Catching Up In June!

Two months. It’s been 2 months since I posted anything on this blog. What on earth have we been doing?

April.

We returned to Deltaville and almost immediately left for Vermont to see the eclipse. Back to Deltaville with a week to find a place to haul both boats before hopping on a plane for the first time in well over 5 years to go to Texas to see Jeremy’s mom and then on to Utah for Julian’s graduation.

*Late afternoon sun at 3 pm. Must be an eclipse!*

Two days on Mischief in the boatyard, then drive right back to Maryland to pick up Calypso (being launched from the yard there). Meanwhile I’ve got a speaking commitment at the DC boat show, so Jeremy is bringing Calypso south on his own.

*Ahhhhh life on ladders . . . Again. We love Deltaville and are incredibly happy to be back here.*

Got whiplash yet? We felt it pretty hard that first Monday in May, after getting Calypso safely out of the water and stored right next to Mischief once again.

May.

Settled into a pretty solid routine of boat projects. The weather was largely uncooperative as constant rain made painting very challenging. Our biggest focus was getting Mischief’s exterior wood sealed and protected. We needed a stretch of 5 dry days at the start, after which we could work with single day stretches.

*Sanding is one step. Note coveralls - it was cold until it was HOT.*

It took until May 23 to have that 5 day stretch behind us.

Our boat lists are impressive. There are 5 for Mischief, another 5 for Calypso. There’s some semblance of organization into tasks and subtasks, but trying to keep all projects on the lists and not only in our heads has been tough. Still, we’re on the home stretch especially on the “Mischief Store” list.

*We use the “Reminders” app on our phones. We can share the lists with each other and can update lists on the fly, even if there’s not internet. We also like that we can add subtasks and set priorities on the tasks. It’s easy to reorder the tasks too, which means we can lump certain kinds of projects together, or decide we need to have a “buy from McMaster Carr” or “buy from Defender” list and just move details into the larger category. I also like that we can choose to hide all the completed tasks or show them - it’s a good morale boost when I can toggle and see that “Mischief Store” list that has 9 items left on it also has 69 completed ones. It’s the small things in life, right?

*Calypso has 2 new furlers, plus a staysail on order*

There was a quick trip to Vermont to help with Opening Weekend for the family house up there - and any time we head to Vermont we stop to see Bee in New York!

*With Bee in New York, waiting on burgers*

June.

We’re quickly approaching inferno season on the Chesapeake, which means we’re quickly approaching “escape to Vermont” season on the boats. What’s happened in June?

*There has been some fun in the middle of boat work.*

Lots of time with friends. Cruising buddies have stopped in Deltaville and we’ve enjoyed time on board their boats. Reconnecting with yacht club friends is a joy and completely reinforces our sense of having a robust support system here.

*Loka graciously hosted the crews of Ariel and Mischief*

*I had a divine weekend with my Charlottesville Moms’ group - we first gathered about 2 weeks after 9/11*

Lots of boat work. Mischief’s wood is in good enough shape to leave her safely - it’s not done done, but we feel really good about how she looks. If we have time to do more before we head south in the fall we can do that, but that’s unlikely. No worries. The only things left to do for her are storage-focused items like removing batteries from the clock, set up a humidity sensor, take off and label the halyards. I’d guess we’ll knock those off in the next couple of days.

Calypso’s list has a couple of leak mitigation items (deck prism, old stove chimney, rebed a chainplate) and some more mundane maintenance issues like greasing thruhulls and replacing zincs. There are a lot of small projects that have been bugging us too, like replacing the solar panel mounts and installing the fire extinguishers. This is, of course, not talking about the stuff that’s been ticked off!

*Working on the prop shaft involves boat yoga.*

This last weekend was spent indoctrinating our very dear friends Alison and David into the glories of DIY life. They’ve got Alison V, a sweet Herreshoff Alerion 26 that’s got some lovely teak toenail . . . that was in dire need of being redone. Now they’ve learned how to do it themselves!

*First you show . . . Teak toerail all stripped.*

Our boatyard time is wrapping up. Saturday night we’ll be in Annapolis with friends on their boat, then Sunday with my brother and his family in Connecticut. Monday we’ll be up in Vermont for about 10 weeks of land life that doesn’t involve a ladder (except when I repaint the house). Stay tuned for dispatches from the mobile boatyard . . .