Post-Thanksgiving Catching Up

Although I haven’t posted much these past weeks does not mean I had nothing to write about. November has actually been a very busy month here in the Charest household.

So while the rest of the world is out celebrating Black Friday at the malls, I’m going to do some catch-up writing.

Yesterday was a nice celebration. We ended up with only one guest, a friend of Winnie’s, but that was okay. The turkey was cooked near-perfect and we had lots of side dishes to go with it, including Winnie’s excellent dumplings. So, I’d call it another great Thanksgiving Day celebration. I’m hoping that next year we’ll have several more guests at the dinner table, which would make the day even better.

It turned cold at the beginning of this month, and we actually had frost on the cars every day for two weeks. Then it warmed up, leaving me thinking that perhaps the winter was already over. No luck. Now, weather-guessers are predicting a cold winter ahead. You wouldn’t know it from yesterday, however. Noontime Thanksgiving Day was about 85 degrees here. It was actually warmer here than down in Mississippi. I’m already way past cold winter weather.

I also started a major winter project this month. I finally started replacing the deck on my boat Sea Dreams. Sea Dreams is about 30 years old now, and although she wears her age well, there’s still work needed to keep her sound. The deck was actually “soft,” indicating rot in the underlying wood, when I bought the boat. But it wasn’t serious enough for me to worry about, beyond knowing that one winter I’d have a project. This past summer, with the amount of boating I did, I knew it was time.

In late October I pulled everything our of the boat including the helm seat in preparation for this new project. Next was tearing up the easy middle section of the deck; the part rotted enough that I could just tear everything up with my bare hands. Note to future boat owners – You should not be able to tear out a boat’s deck with bare hands. Note to self – rotten plywood looks and smells bad.

Now, I’m down to using a grinder to tear out the harder-to-get sections, clean everything up, and start measuring for the new stuff. I’m planning on cutting the new plywood and gathering the materials needed over the next few months. Epoxy work needs at least 68 degree temps so I’ll plan on putting the new deck down in late March or early April, once the weather is warm enough. If all goes well, I’ll be out boating many times this coming summer. Otherwise…

More to come.