Teak

If we were more ambitious we might have headed further south before coming back to Antigua to fly home for Christmas.  Or even stayed in Guadeloupe longer to explore more.  Or headed north to Barbuda or St. Maartin.

However, we have a lot of teak on our boat and it needed attention.  We spent a ton of dough a couple of years ago to have it done by a professional.  We can’t afford to keep paying that kind of money but the alternative is to let the teak go grey… but it looks sooo good when it is kept up.

So we need to do our own work and put on a couple of “service coats” every year.  Or maybe even twice a season.  Some of the teak was in rough shape so we had to scrape it right down to the wood.  In other places we did some patch-work.  It isn’t perfect but it looks good and the wood is protected.

So that’s what we’ve been doing.  In the morning, after some serious catching up on the news, reading emails from kids, doing the Sudoku and having a leisurely breakfast we build up the energy to sand down the finish.  Even though it looks perfectly fine, you need to scuff up the varnish from the day before so the new coat has a good “grip” and any imperfections are knocked down.  We usually wait until it is really hot so we are bitchy and uncomfortable when that job is done.

Looking in Pam's picture window.

Sanding

Beer and a hot dog (or a salami sandwich or sards on crackers) and then a serious nap during the REALLY hot part of the day.

Then Pam (I’m not qualified) gets on her painting gear.  I mix up the varnish with some thinner - too much and it splashes all over, too little and it drys with an “orange peel” look.  Then PammyAngelo bums her way around the boat, applying the perfect coat.

Picture of perfection

Repeat 2 times for the undamaged parts - 7 times for the parts that we scraped down to nothing.

Have a cooling dip in our backyard pool and then a great supper, some mindless TV, read and go to bed.

So that's been our week.  Almost done.  Time to think about a visit home!