No, I'm not talking about preparing my feline friends for bikini season!

As we get closer to moving back onto the boat and heading South, we are spending more and more time prepping the boat. The big maintenance and repair jobs are done. Now, we turn to cleaning.

After nearly a half year in a marina, there is a lot of grime that always seems to accumulate while at a dock. Mexico can be a dusty place to begin with. Combine that with morning dew and it means that we have some serious cleaning jobs. For example, even the underside of the bimini and its aluminum supports have a coating of baked on dust. Don’t think that I don’t wash the boat regularly throughout the summer! At least once a week she got a good deck scrub. Now I am left with those tougher cleaning jobs that only take place once or twice a season.

My last week has been completely devoted to waxing the non-skid areas of the cabin, deck, and rear stairs. Luckily, I had the boat yard wax the hull, but even the remaining deck areas are a daunting task on a catamaran. While I am heads down, sweating like a pig, waxing in the hot sun, I really miss those days when I had a nice small mono-hull.

This is where cats are a big disadvantage. Sure, they have about twice the interior space. But, that means that they have about four times the deck space! I try to pick the cooler mornings to “wax-on, wax-off”, but cool is a relative term down here. It is still brutally hot for physical labour in the sun.

My biggest problem is keeping the copious amount of sweat off of the drying wax. I have learned a few tricks, though, as you can see from the towel-under-the-hat photo. All the Mexican’s do this. Although I look like a wacko, it does help to absorb most of the sweat before it drips onto my wax.

The good news is that today I can claim that I finished the waxing! There are a few small areas to still do, but these are all inside the cockpit and in the shade. Now, I just want to get out of here and show off this clean shiny boat before it gets all filthy again! I’ll have to wait a couple of weeks more, but it won’t be long now!