Summit North Marina - Maintenance October 3 - 10

About every six months we have to take a week or so to do some serious maintenance. The salt water and sun really do some damage over time. The most time consuming task is washing, compounding and waxing the boat. Dwayne does the hull from toe rail down and Carla does the deck, cabin and cockpit. Maintaining the stainless steel is also a project for Carla. Other projects include changing engine and transfer oil; changing oil and fuel filters, cleaning the seawater strainer which feeds seawater to the engine's coolant system. We take turns cleaning the bilge. This time its Dwayne's turn. Carla maintains the teak. We do as much as we can while underway; however, you can't do everything if you keep moving every few days. Keeping the systems operating and maintaining appearances are endless tasks.

Waxing the Hull

Here is a summary of our week:

Oct 3 We drove the car back from Dwayne's brother's house in Columbia, MD. Upon our return we bought food to last us until our upcoming trip to China (by air).

Oct 4, 5, 6 and 7 General maintenance - mostly washing, compounding and waxing the boat. Dwayne spent 20 hours in the dinghy over these 4 days working on the boat's hull and he still has another 6 to 8 hours of work to be done before he is finished. He sometimes reminds himself that he hasn't mowed a lawn in two years (some consolation). Carla gets the cabin, cockpit and stainless fixtures glowing. The boat really does look good when the wax job is finished. We are often complimented on how well she appears after her week of spa treatment. We had wonderful weather for these outdoor tasks.

Waterline - Before and After

Oct 8 & 9 Two days of rain as Hurricane Matthew sat due east of us but hundreds of miles from us. Dwayne spent the time gathering damage and status reports from friends along the East Coast and Bahamas. For a brief while, we thought we'd have to cancel our plans to winter in the Bahamas and started to explore alternatives. By mid-day on October 9, we learned enough about conditions in the Bahamas to decide we would winter there as much of the severe damage was isolated to a few locations. With that decision, we began planning for our trip south through the Chesapeake Bay and the Intra-Coastal Waterway (ICW).

Oct 10 The sun was out again and so were the rags for washing and waxing the hull. It took another 8 hours of steady work to complete the job. Dwayne was glad to know it wouldn't have to be done again until we returned to the boat after our Christmas break. Then we'll start over again with trying to remove the "ICW mustache" from the bow before heading over to the Bahamas. We want to make a good appearance when we arrive.