May 16 – Jacksonville, FL

Lamb’s Yacht Center

We are at Lamb’s Yacht Center on the Ortega River in Jacksonville. We chose this marina, because it has covered slips…it’s not like being in the sheds at Atlantic Yacht Basin in Great Bridge. These slips are covered by a high concrete roof, which lets in plenty of light and breeze but keeps out the heat of the sun and the rain. It’s the perfect place to do work on a boat, especially teak work….and that is what we’ve been working on the last week and a half. Our first project was getting a maintenance coat of Cetol Gloss on the teak Stan refinished last spring. That meant removing the stainless rub rail trim, taping, sanding, cleaning and then finally applying a coat of gloss. The next project was to redo all the teak that wasn’t done last year. That meant all the old layers of Cetol needed to be removed from the cap rail and port side door. Stan does that by using a heat gun and a wonderful little scrapper he bought last year, both items make the job a lot easier, but still time consuming and hard on the knees. After all the old layers were removed and the decks swept, Stan cleaned the teak with Star Brite Teak Cleaner to remove the mildew and then wiped on Star Brite Teak Brightener. These products really restored the look of our teak and were easy to use. Before we could begin applying Cetol we had to tape, sand and remove dust with Xylene. Today we applied the first of three coats of Cetol, which will be followed by three coats of Cetol Gloss. Five more days and we will be looking great!

We've been very busy working on the boat, but we have taken a little time to do fun things too. We went to the beach and farmers market last week and this week we went to dinner with friends. They belong to a Captain's Club that meets twice a month for dinner. We had a great visit with Barbara and David and enjoyed a nice fish fry and program. The program was presented by a treasure hunter...Amelia Research & Recovery, LLC. He explained the techniques they use and showed us some of the treasures they have recovered. We actually saw their ship working near Fernandina Beach when we came through there last month.

The teak ready for it's maintenance coat of gloss

Stan removing the old layers of cetol 

The next few pictures show the same spot of the cap rail. This picture shows why it needed a little work.

This is the same spot after the layers of cetol were removed 

This is how it looked after the Star Brite treatment 

And the same spot with its first coat of Cetol 

Another spot on the cap rail that was looking very bad.