Weather Window

At last - some nice weather.
What we in the boating community call a "weather window", normally indicating a good time to leave port for exotic destinations.
In our case, however, it means we can seriously tackle the outside boat projects - primarily the dreaded bright work.

Of course, when the weather is nice, we absolutely cannot skip the opportunity to walk all the way downtown for our morning coffee.

We also need to check out all the visiting boats in the harbour, although it seems it is still a little early in the season for much activity there.  Most of the fishing boats that have been tied up at the docks for the winter are gone now, and the influx of summer yachties has not begun - leaving the docks looking a bit vacant.

When it is nice in Nanaimo, it is really nice!

A sure sign that summer is almost here is the start of the farmer's market at the harbour, so we had to check that out as well.  We find that there is little there that we need - we don't have the room for a lot of knick-knacks and fancy artwork, and there is little produce available as yet.

Meanwhile, the boat work is calling and we have run out of excuses.

At this point, the hard prep work is done, all the stripping, sanding, taping, etc.  Now we are just applying the stain.  Since it will probably require at least 6 coats, and you need 24 hours between each, it is a long, drawn out affair.

And then we have the deck painting to look forward to.  And when all of that is done, we can finally get the boat hauled to do the bottom paint and zincs and such.  At this rate, it will be a miracle if we can get away to do any sailing by the end of May - but hope springs eternal...