I took a four-day weekend this week to get caught up on some of the work around the place. With all the rain we’ve been getting we’re behind on the mowing and trimming – all the grass is too long and the stuff around the fences is out-of-control.

Thursday wasn’t too bad; Dana and I did a few small things around the place, and when the kids came home we started them mowing. Friday Dana and I brought out the line trimmers; between the two of us we managed trim all the grass from the front of the property to the alley. We even cut down all the long grass and weeds on the hill behind the house. In the afternoon we went down to Lowe’s and bought supplies for Saturday’s project: a bunch of fence posts and bags of concrete.

Saturday we started working on the fence around the vegetable garden.  I planted the five corner posts and cemented them in. Around 11:30 it started to feel like it was going to rain so we packed all the tools away and headed inside. Of course, we never got a drop.

In the late afternoon I decided that enough was enough and I took the tractor out into the pasture and started mowing. The sheep are eating a lot of grass, but the pasture is still ahead of them. I mowed off the alley and the top of the hill down to the access road. It’s starting to look better, but I need to get out and cut the thistles off soon before they start setting flowers and seeds.

It’s been a long, cold spring. Today is the solstice – the longest day of the year. More than 16 hours of daylight, but not a ray of sunshine to be seen.

Somehow I managed to lose the sail track stop for the main mast’s sail track last year. I’m not sure when it happened, but I do know that when Dana and I took the boat out by ourselves last summer the stop was no longer on the boat.

I’m actually surprised that it took so long for the old stop to disappear. It just rides in the sail track all the time, eventually it was going to fall out either when I was towing the boat or when I was putting the mast up and down.

Heck, I might have put it in my pocket when I was unbending the sail after going sailing and forgot where I put it when I was done.

Anyway, I managed to find the stop on the West Marine Web site. The stop is $9.00, and shipping is $9.00. Not so eager to make the purchase, frankly. The West Marine Web site has a neat feature, however, that shows you if your local store has the part in stock. If it doesn’t, you can have the part ordered to the local store for pickup and not have to pay shipping.

Turned out that our local West Marine had the stop in stock, however, so I was able to pick one up after a short drive to Everett. Joey and Duchess rode along – Joe is getting to be kind of fun to have around. He’s almost as big as I am (he’s bigger than Dana) and he has the same sense of humor as the rest of us.

Anyway, the new sail slug is sitting on top of my sailing gloves so hopefully I’ll remember to pick it up the next time I get a chance to head out.

Last weekend the family was out of town so I took advantage of the missing family to do some work on Odyssey. I pulled her into the barn and started cleaning out the stuff inside. Some things, like the towels, needed to be taken out and washed. Other things, like the cushions, just needed to be dried off and they were good to go.

I pulled the sails out of the sail bags and hung them up in the garage over night to make sure that they were dry, and I used the shop vac to pull 4 or 5 gallons of water out of the bilges. All in all, however, it was remarkably clean in there.

That weekend I pulled all the miscellaneous lines off the boat. I pulled the boom vang, the main boom downhaul, the main outhaul and the earring off and took them to West Marine to replace the lines.

I’m not sure what it is about the people at West Marine, but there are two kinds of people that work there. Good-natured people who don’t know anything about boats and unpleasant arrogant people who don’t know anything about boats but treat you like the problem is you, not them.

Of course, when I went in on Saturday there was one of each.

At one point I was doing the “I’m smiling because I don’t want to tell you exactly what I think about what you’ve just said to me.” I think they might have got the picture, ‘cause they backed way off.

Anyway, the good-natured guy helped me size and purchase new lines. I picked up a tide table and actually made it out of the store for only $21.

Yes, it was too good to be true.

I stopped on the way home and picked up a spool of waxed whipping twine at the other marine shop on the Everett water front (can’t think of the name. Typical.) because I didn’t want to go back to West Marine and try to explain to them what I wanted. Saturday night while I watched TV I whipped the end of all the lines.

The lines looked good, but when I went out to put them on the boat it turned out they were all a sixteenth too big. So I put Duchess in the car and headed back on Sunday morning.

The same two guys were working. They were standing in the exact same place they had been when I got there on Saturday. Worst nightmare ever. And it cost me another $17.

This time I bought extra line for the boom vang. I wanted to try to splice an eye around the beckett on the vang’s fiddle block. On Wednesday I finally gave it a try. It took me 3 hours and two tries to put in one rather ugly splice, only saved by the long whip I put around the splice. I can have one done for me for $6. Couldn’t make a living doing that…

Anyway, I took the lines out to the boat – put the vang back on the boom and tied the outhaul and downhaul where they belong. Looks rather spiffy with the new lines.

