A Year of Independence: Rust and Putty

And this is why Mike’s nieces call him ‘Uncle Monkey’. Our neighbor, ‘Foxy Lady’ had a halyard twisted in their shrouds so Mike offered to climb up and help. I am just happy that he decided to use the bosun’s chair after he reached the first spreaders. He ended up going all the way to the mast head to retrieve all the halyards that they had stored for the winter. While I was a bit nervous watching him from our cockpit, all he had to say was there was a good view and a nice breeze!

Today was another productive one. And thankfully, my spirits improved a bit although still a little shaky at times. The day consisted of more sanding and filling gaps in the deck with putty. Also going around the decks and looking for all of the places that are showing some rust and need to have the grinder take them down. For some reason there are a bunch of them on the port side that will get tackled tomorrow. And hopefully they will all be superficial. Even if they aren’t, I think that we would just cover them up with some putty and maybe deal with it later. But man, these decks have gotten trashed with all of the metal work that has happened. Mike got the bow pulpit mounted so we have our life lines back up which is a nice thing. And by the end of the day we both noticed how many achy muscles we have. My back, right elbow, wrists and hands from all of the stooping over and sanding. Mike’s forearms are feeling the burn. A massage is sounding pretty good right about now.

Our putty and rust covered decks