Day 313, Year 10: Working Vacation
Date: Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Weather: Partly Sunny and Hot—No Wind
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, MA

There was no Camp Oma today since Heather, Jed, and boys left for a week’s vacation in Maine. So things were very quiet here without three little boys. It’s like a vacation except that we have so much boat work to be done. So I’m calling it our working vacation. I applied the last two coats of Rapidclear varnish today and will sand and apply the first coat of what Mark calls ‘real varnish’ in the morning. It looks like the fiberglass work on the rudder is completed, so the work projects are going well.

After I applied the first coat of varnish this morning, we drove to Heather and Jed’s and packed all of the boxes of books that didn’t sell at Saturday’s yard sale into the car along with a table that we needed to take back to storage. The books will either go to a used book store in Hyannis or to the Falmouth Library as a donation for next year’s big library sale. We took the table to storage and then went home to Windbird so I could apply another coat of varnish. While I did that, Mark went over to the club house to take a shower and then sit in the air conditioned recreation room to read. After I finished the varnish job, I went over to join him. I took my computer so I could work on naming photos that have never been posted. I don’t think we’ve had time to sit and relax like that all summer, so it did feel like we are on vacation. Then on Facebook we saw a photo of Heather in Maine relaxing with a glass of wine and book. I’m sure she hasn’t had time to relax like that all summer. So let the vacation continue!

150819 Day 313 Cape Cod, USA–Vacation

Day 312, Year 10: Two More Coats of Varnish
Date: Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Weather: Partly Sunny and Windy
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, MA

Today was a two coat varnish day . . . and fiberglass cloth was applied to the bottom of the rudder. So the boat work is getting done, bit by bit.

About varnish: I use a 5 + 5 system with five coats of Epifanes Rapidclear (can be applied with only 4 hours between coats with no sanding needed) followed by a minimum of five coats of Epifanes Clear Varnish. At least this is the goal. But the current weather report indicates that this won’t happen this year. I will complete the five coats of Rapid Clear tomorrow and get one coat of Clear Varnish applied on Thursday. Then the forecast calls for possible rain on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and on into next week. So it is not the best forecast for varnishing. Hopefully the forecast changes.

About the bottom repairs: Yesterday epoxy was applied to the bottom of the keel and rudder. Today fiberglass cloth was applied to the bottom of the rudder. I’m not sure if this finishes off the applications or if more cloth and epoxy will be needed. But hopefully the repairs are completed by Thursday so that the bottom can be painted on Friday. If that happens, we should be back in the water on Monday. We shall see.

Today was out last day with Sam, Jonah, and Ollie until Friday a week from now when they return from visiting Grammy Goldstone in Maine. While they are gone we will continue the boat work, but Mark also has three of the days tied up with doctor visits. He has a treatment on Thursday of this week, a CT scan in Boston on Friday, and a follow-up appointment with his doctors at Mass General next Wednesday. The results of the scan will be shared and decisions will be made on whether we can travel this winter or whether we need to stay put here on the Cape. So next Wednesday’s appointment is a biggie. Today I felt bad that I had to spend part of the morning and part of the afternoon varnishing as it cut into my time with the boys. But Granddad pitched in and we managed to have a good day despite the work times. Ollie really wanted to go to the playground at Goodwill Park to practice hanging from the bars, so we decided to go swimming in next door Grews Pond instead of going to an ocean beach. In the past couple of years, we often spent days at Grews Pond, but this was our first visit this year. A little boy from Sam’s soccer team was there and all of the boys had a great time playing together.

I’m sure going to miss those little Goldpebbles, but when they return we have planned a sailing trip together. So we’ll make up for missed time then. In the meantime, work, work, work.

PS–Totally forgot to mention our stop at the cranberry bogs this morning. The cranberries won’t be ready until October, but this morning the work crews were cleaning out the canals that run between the fields. The boys could have spent the entire day just watching the machinery at work.

