Archimedes Project: Thursday, April 14th

It's getting harder and harder to stay on task as we approach the end of this work season, but we try. It seems there are just too many day trips for various reasons that need to be made.

Work continues staining the canopy. We took the tarp off yesterday and stained the very top of the structure. We have decided that the color we are using is too red. It seems like our original color swatches were done with a lot of red pigment at the bottom of the can and the red seems to clash with the boats black trim so we're trying to darken it up a bit. Hopefully we can accomplish this with one more coat of dark walnut on everything and then we can finish with the final three coats of polyurethane. Better to do it now than to live with a color we are not satisfied with.

I'm feeling so good being up on this tall ladder fighting my fear of heights but I can safely say that it will not be myself that gets up and walks the line like Carter does! I kind of find this a little strange because once upon a time I was a pretty good gymnast doing cartwheels on a beam that was about twice as small as this one.

We played around with the spindles, placing them on the walkway to get an idea of what it will look like. We think the boat is taking on a pirate ship attitude...which is ok with us!

Carter plans to extend the canopy out to the tip of the bow so here we are deciding on the placement of the next spindle posts.

Here's a project I've put off too long. Cleaning the fenders. I'll be trying a couple different methods until I find the one that actually works! I have already ruled out bleach. I went to the internet to research how to clean fenders and found a sailing forum suggesting the use of acetone and then coating with armor all. We experimented with the acetone on one fender with some success. I'll keep working on these a little bit each day.

It's getting soooo hot here that it is hard to get much work done. But, the work scheduled to be completed before leaving is:

1) sun deck over the cockpit

2) installation part of the railing

3) more organinzation in the engine room

We have begun to clean up the work area while figuring out where to put things. We loaded the scuba gear and some fishing gear back into the bow hanging locker. That was the easy part. The rest requires some thought and arranging.

We only have two weeks left and we are missing this project already! But we must get back to Tennessee to continue with "Plan A".

Assorted pictures.

Belle Hatchy Marina located just around the bend of the oxbow from us. We visited yesterday to see if they had the capability to haul the Halcyon out of the water to clean the bottom but unfortunately, she is too large and heavy.