Life is moving fast.

Wow, time is really clipping by. In so many ways. There is so much to say, because so much has happened. I can really only touch on some highlights. We'll have to update more often in order to capture some details a bit better!

Ivy, asleep last night

Let's start with Ivy. She's growing. So quick. I expected as much, I had been warned. But it's true, her little cheeks have chubbed out beautifully. She is extremely pretty (I might be biased). She isn't quite 3 weeks old yet, but already some of her newborn stuff is a bit snug. Her big feet barely fit in the newborn socks!

Last week: somewheres around 1 week old

So far, she has been the perfect child. Jenny's parents visited for our first week home with Ivy. My parents visited for the second week. We spent most of that time on Gaia (the same boat we flew to St. Thomas to sail on last winter is now back in Boston and was vacant for the winter). We spent our nights on Madrigal and the days were spent hanging with the new grandparents either on Gaia or bumming around greater Boston. We made run to Nantasket Beach. We showed off our Creekmore project (more on that below). We went to Gloucester. We ate at Woodman's clambake in Essex. Lots of fun was had and we enjoyed hauling Ivy around the area. She had a lot of fun for a newborn.

My Mom and her beloved first Granddaughter, snuggling.

Ivy sleeps pretty well. Awake every 1-2 hours the first half of the night, but just long enough to nurse and go back to sleep (So it's obviously easier for me, Justin). But then in the wee hours of the morning... 4 or 5, she crashes out for a couple 3 hour stretches and Jenny and I catch up on sleep then. It works out pretty well. Of course, I'm back to work this week with a crazy schedule covering for coworker vacations, so now I'll be all messed up. Such is life.

Ivy and Daddy

Here are a few pictures of her from today, April 12th, which makes her 2 weeks and 4 days old. You can really see her change even from the one week old picture above. :)

She is a very "aware" baby. It's weird to say, but she really really stays awake and alert and quiet. Good and observational. I like it.

Her entire pinkie finger is the size of the last joint of my own pinkie.

She is also very strong. Like crazy strong. Jenny read today that when lain on their stomach a baby should be able to lift their own head by 2 months of age. Ivy did it on day 1. She does it regularly. If I lay her on my stomach, belly to belly, and she is cranky or hungry, she'll wiggle/crawl right up to my face and look at me like "Dad, y u no have boobies?" I think soon she'll be able to dance.

I like to stand her up and help her dance.

Pretty Ivy.

How about that other boat of ours? The weather finally broke while the grandparents were visiting. It was the opportunity I'd been waiting for. Jenny's dad helped epoxy putty and filler all the bad spots on deck which had been previously sanded down to lots of shallow craters. Just that was a huge accomplishment, and more than I had expected in the first week of being a first time parent of a newborn!

A test fitting of the hatches before the primer.

But it gets better. My dad then helped sand all those newly epoxied areas back down to smooth and fair. We were then ready for... gasp... paint! Well, primer anyhow. I pulled that silly old plastic sheeting off of the hatches and pilothouse windows and we primered around those areas first. Those areas are the key to everything right now. If I can get those dang pesky hatches installed she'll finally be watertight. That will be a HUGE relief, making her easier to work on, easier to leave sitting, much closer to being livable, and dang prettier.

Here we primed around the hatch openings.

My poor dad traveled all the way from Michigan
to see his granddaughter and I stuck him in a tyvek suit
and handed him a roller.

So now most of the deck is primed. There are a few areas that weren't quite ready yet. There is a hole where Henry had placed a chimney to a long since removed kerosene heater. That is the ugly patch in the middle that needs fixing. Plus the gunwales and cockpit are yet to be primed. But my main concern was the bulk of the deck and the hatch areas. Now a quick coat of topcoat easypoxy and I can install hatches!

The mostly primered deck.

The pilothouse window frames were recently re-welded and strengthened up by a friend of mine. I'll drill some holes in them soon and get those ready to install. Hopefully the next few weeks will see the rest of the deck primercoated and then at least one topcoat before hatches go in. Then 3 total topcoats followed by a grit paint. Likely Kiwigrip, a fantastic nonskid that some of our friends recently used.

Also, I'm slowly acquiring lead for the keel. There are a lot of resources in the works. I'll let you know how things pan out.

Whew. We are certainly busy, but we are loving life. Little Ivy really has made things more enjoyable. She adds a whole new spin on things and quite literally breathes new life into everything we do. There were many naysayers and I still hear people constantly remarking "Oh your life is over now. Everything is going to change. You've got a kid that'll take all your money and time. Your life isn't yours. You've done it now. etc etc." Those people suck and they are totally and completely wrong. Having a baby adds new life, it doesn't ruin yours. It's great fun. Stressful? Maybe, but not really. It's entertaining. She's cute. She's fun. She's a responsibility, but only in a good way. I don't regret a single thing in our babies and boats decisions and at this rate I don't think I ever will.

