All You Need...

Today we started on painting the rest of the decks, the grippy part. In the past we have used sand that we have collected from the beach. But this time around we got a good tip for finer sand that is cheap…sand used to line the bottom of bird cages. So after a run the one of the many pet shops in town, we made our sand shaker from an old oregano bottle and got to painting. This part was much easier. I rolled out the paint on our flat surfaces and Mike sprinkled sand. It was over and done with in no time. Mike also installed some additional stainless steel bars for our soon to be arriving spray hood. He even got the thru-deck fitting for the propane hose moved to the very aft deck so it will sit underneath some boxes we are mounting on the roll bar. Now we just have another big hole to contend with on deck but that is where the convenience of a steel boat and welding come into play. In the evening, we were invited to dinner by Mike and Anne on ‘Mithral’. They are a very nice English couple who we besieged with questions while they were hauled out on their homemade Bruce Roberts steel boat. Their boat is also about 25 years old and immaculate. Very impressive. We enjoyed a lovely dinner with conversation ranging from family to history to, of course, boats. And since they have done a lot of sailing across the Med and the Atlantic we had lots of questions for them. The big question was ‘What do we need to do to prepare for the Atlantic crossing?’. We thought we would get an answer such as make sure you have a wind vane, a SSB, emergency equipment. But guess what their answers were… a good fishing rod and bread recipe. And this isn’t the first time we have gotten those answers. We will definitely add those to our list of preparations!