150818 Day 312 Cape Cod, USA–Cranberry Bog Clean-up, Fiddler's Cove, Goodwill Park

Day 311, Year 10: First Coat of Varnish On . . . Hurray
Date: Monday, August 17, 2015
Weather: Another Hot and Sunny Day
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, MA

Today was a much better day than yesterday. The boys and I went to the beach that is about two miles from Heather and Jed’s this morning and played there with Molly and Joey from next door. It took us a while to get out of the door and on our way to the beach because Sam couldn’t find his shoes. He was already quite upset about this when I arrived and it took another hour and a half of settling down before we were on our way . . . with Sam wearing Heather’s flip-flops. He has dress shoes and sneakers, but it was the beach shoes we were missing. But it all worked out as the boys all had a good time playing at home before we headed to the beach. We have had perfect beach weather all summer and today was no exception. But when all three boys said they were hungry for lunch, I called ahead to order a pizza and we headed for Fiddler’s Cove. We picked up the pizza on the way and found Granddad in the club house enjoying the air conditioning. He had finished prepping the cap rail this morning and it was now time for him to have lunch and play a game of pool with the boy so that I could escape to Windbird to do the first coat of varnish. I was almost finished when they walked over to check on me, so the timing was perfect. And I felt like shouting, “Hurray.” Having that first coat on was today’s goal and we made it. Then it was time to head home so that Ollie could have his nap. I had planned on taking Sam and Jonah back to the beach while Mark stayed at home with a sleeping Ollie, but Heather was home when we got there and Sam and Jonah decided that they would just like to stay at home. Sam and I did duck out for a bit to go shopping for a pair of Crocs for him. We never did find the missing Croc sandal and his new toed-shoes (yes, shoes with toes like gloves for your feet) were still drying from a much needed wash. We were successful in quickly finding a pair of Crocs to fit him, so hopefully we won’t have another shoe emergency before the boys leave for Maine.

Tomorrow I’ll go pick the boys up and bring them here to Fiddler’s Cove. They would like to kayak and paddle about in the dinghy. And while they are doing that with Granddad, I’ll get another coat of varnish on the cap rail. We’ll have lunch in the air-conditioned club house, play another game of pool, and then head home for Ollie’s nap. On Wednesday, the Goldstones head to Maine for a week, so Oma and Granddad will focus full-time on completing the work on Windbird. We found out today that she will probably not be ready to go back in the water until next Monday, and that is fine with us. It actually gives us more time to get the many coats of varnish on the cap rail and complete some other jobs that need to be done. When the boys return from vacation in Maine, we will have one more week of Camp Oma before school starts. Jonah and Sam got their teacher assignments for the coming year in the mail today—a sure sign that summer is winding down.

Day 310, Year 10: Sanding and Scraping . . . The Hard Way
Date: Sunday, August 16, 2015
Weather: Hot and Sunny
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, MA

First off, congratulations to Heather and Jed’s neighbor and good friend, Melissa, for completing the Falmouth Road Race today! Melissa’s goal was to make the seven miles without having to be sent to the medical tent and she made it. When we were having dinner together last night, Melissa shared her goal and we said our ‘road race’ goal for today was going to be completing the sanding and scraping away of varnish from the cockpit cap rail. Unlike Melissa, we didn’t make our goal. It was a frustrating day, to say the least. Our orbital sander seems to be on its last leg and you sand and sand, removing very little varnish. I definitely think it needs to be sent to the medical tent. And the wrong choice of scraping tool complicated the job further.

Our entire cockpit enclosure has been taken down for the sanding project, so there is no protection from the sun. And the sun was fierce this morning. I had barely gotten started when I realized we weren’t going to be able to continue without some protection. So I stopped and put up the piece of material we use as a sunscreen to immediately shield Mark. Then I worked on the harder job of putting up a tarp. Putting up the tarp meant taking other things down that are attached to the boom and, of course, they were not easy to get down. But eventually, with Mark’s help, we got the tarp up. Then I was sanding, oh so slowly, and Mark was using a tool for scraping the varnish off the rounded edges, oh so slowly. I had never seen the scraper Mark was using, but I just figured he was trying something new. In the afternoon, his fingers were hurting too much for him to continue, so we traded jobs. I assumed the scraper he was using was sharp, but it wasn’t. It just took brute force to scrape off the varnish. Without the proper tools, the job was just too hard. After nine frustrating hours, we both decided to quit. Mark will continue in the morning. We have done this job before with much less trouble and it wasn’t until we quit for the day that Mark dug out the scraping tool we have used in the past. Both of us had forgotten about it. We tried it out and it was sooooooo much easier. The cap rail is a flat piece of teak about three inches in width that sits on top of the cockpit coaming. If you are sitting in the cockpit, the coaming is like the back of the seat. The cap rail is rounded and overhangs the coaming on the outside edge. So you have to scrape off the varnish underneath and on the rounded edges rather than use a sander. Taking off all the layers of varnish is never easy, but today wins the prize for the hardest job ever because of our lack of proper tools. It won’t help with this job, but we will buy a new sander. And Mark will use the proper scraper tomorrow and might be finished with the job by noon. I’m not sure I’ll get a coat of varnish on tomorrow, but by Tuesday I should have at least one coat on. Slowly, ever so slowly, we will get this one job done.

