It's now Wednesday afternoon and again, it's been a busy day. After the VHF radio net this morning, I pulled out the refurbished deck boxes and took them on deck to make sure they fit the now fitted and bolted down granny bars. Both fit just fine, one fit the port side and one fit the starboard side an they are no interchangeable. Each has it's one set of bars to be done right. I dragged them back down below decks as more painting on the deck is due for today. I think thats us at close to five coats in some areas. We then changed out the Fresh Step kitty litter so the kids won't start rebelling as they tend to when the litter is past it's prime.

At 0930, I took off for PriceSmart to swap out the dead microwave. They run from time to time a maxi taxi there and back for cruisers to do some power shopping. Normally it takes five people before they will make the run. Today, someone didn't show up as we only had two of us on the trip. The driver made a call to the company that sets up the trips and we would be picked up by a car instead of a van at 1130. I had the microwave on a cart since leaving the boat and I wheeled it in the "exit" doors next to "Customer Service". The Security Guard told me I needed to come in the entrance and not the exit doors. I turned around and made my way to the entrance door only to be told to go over the Customer Service(where I had just left)desk. I explained about what had happened and they had one of their employees take the unit in the back to check it out. In the end, it took about 30 minutes to get it all sorted out. I headed back with a nice big cart and grabbed another four bags of Fresh Step litter and another microwave as well as a few more items. It took about 15 minutes to get checked out only to find when I looked at the receipt and found they had only charged me for two instead of four bags. I returned to the cashier and showed her the problem(didn't want her to get in trouble). She rang me up for two more and I was off to wait with my taxi companion for our ride to arrive. He showed up just past 1130 and we made our way back to the boat yard. Tracy, meanwhile had been working on the new ceiling panel sanding off the excess epoxy putty I'd slapped on on Monday. It took a good 60 grit paper to get the really bad stuff off and then she worked her way through finer and finer sandpaper smoothing out the panel. It's going to take another coat to get it to look the way we want it to.

Once we had had lunch, we decided to replace the electrical outlet that the last microwave had been plugged into. During the trip here from St. Helena, it had gotten some salt water in it and it was in need of replacing. So, out came one of my spares, a screw driver and a metal brush to clean the contacts on the wires and a short time later, it was replaced. Tracy got stuck with the job of trying to align the power box behind the wall with the screws I was using to attach the outlet. She would try and line it up using a mirror behind the wall as I was slowly sticking the screws into the hole. It took a while but we got it all attached and the new outlet in. The new microwave got unbowed and put in place but with the battery charge running at full bore recharging our batteries and the AC running, we couldn't start it up for fear of it blowing the circuit due to the power draw. We're still waiting for the draw to lessen so we can start it up. We don't want to corrupt the wiring if we draw too much power.

I took the new ceiling panel to the work area(nicely covered incase it rained) and used the Fein Multimaster sanding attachment to get out the epoxy out of the grooves in the panel. It didn't take too long and that small job is done. Tomorrow I'll be mixing more epoxy and putting on a second coat only to sand off the extra on Friday once it's dried.

Today, we found out that Lobster had fired Sleepy, one of our workers. He just wasn't getting the job done though we're not that impressed with Sneezy. Lobster stuck around truly over seeing the workers and doing a bunch of the work himself. About 1100, he was finally ready to do some more spray painting. Tracy was with him on deck as it was getting done. I got back here about noon and once the car was unloaded, I was told that I couldn't come up the ladder in the back as it was just now getting painted. I looked up and said "But it's about to rain!!" Tracy's response was "You have to be kidding!!"as she took off for the forward section of the boat. Nope. Within three minutes of this conversation, it was sprinkling! Tracy grabbed some long sheets of plastic we were using at the bow and came running to the stern suspending the edges over the new paint with the bags of kitty litter we bought yesterday. She was being "proactive" as she calls it. Lobster grabbed an edge and helped cover his new paint. Luckily the rain didn't last long but we will see tomorrow if there is any damage to the new application.

It's now Thursday morning and the work continues. On the way back from the internet room, I stopped and took a look at our new hatches for the stern deck compartments as well as the redone anchor locker hatches. Tracy had told me that the edges of the stern hatches weren't fiberglassed. She thought just one edge on each but I found it to be fiberglassed only on one edge and just the foam core on the other three on both boards. It's like he made one long board and cut it in half giving each end a fiberglass edge. To be properly done, the core must be encapsulated in fiberglass and resin or water will get in and ruin the cores of both. I had a chat with Lobster when he showed up and he's going to put some layers of fiberglass on the edges to close up the cores. He's down below doing that as I'm typing this.

With this resolved, I took the new ceiling panel that Tracy had sanded down off to the workroom. Power Boats offers a great room with workbenches and a huge vice to work at so you don't get wet and you can leave your projects there over night to dry. With the bottles of epoxy and hardener, a small plastic bucket and the "microballoons"(really fine silica like dust) that get mixed in, I was set to go. I poured in about 4 ounces of epoxy and 2 ounces of hardener and stirred it all up. Then in goes a bunch of the balloons and the stirring continues til the "microballons" are well mixed in with the epoxy. I poured the mixture out onto a sheet of plastic and went at it, scooping up a bit here and a bit there onto a plastic spreader and worked my way across the wood panel. With grooves in it, I had to stay out of the grooves if I could and if I missed, use my finger(in a latex glove) to wipe up the excess and slowly put a bit in the troughs. In the end, the panel looks like its covered in whipped cream. I did the edges of the much smaller piece of ceiling that's to go in the hole in the starboard side of the ceiling that we had to cut when another nut popped off. Now it has to set for 24 hours till it's nice and hard and then we can resand it and make sure it's nice and smooth and ready for painting. Tracy came over and smeared some more in the grooves to even them out and seal up the wood in each of them. I'd sanded the grooves yesterday with out Fein MultiMaster tool. While I waited for the epoxy to do a bit of a set up, Tracy took off for the internet to see about airline reservations for me to go back to Colorado. We figure in about a month and stay for two to three weeks depending on the airlines and their fees. I've already started ordering parts so they will be ready when I get back there.

I stopped in at the office and made arrangements for scaffolding to be delivered tomorrow so we can get started on the teak bulwarks on the hull. They need to be cleaned and sanded and gotten ready for the wood sealer and varnish. We've pretty well set our minds on using Interlux Perfection Plus for the wood. Highly rated and even higher priced($106US for a quart) it's a two part liquid that(according to reports from Practical Sailor--like Consumer Reports) will last for at least two years before needing any touchup. If Lobster does get this done tomorrow, we can at least get going on the teak as well as sealing up all the pipes going through the deck that had to be loosened when we took that teak off. We have to clean out the anchor locker so I can get to the underside of the forward section of the deck to drill and install the forestaysail stay bracket that was removed when the teak was taken off. It's going to be a busier next few days if Mother Nature agrees. Guess we will see.