4 Days

It is just 4 days a year. That really doesn't seem like so much of an effort to keep the exterior teak on Eolian spiffy. Yet it seems that every year I go into anxiety attack mode, worrying that we won't get it done. In order to do the brightwork the easy way, we need 4 days of not-rain. In Seattle, that seems to be a major constraint. And 4 days of not-anything-else-pressing. Some years that is harder to come by than not-rain.

The drill is:

• Day 1: Tape and sand
• Day 2: Coat 1
• Day 3: Coat 2
• Day 4: Coat 3 and de-tape

It is only Day 1 that is really onerous. The other days, the commitment is only about 3 hours, most typically first thing in the morning after the dew has come off.

This year, we tried something different (thanks to Jane, aka Wonderful Woman): We did the work at anchor. Aside from Day 1, this only took up time that we would have been lazing around anyway, and again aside from Day 1, we still had the day to use however we saw fit. And by doing the work at anchor, we had easy access to the entire outside of the boat by dinghy, and no docklines to work around. It really was a better arrangement. Thanks Jane!

Jane did the fiddly stuff: the handrails and the "eyebrow". I did the bulk stuff: the caprail. And this year I even took half of the eyebrow down to bare wood and started over, since the varnish had failed on it.

We finished yesterday - and we just barely made it... the pictures I took this morning show that it rained over night.

And, without the task hanging over my head anymore, I feel like a kid on the first day of summer vacation!

4 Days