We were too tired to cook dinner, so we went out to eat. Dinner at Stir Crazy (Cambodian food) was definitely the highlight of the day. We had hoped to come home and have a few minutes to relax before going to bed, but that was not to happen. While we were gone, a water hose under the sink in one of the bathrooms came loose and all the water in the water tank drained into the bilge. The bilge pumps are turned off since we are on land and are not supposed to be dumping water on the ground, so thankfully the tanks were close to empty. Mark worked on fixing the leak and I drained the bilge. Then we had to reconnect the hoses we used for washing the boat last week in order to refill the water tanks. We have to use about 275 feet of hose in order to reach a water source, and Mark had to walk the hose all the way down to the dock to connect it. No rest for the weary tonight.

Day 309, Year 10: Yard Sale
Date: Saturday, August 15, 2015
Weather: Partly Sunny, Hot, and a Bit Humid
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, MA

Up at 6:30 am to get ready for the yard sale. We were done by 1:30 pm and packing up the things that didn’t sale to get them to the Swap Shop at the dump and the local thrift shop. We certainly didn’t make a lot of money, but I’ll call the sale a huge success as it reduced the amount of ‘stuff’ in our storage unit and in Heather and Jed’s basement. We spent our profits on a huge sushi dinner with Heather and Jed’s neighbors, the Keefes—Melissa, Brian, Molly, and Joey. They were also celebrating a successful yard sale. Tomorrow Melissa will run in the Falmouth Road Race and Heather and gang will go to cheer her on. We are back on the boat tonight and will stay here tomorrow and sand, sand, sand. We hope to get the entire cockpit cap rail sanded and prepped for a first coat of varnish on Monday morning. Mark thinks we’ll be back in the water by Wednesday or Thursday, and it sure would be nice to have the initial coats of varnish on. So the beat goes on.

150815 Day 309 Cape Cod, USA–Sushi Celebration After Yardsale

Day 308, Year 10: Gearing Up for a Yard Sale
Date: Friday, August 14, 2015
Weather: Hot and Sunny, Upper 80’s F
Location: At Home with Heather, Jed, and Boys, East Falmouth, MA

We took the day off from normal activities and just stayed at home with the Goldpebbles. Heather and her neighbor Melissa are having a yard sale tomorrow, so we spent some time bringing things from our storage unit to sell. And we helped the boys make some decisions on what toys they would like to sell. Sometimes staying at home all day with three little boys can spell disaster as the brothers start to bicker over this and that. But today it was like some magic spell had been cast over them. There was no fighting and fussing. They just relaxed and enjoyed the day at home. They went in shifts with Mark and me to storage to get some boxes and they played with some treasures they found in those boxes. A vintage Fisher Price cash register kept them busy for the longest time and a Jedi village with Star Wars figures was also of great interest to them. We’ll sell the cash register but the Jedi village and figures will be sent to Ziggy. These were Justin’s and Ziggy will enjoy playing with them. During Ollie’s nap, Sam and Jonah took all of their plastic outside toys out of the shed, hosed them down, and decided on which ones of those to sell. I got a real kick out of watching Sam ride around on the little sit n’ ride train his Grammy and Papa Goldstone gave him on his first birthday. Do little boys ever grow up? I think not! Their toys just get bigger.

150814 Day 308 Cape Cod, USA–Sam on His Ride-on Train

We are spending the night at Heather and Jed’s so we will be here early in the morning to help set up for the sale. Once it is over, we will head back to Windbird and start the sanding project on the cockpit cap rail. This time, we’ll sand the whole thing and do it right. No more varnish patch jobs. The fiberglass work on Windbird’s rudder started today, so we will be anxious to see the result of that when we get home late tomorrow afternoon.

