book of days, sanding

I received my 2014 Calendar of Wooden Boats today, the one with the beautiful Great South Bay cat boat WINDWARD on the cover.  I promptly opened it to mark off the last week of May and the first week of June for a sailing trip.  Plans are undecided at this point, but Chesapeake Bay about the time of the peak soft shell crab harvest sounds pretty good to me.  A quirk in my work schedule, plus Memorial Day, allows for a nice long trip without impacting my vacation time too much.  

I had been apprehensive about making a longer trip this past fall, worrying that it would be too long.  But now when I think about that trip it went too quickly, feeling more like a four or five day trip than the 12 days it really was.  I am still surprised when I look at the trip's track and see 11 red "X's" for anchorages.  

You can see that I have started posting the daily log from the trip.  I had been considering publishing the log as an ebook, an experiment (just as this blog is to me) in the new ways of communication.  After researching the options, with help from my friend Barry, I concluded that of the three accessible methods of publishing ebooks, none was completely satisfactory.  Kindle, I've read, is unpredictable when publishing photo books.  Blurb has an ebook option which is clunky to read, and which can only be used after spending a significant amount on a hardback version of the book.  Ibook Author can produce a very nice book of photographs, but the books can only be read on Mac devices (which leaves out 70% of the readers of this blog).  So back to the old version, which is fine with me.  

I've also started sanding down Spartina's hull.  It will take another day to finish the sanding, the time going less to sanding and more to the logistics of supporting the hull while lowering the trailer bunks and hardware. 

I'm using a new Makita finishing sander, which replaces the Makita sander my Dad gave me almost 30 years ago when we built a kit boat together.  The old Makita still works, but the new model has higher rpm's, is quieter and has a dust collection bag.  I found it interesting that I could purchase the sander at Home Depot and it comes in a cardboard box.  Or I could order it online from Home Depot, same price and free delivery, and it comes with a nice case.  I opted for the the nice carrying case.

steve