Speaking of ports...

...Kintala has 13 of them. I did 12, leaving the one in the head opaque. With a stack that high it seemed a good idea to abandon elbow grease and opt for power tools. 1500 wet/dry and a palm sander, followed by polishing compound and an electric buffer, turned out to be the ticket. Each port took approximately 1/2 hour. With replacement parts listed right at $40 per I was "earning" just shy of $80 an hour. I'll take that job any day. Admittedly they are not quite new looking, but from across the salon I can't see any difference. Of course some 6 hours of labor later Kintala isn't any more seaworthy, will not go any faster to wind, nor will she take any larger waves than she would have before. That's okay though, the engine room (box actually) is near the top of the "do this next" list. In there lay mysteries that will make a difference; odd-ball squealing noises, (belt or pump, your guess is as good as mine) water hoses to nowhere, a bedlam of wiring that would make Medusa think she was having a bad hair day; no casual observer is ever going to see the work that goes on in there.

And speaking of seaworthy...there is a ship wreck just outside of the marina entrance. It is a small wreck, a 20-there-abouts something that used to be tied to a dock near Kintala. But she is a wreck none the less; grounded with her inverted hull just out of the water, rudder and skeg ripped away, mast gone. A crew of two took her out sailing last Wednesday, something they did every week. A serious wind came up, (we have had a lot of that lately) boat and crew were overwhelmed and ended up getting pounded on, and eventually skewered by, a tree sunk under the flooded lake. A Corps crew went out to take the crew off so one one got hurt. Some days later the corpse was dragged off the tree and into the shallows near the entrance, we can see the hull from our dock. Word is they (not sure who is "they") are going to pull her over to the travel lift and put her into a cradle.

Odd, one wouldn't normally think of near mortal consequences when sailing on our postage sized bit of a lake. But so far this season 3 boats have come to grief, one heavily damaged on the rocks just a few hundred yards up the channel, another damaged on different (and apparently slightly softer) rocks down the lake a bit, and now one battered to death on a tree. And people give me a hard time about riding a motorcycle...