Day 307, Year 10: Happy 50th to Linda Stuart
Date: Thursday, August 13, 2015
Weather: Another Gorgeous Summer Day–Sunny, 80 degrees F
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, MA

Hey, Linda. Happy 50th Birthday! Linda and Mike Stuart are our friends that are now in their second year of bike touring. This summer they drove across the country in a car with their son Garrett and got him settled in San Jose, California. He graduated from college in May and is now at work for a company called Accenture. Accenture is a multinational management consulting, technology services, and outsourcing company with its headquarters Dublin, Ireland, and offices in San Jose. Mike and Linda are now off and running on the next leg of their adventure. They are still not far from San Jose so we hope Garrett got to join them to celebrate Linda’s big 5-0. I emailed Linda last night and got a message back this morning commanding Mark and I to have fun on her birthday. So we did. We returned to Wood Neck this morning to ride the tide out of the marsh and into Buzzards Bay. It’s just a like a ride at a water park. When we did this about a month ago, Ollie needed a lot of help getting on his boogie board, but today he was able to hop on all by himself and even stop himself at the other end and get out of rushing current. As the morning progressed, the boys tired of the ride and we eventually worked our way back into the marsh area and did what we always do when we are there. We caught crabs and fish and shrimp. I did this with the boys while Mark went back to the car to rest. The morning in the sun just about did him in. The cancer therapies make him extremely sensitive to the sun and he very quickly loses all energy. When we got home, he and Ollie both took afternoon naps while the big boys played at a neighbor’s house. Ollie took a shorter than normal nap and as soon as Mark got up, I took off for our storage unit. I returned with about a dozen plastic bins of books and other miscellaneous items to sell at the Saturday yard sale. Tomorrow I’ll make another couple of runs to get more things to sell. What doesn’t sell will go to the dump, so by the end of the weekend, our storage until will be significantly emptier than it is right now. And that is a good thing!

150813 Day 307 Cape Cod, USA–Woodneck Marsh

Day 306, Year 10: Beach Day, All Day
Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Weather: Gorgeous Summer Day–Sunny, 80 degrees F
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, MA

Today was just one of those magical summer days—clear skies, 80 degrees, beautiful beaches. I left Mark on Windbird this morning to do some boat jobs and took Sam, Jonah, and Ollie to the beach closest to their house. Menauhant (men-ought) Beach is just over two miles from ‘home’and always seems to have rough seas rolling ashore. But the boys enjoyed jumping in the surf. Jonah jumped the waves, Sam dove into them, and Ollie rode his boogie board to shore on them. They built a fort intentionally close to the water so that they could watch the waves knock it down. This must be a ‘boy’ thing. They build as fast as they can and then enjoy watching the waves take it down. By noon we were on our way to pick Mark up as he was going to help with the afternoon shift. We drove back to Heather and Jed’s to pick up a second car and he took off to do some errands while the rest of us drove into Falmouth to pick up Galen and Raynham at the Falmouth Yacht Club. They spend their mornings there taking sailing lessons and this afternoon we wanted to take them to Wood Neck to explore the marsh and then the beach. We normally go home in the afternoon so Ollie can nap, but he really wanted to be with the big kids, for at least a little while. Granddad arrived at Wood Neck shortly after we did, but he sat in the car while Ollie played. It was after 2 o’clock by the time Ollie was ready to do home for a nap, but he went willingly after a few, “Oma, can I just have 3 more minutes?” What a good little guy he is! Just after Mark and Ollie left, Heather arrived (after running/walking 2.7 miles from the trolley stop). We had collected hermit crabs, fiddler crabs, and tiny Asian shore crabs, and played all sorts of games in the marsh. So by 3 o’clock, everyone except Jonah was ready to go to the beach. He was cold and exhausted and just wanted to lay in the warm, shallow water. But we convinced him to go with us and I stayed with him on the beach while Heather went with Galen, Raynham, and Sam to play in the surf. Galen is 14, Raynham is 10, and Sam is 8 and the three of them never seemed to run out of energy. They rode the boogie boards in the surf and dove in the surf relentlessly while Jonah and I sat on the beach just enjoying the afternoon. After an hour of the surf frenzy, Heather was exhausted and tried to lure those with boundless energy to come to shore so we could drive to Woods Hole and get ice cream. It worked, so off we went to have ‘dessert first’—dinner later. Mark and I stopped at the Peking Palace on the way home and had a sushi dinner. What a perfect ending to a perfect day.