Trying to get Odyssey ready to go this weekend so I can go sailing next weekend. Usually I try to get ready on Saturday and sail on Sunday. It's usually too much.

I tried to finish the new hatch, but I can't get my epoxy to go off, and I'm about out of ideas. Instead I just bolted all the clean teak on and slid to original hatch down into the slides.

After everything was bolted back together and the dirt was all swept out, I hauled her over to the other side of the place to spend some quality time with a hose and a scrub brush. Earlier this year I heard about a product called "Purple Power" that's supposed to do a good job of cleaning the fiberglass. It does. It didn't get rid of the water and marks and streaks, but it did get the everything else. Dana says it's the cleanest that she's ever seen Odyssey.

I slid her back into the barn at the end of the day, next I need to load the gear aboard, rig my new anchor chain and rode, and re-rig the mast. It's not much more than half a day's work, so I'm betting I actually get out next weekend, weather permitting.

Put the second coat of teak oil on tonight.

Most of the wood looked good, but there were a couple of spots on one hand rail and one hatch slide where the teak had absorbed all the oil and left the surface looking like I hadn't put anything on. Not surprised, after 30 years I suppose the wood was pretty thirsty.

I waited 20 minutes again then rubbed the oil off. The wood is pretty dark now, so I think it's about done. Now I just need to re-attach them.

I've been needing to make a trip to West Marine for supplies. Today I got to make it.

And I got to ride my motorcycle for the first time this year. As usual I was loathe to start riding, but Dana insisted and as usual she was right. I had a beautiful ride, and I'm looking forward to my next opportunity.

Anyway, I get to West Marine. It must have been a slow day because as soon as I walked through the door an employee was right there asking if he could help. As a matter of fact, I replied, he could.

He listed three options for re-finishing my teak: Oil, Cetol, and varnish. Oil is the easiest, he said, but varnish done right makes the teak look like fine furniture. The rest of the conversation went like this:

"I'm not sure I need to use varnish. My sailboat is like a Catalina 22..."

"Use teak oil."

No hesitation. Pretty much means that's what I need to use. So I picked up a bottle of teak oil and a sponge brush to put it on with.

While I was there I also picked up a '09 tide book, a West Marine catalog (Yay! Toys!) and a new wind fly. I broke the old one working on something or other this winter. It was a little spendy, but I figured I should pick it up while I was there and West Marine had one in stock.

Next -- putting the oil on the old teak and admiring my handiwork.

I've been listening to Furled Sails, a sailing podcast produced in Florida. Listening to the podcasts has inspired me to go back to work on Odyssey, so tonight after dinner I headed out to the barn to get back to work.

The first thing I need to do now that I have the new winch installed is put the bulkhead back in under the bridge deck. This piece of 3/4-inch plywood is the only support the front of the cockpit has. The bridge deck has the main sheet pulling up on it and the keel winch pulling down; there's a lot of stress in this location. Most of the weight of the 900-lb keel is supported by this bulkhead when winching keel up and down.

And of course something this important doesn't go in easily. Oh no, it takes time and thought and my 14-year-old daughter coming out and saying "What you need is a crow bar."

So I grabbed a crow bar.

And popped the bulkhead right in.

After that it was a simple matter to put in the screws and brackets that hold the bulkhead in place. While I worked on the inside of the boat Katie was on the outside with a scrub brush cleaning up the worst of the algae around the lip of the poptop. A couple more sessions like that and the boat might be close to clean...

Next up is getting something to put on the teak I've been cleaning and putting the wood back on the boat.

(While I was writing this entry I couldn't get "Fish Heads" out of my head. Except it was "bulk heads, bulk heads, laughing happy bulkheads... I'm a sick, sick man.)

Sitting in quiet contemplation on the deck of my sailboat, I came up with a list of projects. Some old, some new, but all things that would improve our days on Odyssey.

Here are the things that I'm realistically going to get done this winter:

• Clean the cockpit.
• Clean the cabin.
• Swab the decks.
• Clean the green scum off the mast and mast fittings.
• Put the new winch in.
• Clean, sand and oil the hatch slides.
• Clean, sand and oil the door slides.
• Clean, sand and oil the cabin-top grab rails
• Fill the holes on the sides of the cockpit where fittings have been removed.
• Build a new door for the companionway.

Here are the things that I'd like to do, but really, what're the chances that I'll actually get them done?

• Get a new main sheet.
• Replace the other lines on the boom (outhaul, downhaul).
• Get the line I need for a jib downhaul.
• Replace the old, ugly cleats with new, shiny stainless steel cleats.
• Replace the lifelines.
• Put on a real stern ladder.
• Sew new cushions for the cabin.
• Put in an electrical system that actually works.

I'm sure that there's more. There always is.