Oil on, dirt off

Mr. Miyagi would have been proud.  Not "wax on, wax off", but the lemon oil motion is the same, as my very sore arm muscles will testify.  We have a LOT of teak inside our boat and it badly needed the moisture of a fresh coat.  The nice thing about this particular job is that it's very rewarding to look at it all when you're done!

Since Tim is off introducing our granddaughter to the Pittsburgh clan, I spent the weekend finishing the winter preparations.  All the teak is now oiled, all the freezable things have been offloaded and brought home, the ports and screens have been cleaned of their summer grime, the sole scrubbed, the head cleaned, a couple more coats of finish on the coaming teak outside, a new fire extinguisher is mounted in the V-berth, and I spent a few hours helping various other marina residents take down sails, trailer up their boats, and carry things to their cars.

It was an odd weekend.  A weird mixture of pleasurable work and wistful glances at the wildly flapping flag that signaled good sailing missed.  Of good social time at the lobster pot dinner we had Saturday night, and bittersweet goodbyes to friends that we won't see until next Spring. Of warm sunshine in the afternoon and freaking cold 21° with heavy frost in the morning.  I laid in the V-berth Saturday morning cuddled up in our quilt with the heater running full blast looking at that 21° on the Weather Channel and perusing a fellow blogger's report of their trip south to warmer climes, and all I could think of was why in the world were we here instead of following S/V Veranda South?  I commented as much to them on their blog, and he answered back pretty quickly - "When you do head South, I recommend being at least a week ahead of Veranda...54° last night inside the boat.  ugggghh." 


The stack of Rubbermaid tubs full of the freezable stuff is still sitting right in the middle of my living room floor.  I've thought at least several times since I got home today that I should put it all away, but I'm not ready for the finality of that so they're going to sit there another day.  For now, I'm content to sit and look at boats on yachtworld.com and dream a little while longer.