Lloyd Neck Beach

Zoe got to go swimming a couple days ago at Lloyd Neck Beach, a few miles West of Huntington. A friend dropped by to see the boat in the afternoon and offered to show us around. We ended up at the beach and Zoe got to swim -- she loves to swim. One end of the beach forms a narrow peninsula protecting a small channel that feeds the marshes. The channel is nice and deep and drops off quickly, so Zoe got in and was able to swim just a few feet from the shore.

I ended up walked along the edge to the end of the beach with her swimming along side the whole way. I kept her on the leash because I didn't want to have to get in or chase her -- whenever she gets off leash, she takes off and runs till she gets tired, normally about 20 minutes at full speed.

Without a car -- I got rid of it when I moved to Manhattan -- we've been limited to a mile radius around a the boat yard since we got here. I've walked to and from the train station, 2 miles, a few times, and probably got out a couple miles on my runs, but other than that, we haven't seen much of the area.

Boat watch:

I'm still working on the deck. I got the first coat of primer on the forward 3/4's or the deck, but wasn't able to finish sanding it yesterday. For some reason, I thought I only needed to "tip" the final coats, not the primer, so it was a little rougher than it could have been, which required more sanding. I didn't have any thinner either, so the thicker paint was more difficult to lay down and probably exacerbated the the "orange peel" finish.

I bought more primer, thinner, and a 2-part polyurethane for the finish coat, so once I'm done sanding, I'll follow the instructions more closely and roll another coat this afternoon. I'll thin and tip this time, so hopefully, it will turn out better. But, as Paul likes to say whenever something bad or unexpected happens, "it's better this way," i.e., if it had turned out perfectly the first time, I wouldn't have learned anything, and trust me, 8 hours of sanding has taught me a lot.

I also did some more filling and fairing in the cockpit. It'll need a couple more rounds, but it's getting close. Since I still need to use the cockpit area, I can't do the whole thing at once or I couldn't step anywhere. Also, I switched to the "slow" hardener, which gives me more time to work it, but also requires more time for it to get hard enough to touch. In any case, it will be ready to paint once I'm done with the forward area.

Zoe watch:

I woke up early this morning, so she's still sleeping. It's just getting light out now, so we'll go for our walk in a few minutes. She's on a schedule, so I can't walk her too early, or I'll have to walk her again anyway. However, since the days are quickly getting shorter, I'm going to try to start getting up earlier to make the most of it -- my shop light doesn't give off enough light to really do anything in the dark, but I can still make coffee, blog, and walk Zoe.

We're really pushing to finish up by the end of the month.