On our way to our first rendezvous

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We are on our way to our first Grand Banks rendezvous. Our destination is Roche Harbor on San Juan Island.

This will be our first rendezvous. Our idea of boating is a quiet place with no one else are around. This will be interesting. We are sporting brand new brightwork by Native Brightworks and shiny new doors from Mike Thomas at Thomas Marine Interiors.

Last night we were at the Point Hudson marina. Fewer boats than I would have expected here. In fact, there were only six.

Archimedes at Point hudson Marina on Port Townsend

Our next stop is Roche Harbor. We’ll be on our way shortly.

Diggin’ these new Crocs

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I am diggin’ the new Crocs Beach Line boat shoes. Extremely light and comfortable. This is  not an ad … unless someone would like to pay us. We just want to point out nifty products when we find them. I stumbled on these when I was on the hunt for new boat shoes. Crocs are all made of plastic (I think). These are.

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Installing a seat in our inflatable

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One of the joys of boating is inviting friends to visit for the weekend … then putting them to work. That was Bruce’s fate this weekend.

Last year, we added a seat and steering station to our 12 foot Flexboat inflatable. This was a great improvement to the usability of the boat. The details can be found in this post. What we learned was that we still need a fair amount of weight forward to keep the bow down and allow the boat to plane easily. To address this, the second person in the boat usually sits forward. Too bad there is no seat up there and that person has to sit facing backward.

Our solution was to add a matching seat forward in the boat. This gives the passenger something to sit on and allows them to face forward (or backward, I guess, if they want to … or maybe even sideways …).

We ordered a seat from St. Croix Marine Products through Defender.com. The seat matches the seat we put in earlier. Defender was the only place I could find it. St. Croix no longer lists this seat on their site. It may or may not have been discontinued … which may also explain the sale price at Defender.

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Home again, home again

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We are back! Back in our slip. It has been a long two and a half months since we dropped her off at Native Brightworks for the varnish work.

We did not have Native Brightworks varnish all the teak. There is so much on this old boat that I am resigned to it being a never ending process. We had the cap rails and handrails varnished. We also had all the grab rails sanded. I think we are just going to let them go natural. There is so much labor in keeping those up. It would actually be less expensive to have all the grab rails replaced with stainless than it would be to keep the teak rails varnished. So natural they will be.

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Locking Through the Chittenden Locks

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If you are a boater in the Seattle area, you will eventually experience the opportunity to transit the Hiram Chittenden Locks. This is a fairly easy process, but many face their first experience with fear and trepidation. There is no need. The process is straightforward and the lock attendants are quite helpful. You will be an expert in no time. We’ve done this many times and thought it might help others to write it all up.

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Work Continues …

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But the end is near (or at least nearer). With luck, this will be the last (or next to last) report before we get the boat back. Yea! Work on the doors continues on schedule at Thomas Marine Interiors. The new interior panels are on the doors. As you can see, this require many clamps. Mike is going to paint the outside panels and put in new glass as well.

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Courtesy Mike Thomas, Thomas Marine Interiors

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Door Repair Update

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Mike Thomas of Thomas Marine Interiors is hard at work on the door repair. He is trying to get the work done before Native Brightworks completes the brightwork. If he doesn’t, Archimedes has no doors. That would make it a bit drafty and hard to lock up the boat.

The interior surfaces of the doors were looking quite shabby. Weather, water, and time have left their mark. You can see some of the damage in this photo between the bottom corner of the window frame and the door latch.

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Courtesy Mike Thomas, Thomas Marine Interiors

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