in other places around the country (like 130 degrees F recently in California’s Death Valley).

No bulkhead painting today!  Since we allow 48 hours for the oil-based topcoat to dry, we don’t have to paint today.  (The last topcoat on the port bulkhead will be applied tomorrow.)  We did not remove the masking tape from yesterday’s topcoat—we decided to leave it in place until after applying the last topcoat and hope we don’t pull off many paint chips along with the tape.

We drove to Annapolis in the morning with a number of tasks to accomplish: (1) buying cat food for Lola, (2) picking up some things from our storage unit and dropping off others, and (3) going out to lunch at Carroll's Creek Cafe.  We accomplished everything in a timely manner and we were back on the boat by 2 PM.

Lola's favorite cat food--we buy it in 24-can
packages.  As a big cat, she
eats 3 cans per day.

Tuesday, July 13

Maggie started the second (and last) topcoat on the port bulkhead early in the morning.  As she finished each major section, she pulled off the masking tape.  We didn't have a single incident where we pulled off paint chips with the tape!  (It looks great!)

While she was doing the painting I was making the shelf divider for in the starboard bulkhead's camera compartment.  I made it from 1/4 inch thick birch plywood and painted both sides--the camera compartment side in flat black and the clothes side in off-white.  (As a divider, I wanted to keep it simple and lightweight and I didn't want to get involved in teak finishing because it would delay the implementation further.  I normally hate using a cheap material like 1/4-inch thick birch plywood but no one will ever see it.)

I used a black garbage bag as a backdrop
for my spray painting of the camera 
side of the shelf divider.

I waited about 6 hours before I painted the opposite side in an off-white.  (The shelf divider will be ready for installation tomorrow!)

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This afternoon I worked further on finding possible rental properties for us in San Miguel de Allende.  I received several responses from various owners and property managers.  The most promising property is owned by a man in Austin, TX.  We are currently trying to figure out how to trust one another in this crazy world of scammers.  (I'll let you know how this works out.)

Wednesday, July 14

Our day started out by removing a jellyfish that sucked itself up into our A/C raw water inlet.  Parts of the jellyfish made it into the strainer basket while other parts were lodged in the inlet hose as well as the seacock.  We removed the inlet hose and cleaned it out on the dock and used water pressure in reverse to the normal flow direction to force remnants of the jellyfish out of the seacock.  This frustrating exercise took about an hour (and I didn’t take any photographs).  We still made it to our 10 AM Toyota service appointment for our car in Annapolis (but it was close).

In the middle of all this, we found out that Maggie’s middle daughter (Rachel) in Chicago had a baby girl!

We got underway so quickly this morning to make our 10 AM service appointment that we didn’t have anything to eat for breakfast.  So, we stopped on the way to Annapolis and each had a breakfast sandwich at Starbucks, in an obvious violation of our low-carb guidelines (but it was just one time) but we returned to our strict adherence to our diet at lunchtime, having a salad with a delicious salmon filet.  (Later for dinner we had our delicious KETO pizza using a low-carb tortilla as the crust and we were back “on the wagon.”)

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We ran some errands while we were in Annapolis, buying a second cat carrier for our new kitten,  some kitten food, and some groceries for us.  (Today, we spent more on our cats, both Lola and our new yet-to-be-picked-up kitten, than we did on ourselves!)

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When we got back to the boat we finished installing the divider I made for use between a partial shelf for clothes and the new camera compartment.  (We were just starting the installation when the jellyfish stopped our A/C dead in its tracks this morning.)

Our new camera cabinet up
close, less teak frame.
(The new divider is
on the left side of
this image.)

Our new camera cabinet is built into what was originally a hanging locker on the Landfall 38.  I converted the hanging locker to shelves some time ago, mirroring the style of the boat.  The camera cabinet uses the outboard surface of one of the shelves.  (In the center of this image, one can see the inlet hose and vent hose for the forward fresh water tank. This compartment will remain open to the main salon and I will soon be making a teak frame with rounded corners to go around the opening.  The rounded corners on the teak frame will mimic the original style of the boat.)  

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So far, our summer's weather has been very consistent, with high's in the upper 80's and low 90's and lows in the 70's.  Not much different than the norm, today, the outside temperature reached a high of 88 degrees.  We had a steady 8 knots of breeze out of the south.  It really wasn't unbearably hot.

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Late in the evening (7 PM) we had a second jelly fish episode.  This time I was able to take the hose to the raw water strainer off and simply blow the jelly fish back out through the hose and seacock using water pressure.  I have never had two jelly fish episodes in the same day before—typically, we only have a couple jelly fish episodes for the entire summer.

Thursday, July 15

Early this morning the outside temperature was in the high 70's and it was headed for a high of 89 degrees, pretty much like yesterday.  At mid-morning we had a marina-wide power outage--it lasted about 30 minutes.  We had one false HPF alarm on our air conditioner around 11:30 AM.

We put all our framed pictures back up on the port bulkhead, hooked up our stereo speakers, and put our port settee cushions back in place.  We finally got everything back back to normal after our bulkhead painting project.

Our port bulkhead after painting and getting
everything back together again.

We really like the end result of our painting the bulkhead!  It has really brightened up the main salon.  I am still waiting for three teak corner pieces (for the teak frame I'm building for the starboard bulkhead) and four reading lights to arrive in order to complete this project.

A close up view of our framed pictures
arranged on the port bulkhead.

I was hoping that the items I need to finish this project would have arrived this afternoon but they didn't.  I'm sure they will come in soon...

Until next blogpost, thanks for following our blog!