Glass Window - Cleaning the hull

Yesterday we had our first man overboard situation as we were beaching the dinghy. Usually Kevin (chivalrous gentleman that he is) hops out of the dinghy to walk it up to the beach so that I don't have to get my feet wet. We were a few feet from the beach and the water looked to be about a foot deep. Kevin said "I'm gonna hop out now" and then almost went completely under in about four feet of water. I couldn't contain my inappropriate laughter; it was such a slapstick moment. But even as I was laughing at him, he still pulled the dinghy all the way up to the beach for me. Ain't love grand?

Since it is so peaceful here we decided to stay another day. While we were in George Town our hull started sporting some interesting marine growth. Since the water here is so clear, we both donned our snorkel gear and went under with scrub brushes to scrape it off. The bottom of the boat is covered in bright blue anti-fouling paint, which usually does a pretty good job of keeping barnacles and algae-type growth off the hull. There were some small patches of what appeared to be moss along the waterline and some ickier stuff on the bottom, which Kevin took care of with a brush on a pole. You get a pretty good workout because you have to keep kicking with your fins while you scrub or you'll just float away. The anti-fouling paint is ablative, which means it is designed to come off easily so that when barnacles try to attach themselves they just slough off. Unfortunately the paint also sloughs off on whatever happens to rub up against it, in this case Kevin and me. So when we got out of the water our fingers and hands were a bright Smurf blue. La, la, la la-la-la...

Last night we reminded ourselves of what we are missing by watching Office Space. It is one of the best movies ever made, and if you work in a cubicle it is a must-see. We've been away from the office environment for a while now and although we miss the people we worked with, we both agree that a hard day's work scrubbing nasty green crud off the bottom of the boat beats staring at a computer screen any day.