Deck Prep (or Sanding, Sanding, Sanding)

With the shrinkwrap off of the Creekmore it means I can access the entire deck. That is great news for the sanding that needs to be done. And there is a LOT of sanding to be done due to water damage over the years. Henry had finished the deck, faired it all in and then put a good coating of primer on the whole thing. It was all set to be painted. Then he covered it in tarps and moved on with his life. Well, wet tarps on a primer coated deck for 30 years are not ideal. It caused a lot of cracking, bubbling, and crazing. I had sanded a lot around xmas time and thought I was near done, but when the dust was cleared (literally) there was much more to be done with smaller damage I had not noticed before. So, after many days spent sanding I believe I am finally ready to fill the new gaps and craters with a fairing filler. I am using System Three Quick Fair that I got from www.defender.com. Quick Fair is a 2 part epoxy filler that I used previously when I was fixing the cockpit seams on Madrigal. It worked well, the mix was a simple 2:1 and sanded nicely. A year later now and I can not tell the quickfaired part from any other part of the deck. So, I ordered a gallon and a half of the stuff, which arrived today, and now I just have to wait for weather above 50 deg fahrenheit to apply it. Then, I get to finish sand the whole thing again and apply a nice new coat of primer. Then, it will finally be in the same state it was 30 years ago: ready for paint :)

Below are some pics of the deck sanded and ready for fairing filler. The white-ish part is the old primer and the more tan colored spots are where I have had to sand through it right back down to the fiberglass & epoxy.

Progress is good.

-Justin

picturesque

It has been an incredibly busy spring. Jenny has been working all her waking hours split between indexing and the library. Only 6 more days at the library though :) I've been indexing as well as doing massive amounts of boatwork. In the meantime, we haven't really had the chance to upload many of our own pictures. Well today I finally cleaned out the camera and decided to just upload a bunch of pictures. They are roughly in order of oldest (about 6 weeks ago) to newest (yesterday). So I'll just give them some quick captions and hope you enjoy.

Jenny snapped this shot of me applying the second

coat of easypoxy to our deck.

and one more.

This photo is facing starboard and slightly forward in the cockpit.

The big white panel at left is the forward bulkhead which I removed

the old wind gauges from and fiberglassed over.

Willie, admiring himself.

My left hand looks funny up there.

Apparently I was about to scratch my head.

Sometimes, we're odd.

Somehow, Gollum is still alive.

Springtime in a Boston marina is a fantastic time.

Everyone comes out of their little plastic shells and starts to be

social again. It's really very nice.

Ladies, pictured at right is Keith. Keith is a single white male,

roughly 30 years old. Keith enjoys boating and wearing cardboard

shark heads. If you share these interests call him at 1-800-my-shark.

Willie and Rusty love to play. Rusty is 14 years old and so arthritic he can barely

walk, but he still manages to give that young pup a run

for his money.

This is one of our assistant dockmasters, Howie, helping move Madrigal

to it's temporary summer slip. We'll be docked on the outside

of the marina until we leave for Thayer's Landing on May 1st.

Willie has a new superhero costume.

Don't tell him you know who he really is.

He prefers if you call him Wondermutt. It helps him

stay incognito.

Our new Rocna finally arrived yesterday :)

Now we can sleep at anchor with much greater confidance.

It will be a very fun summer.

And just a couple quick shots of the boat in its current state,

new deck paint and all.

and Willie too, of course.

Friends, Flutes, Decks and Indexing

A lot happens at the marina in spring. People come and people go. The shrink wrap inevitably gets large holes shredded out of it before it comes off for good. The air sings with sounds of saws, hammers and other various tools as people work on this project and that. Friends gather and celebrate the coming of spring.

And because of all of this, we haven't gotten the chance to update the blog as often as we have wanted. I wanted to post a few pictures now, and soon we will update with more details of what we've been up to.

Susan invited us aboard "Me Too" for a going away party.

Mind you, this is a 28' boat with 11 people on board.

Justin tries his hand at playing the flute.

What has taken all of my time is indexing. I'm a living, breathing organizing machine. I've been staying up very very late and getting up early just to finish up the next book. I'm beginning to really look forward to my new found freedom of having only indexing to worry about. I still have the rest of April at the library, so being a full time indexer is still a few weeks off.

And what has taken all of Justin's time is the deck work. He's been sanding, fiberglassing, sanding more, cleaning, power washing, and painting the decks. I'm not posting much on this one yet because we'll be making a larger post on this one as soon as we possibly can, but here's one picture in the meantime of him beginning the paint job!


Oh and in other fun news - the shrink wrap is off!! Hello spring!