New Update

Hi all! I’ve been working very hard on the boat since I got back. I have been able to stain/varnish the bulkheads and the two doors. What a job! We put a mixture of Bombay Mahogany and Cherry MinWax together and put 3 coats on and then 2 coats of Polyurethane Satin Finish, exterior. The vee berth bulkheads are done and the salon and locker areas have their 2nd coat of stain on. Today I’ll put the 3rd coat on and then we can start the Satin and hopefully be done by Tuesday night. After Brett gets the trims built, we will varnish all the trim in clear gloss since it is mostly teak and mahogany. So we’ll have the dark red wood I wanted and the two toned look I wanted. Cool, huh? The stain of the wood turned out exactly the color I always wanted to begin with. All the forums are correct, Birch is a bi*** to stain.! LOL. But it turned out okay. With some trim, cushions and floor, our boat will be rockin’! We’ve really been progressing.

Do you like the new cushions?

Aren't they fabulous? >:)

I finally finished varnishing the starboard side of the Mahogany that we have attached to the cockpit where the winches and dock cleats are bolted. Brett attached it a few days ago so we now have both sides complete. Yay!!

We did have a setback with the starter of the engine. After 3 wrong starters, the company has come to the conclusion that we need a starter that costs $1000 and takes 90 days to get. So we’re a bit bummed about that.. But we’ll manage. We’ll have to start saving money for it.

We also got another letter from the Coast Guard. They didn’t even READ the letter I sent them. They asked us why we cancelled the first Bill of Sale and wanted a signed explanation from me, Charl and Jose. They TOLD us to cancel the first one because it had Charl as Trustee, not Agent. Then they TOLD us to cancel it so the 2nd one would be legit! Apparantely they can’t read letters or the original fact that we CAN’T get a hold of Jose. So Brett called them and chewed them a new butt and supposedly the gal said she would call us on Tuesday. We’ll see. They would not let us talk to a supervisor. Sounds like a bunch of bull to me. It was unbelievable…. (can you tell I’m upset about it? We’ve only done everything they ask us to do for the last 7 months!!)

The weather here has gotten a LITTLE cooler. It is in the high 80’s now instead of high 90’s or 100’s. We have been horribly battling 3 different species of ANTS while I’ve been back. Brett battled them before I got back. They are awful. We have tiny little black ants, medium sized black ants (regular ants to Oregonians) and then the red ones. Fire Ants. Fire Ants bite and the bite stings worse than a bee sting. It creates a dull pain for hours. And they keep biting you till you pluk them off and, as we “Texans” like to do, “roll and flick ‘em“. All of them have made their way into the camper and even into our bed! It’s awful. We have used gallons of ant killer and bleach and salt and all kinds of remedies on everything they could climb up to the camper. First we sprayed the hose they were climbing and surrounded it in a salt mound. That worked. Till they started climbing the jacks! So Brett sprayed the Jacks. But they seemed to have already found their way into the camper walls. The boat has them too. Everyone has them everywhere here. I still firmly believe that ants are aliens that are taking over the world.

We cleaned up the dinghy last night so I could start playing with it again and learn how to sail it and as we were taking it to the water, noticed… FIRE ANTS. They had crawled in between the hull and liner and had a nest inside! So we spent the night flushing the inside of it (in between the hull and liner through deck plates) with water and bleach. (Thanks for the tip on bleach, Don). Then we put it in the water away from the ants and sprinkled it with ant powder. So I didn’t get to row my little boat around last night. The last thing I want is fire ants crawling up my pants. The saying, “ants in my pants” ? It’s true. Absolutely. And it is NO laughing matter! LOL

As we were cleaning out the dinghy, Don looked over our ants. “Oh, it looks like you have some swarmers there.” “Swarmers?” I ask. “Ya, when they have wings, they are getting ready to spread the nest.” “Well that’s great. I have been seeing the winged ones in the camper.” I declare.

By the way, this question is for Ray. Ray- What will ants do to the inside of my new computer? It’s really interesting that I can be typing a long and a tiny ant runs across my screen and down to my keyboard. Brett said he can see it now- We send back the computer to Dell for the accident warranty and they open it up and there are fire ants in it! LOL. We could spread fire ants throughout Dell! LOL.

My camcorder quit working. Now every (original) electronic I have has quit working. Nice. It has the same problem as my Canon A610. This time, though, it WAS on Canon’s list for repair so I will be sending it in for them to fix for free. It makes me nervous to hand it over but I am sure they’ll take care of it.

As you can see in my blog, I have been able to open another website shop with my jewelry. Etsy.com was a lot cheaper (no monthly fees). It’s decent too. The only thing is, that there is a lot of cheap jewelry and it is hard to compete but I am just glad to get my jewelry back online so I can share with others when I have new pieces. I have only put twelve items on but I”ll get more when I can. I’m just excited to have a website again and it didn’t cost me much.
Brett and I might participate in the Harvest Moon Regatta http://www.harvestmoonregatta.com/ at the end of October with a friend of ours and his boat. We haven’t been able to talk to him about it but he had mentioned it awhile back. Apparantely this is a pretty big regatta for the Gulf Coast. You go from Galveston to Port Aransas. That means, we might have to take the boat up to Galveston which takes 24 hours or so. Then it takes a couple days to sail to Port Aransas. Then you party. Then we would bring the boat back up to Palacios. It would take 3-4 days. We may just tag along the race from here, in Palacios, to Port A. and just do an overnighter. Brett wants me to go, says it would be excellent experience to really get to experience the Gulf/offshore and overnight. I am excited about it. Dennis said he would watch the animals, too. So we’ll see…

I was able to get into a great show in Galveston this year! In fact, I got into all the shows I applied for so I am booked, booked, booked this fall. But the one in Galveston is huge. And hard to get into. Its called, Dickens on the Strand http://www.galvestonhistory.org/Dickens_on_The_Strand.asp . Very hard to get into and it’s a HUGE show. And they accepted my application! We have a LOT of work to do for the booth and our costumes before we go. Definitely check out the website. I also got into, Rockport SeaFest which was one I really wanted to be in in a couple weeks, Kyle Fair, Bastrop Art on the Bridge and Galveston Seaside Festival (a smaller one day show in Galveston). I am also getting into the Rosenberg show that we did last year before we got to Serendipity. I’ll be applying to the Bay City Holiday Market again this year like last year. And maybe Palacios’ Texas Seafood Festival in November. So I am packed.

Brett’s sister called yesterday. It was so nice to hear from them, we don’t get to talk with them very often. I think it made Brett SO happy to hear from her…

I found this picture of our boat with the genoa up. We raised it right before I went to Oregon in June. The end of this week, I will raise Brett up the mast to lubricate the tracks and attach our windvane and nav lights on top of the mast. Then we'll be able to raise the other sails to see what kind of shape they are in.

Well I thought I would catch you up on some things. Hope everyone is doing well, we miss you all! I will post pictures of the salon staining in a couple days after we get the finish coats on.