Tomorrow morning Mark will go with us to Wood Neck to ride the incoming tide as we did a few weeks ago. Low tide is in the early afternoon, so sometime after 10 am the tide will start rushing out of the marsh. That will allow the boys to ride the tide in what is called Lazy River. It’s better than any water park ride and is not so lazy when the tide is rushing out. Wood Neck is a truly special place with so many different things to do, all different depending on the tide and which side you are one—beach or marsh. How lucky we are to live near so many beautiful beaches and marsh areas. While we are busy having all of this fun, juvenile osprey are soaring overhead and juvenile sea gulls are playing on the sand bars with us. So special.

This morning when Mark stayed on Windbird he made a sun cover for the kayak, checked all of the plastic cockpit curtains to see if any of them needed to be resewn, removed the bimini and bimini hardware from the cockpit so we can start the cockpit cap rail sanding, and on and on. He got a lot done in one morning. But tomorrow he will go with me for the day. Tomorrow afternoon we’re hoping to enlist Sam and Jonah into helping Oma bring boxes of things from storage to sell at Heather’s Saturday yard sale. While we do this, Granddad will stay at home with Ollie while he naps . . . and maybe Granddad can nap a little, too.

150812 Day 306 Cape Cod, USA–Woodneck Marsh and Beach Fun

Day 305, Year 10: Rain, Rain, Rain
Date: Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Weather: Overcast with Rain All Day and Evening
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, MA

If yesterday was all about work, work, work . . . today was all about rain, rain, rain. It was just beginning to rain when I got up at 7:30 am and it rained for 12 straight hours. About 7:30 pm, the rain started to slack off and hopefully we have seen the end of it for now. Mark and I arrived at Heather and Jed’s at 9 am this morning with the rain, but it then slacked off a bit. We tried to get the boys in the car and get to the downtown Falmouth Post Office before it started pouring, but we didn’t quite make it. We were heading to the PO to get passport photos taken. The boys have never had passport photos and Mark and I need to apply for a renewal as our passports expire on the 15th of this month. So we all descended on the Falmouth Post Office to get the photos taken. It was time for lunch by the time we got home and in the afternoon Mark went to check on our old Yamaha while I stayed at home with the boys. The Boat Guy explained to Mark that he can get our Yamaha 15 hp engine running, but that it will not be the motor it once was unless he replaces all the electronics and the drive shaft. So we asked him to just get it running and we will attempt to sell it to someone who might have the time and expertise to do the work on it. In the meantime, we will continue to look for a replacement. The Boat Guy sells and highly recommends Honda outboard engines. So we will do the research on Yamaha versus Honda and see what we come up with.

Tonight we had dinner at Heather and Jed’s with their friends Jo and Drew and their two children, Galen and Raynham. It was great fun to reconnect after so many years and it was so nice to see the kids have time to get acquainted.

Day 304, Year 10: Work, Work, Work
Date: Monday, August 10, 2015
Weather: Sunny, Temp in the 70’s
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, MA

Today was definitely a work day. I was back with the Goldpebbles, Mark went to work at West Marine, and Scott, the man who will do the fiberglass repair work on the bottom of Windbird, returned from vacation and started working on the rudder early this morning. It was still weeping a bit of water, so he applied heat and tried to suck out as much moisture as possible with a powerful wet/dry vacuum. When we returned at the end of the day, all of the drying equipment was gone and Scott had sanded the areas that will need to be fiberglassed. Unfortunately, we found the rudder still weepy, so that could delay the work. We’ll try to talk to Scott in the morning before we leave and find out what he is thinking in terms of a time line for completing the work. Now that I have to start my sanding and varnishing job all over again, I need time on land to do that. Or at least being on land with access to electricity for the sander would be more convenient. It can be done when we are back in the water, but it would mean running the engine to get the power for sander. So we will see what Scott says in the morning and make plans accordingly. In the meantime, Heather has decided to have a yard sale this coming Saturday and I would love to get a lot of things out of storage to sell. I’m just not sure I’ll have time to do that. We shall see.

Heather and Jed have close friends from Canada in town this week and we will be having dinner with them tomorrow night. Jo and Heather were graduate students together. The first time I met Jo was at an MIT rugby game and she and Heather were participants—glad those days are over! Before Jo and her husband Drew left Woods Hole to return to Canada, they had two children, Galen and Raynham. I haven’t seen Galen since he was a toddler and he is now a teenager. Hard to believe the years pass by so quickly. So it will be fun to get together with them tomorrow night.