The Westlake Pirates

Talk about a refresher course in grade school this past weekend! There was chemistry, art, politics, history, home economics...

I'll let Steve fill you in on all the technical details because he likes that sort of thing. I like to paint and drink coffee. Can I just tell you, only in Washington State would you drive out to the mad boonies of desolate Raymond, and find the *best* espresso at some little shack on the side of the road. I don't even think this town has a school, but it's got one killer coffee shop. Oh and the girls' softball team was holding a fundraising car wash, so my car, Verna, got all nice and polished. This was to make me feel better after having the windshield smashed by a rock on the highway en route.

But none of this really has anything to do with the fact that after a weekend under the hull with paintbrushes, I need a new pair of jeans and Steve had to shave his head. Sunday was kind of like art class, but bigger. And without smocks.

Boy, did we paint.

Continue reading "Like art class, only bigger" »

Posted by Kristin at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So not surpisingly, there's a few things on the boat that need some care and attention. We went down to "Beautiful Downtown Raymond" (Gary's words, although he's really in the suburbs between Raymond and South Bend) and got to work on the major things that need dealing with before the boat gets inspected and dropped in the water.

Step 1 consisted of sealing miscelaneous gaps and cracks where rainwater might be leaking into the holds. The material used for this is a compound made by the 3M corporation called 5200, which comes in a caulk-type container and goes in a standard caulk gun. This compound is exceptionally slow to extrude from the container and gets everywhere it shouldn't be, such as on clothing, skin, and shoes. It also gets into the seals and gaskets where it needs to go, and is quite possibly the strongest adhesive available to the general public. If the Hoover Dam ever springs a leak, this is the stuff I'd go in with to seal it back up. The best part is that it actually cures better when wet, so the on-and-off drizzle we had over the weekend was a benefit. But enough about that, and enough about the fact that my fingerprints are now filled with some of the excess.

On to bigger and badder things, in several senses of those words.

Continue reading "Earning it" »

Posted by Steve at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

All righty then. We took the field trip down to Raymond yesterday (surprisingly, it's actually on the big US map on the wall here... but I think mostly for lack of anything else in the entire region that would outshine it.) It's roughly a two-hour drive, and aside from the occasional nasty rain squalls that lasted for an average of twenty minutes each (followed by twenty minutes of glaring sunshine), it was a lovely trek down.

We met with the man selling this boat, who manufactures catamarans for a living. He's an entertainingly crotchety old guy, who has clearly been on or around the water from roughly ten seconds after the umbilical cord was cut. Between his random information and the guy who did the survey on the first boat, I think we've now got more names and information that could be useful for re-surfacing the Titanic, let alone just dealing with a thirty year-old houseboat that's still afloat. Of course, half of our new contacts are only known by their first names (such as "my buddy Mike down at the marina on Lake Union... go talk to him," or "you know Steve at Butterfly Marine, well he told me the other day...") Anyway, he showed us the two Cruise-A-Homes they had there, both already out of the water and on blocks. The newer (1979) one was in the process of getting polished up and repainted, while the 1975 one had already been mostly dealt with, other than a final coat of paint. Plus, did I mention that it was like 40% cheaper than the first boat we were looking at? SOLD!

Continue reading "Game On!" »

Posted by Steve at 9:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)