The boat had been in the yard at Wayfarer’s Cove for two weeks. Tom and his crew had gotten her out of the water and pressure washed the hull. There were some blisters, which were expected, and they had been opened up to start the drying process. Tom said that some were not actually new blisters but improperly repaired old blisters. The unanswerable question is, who did the poor work. Was it me when I first bought the boat or the yard I used several years ago. There is no way to tell but blisters are a nuisance, not a safety concern so I am not going to spend much time worrying about it. Last time she was in the yard, I cleaned the hull thoroughly and applied Poli-Glow, a product designed to restore a reasonable shine to old fiberglass. It worked very well but I had not maintained it well over the years and it was looking pretty tired. Also, part of the decal on the stern was beginning to deteriorate. The original was a do-it-yourself job that I hastily prepared when we first bought the boat. I ordered a new one from a company in Siler City. It was slightly larger than the original and a dark navy blue instead of black. My goal for the weekend was to restore the Poli-Glow and apply the new decal. That doesn’t sound like a lot but it turned out to be plenty of work for a weekend.

Friday August 12, 2011
I took a vacation day because I knew the work I needed to do would be intense and I wanted the extra day because I wasn’t sure exactly how long it would take. I left at 6:30 on Friday morning. I stopped for coffee and fuel. The last stop was at a Subway Sandwich shop. I ordered a foot long sandwich and had it cut in half. That would cover both lunch and dinner for 5 bucks. I arrived before noon and met Tom for the first time. He directed me to the boat. I found her on the hard along with many of her plastic cousins. Boat yards are fascinating to me. Most contain a wide variety of boats. This one contained everything from near derelicts to nearly new racers in various stages of repair. Many were for sale and many looked as if they had been sitting on stands for many years. I am sure each boat has its a story of its own.

I met Don, the yard manager who was very helpful and I soon had everything I needed to start work. The weather threatened all day but it was quite nice. It was much cooler than last time I was there. I enjoyed a nice little breeze all day, and I had no problems with bugs. It took me quite a long while to come up with a combination of cleaners to remove the nasty brown stain along the water line. I finally discovered that Naval Jelly would easily remove the stain but it took a couple of hours to figure it out. After I took care of the stain the next step was a good soap and water scrubbing of the entire hull. A 30-foot boat is a lot bigger when you are cleaning the hull than at any other time. The problem is that you can’t reach the upper parts of the hull without the assistance of a ladder or something. I spent all Friday afternoon climbing up and down a ladder washing the hull and applying Ploi-Glow. I got the boat scrubbed and applied Poli-Glow to the starboard side. By 6 pm I was exhausted and decided to quit. I cleaned up and loaded everything I would need for the night by climbing to the top of the ladder and placing it in the cockpit. A hot shower was next then I finished the last half of the Subway sandwich. I took some Advil and turned in shortly after dark.

Saturday August 13, 2011
Going to bed early meant I woke early. By 7:30 I had already had coffee and a Pop-Tart and was applying Poli-Glow to the port side. I worked a little smarter on Saturday after it finally dawned on me that I should be using the rolling scaffold instead of climbing the ladder every 5 minutes. I finished the Poli-Glow by 9:30 and started work on the new decal. I took my time and the application went well. Most folks won’t notice the difference but the new boat name and hailing port are a bit bigger and are in dark blue instead of black. I closed the boat and took a shower before I left at about 12:30pm.

I got home in time to see Matthew and Amber before they left for Amber’s high school reunion. Jonas was staying with Gram and Papa during the event.