Penobscot 14 ST. JACQUES 19 Oct 20 Row and Sail

19 Oct 20: 

Got out on the water in ST. JACQUES today, we wanted to have a little fun, reclaim part of the bay and see if we could spot any items that were still MIA from Hurricane Sally, like our channel marker number 6 sign. 

But first Skipper had to clean storm debris out of the centerboard trunk, pine needles, bark and tree leaves.  There was so much muck packed in there by the storm surge that the centerboard would not move. She used a knife and a stick to dredge out debris, and poured water into the trunk to flush out the muck. 

Ready to go, I planned to row mostly but Skipper had other plans.

Back from a successful row and sail, 75F with light winds 8-9 mph, coming out of the East which made for a nice broad reach.

Skipper found a rock.

Maybe we should have cleaned out more of the muck and bay residue before we left, but when we were done ST. JACQUES got a fresh water rinse with a little TILEX added for style. TILEX is great to remove mold and mildew, but it is best to spray it on a rag, wipe down the boat then rinse right away. If it is sprayed directly onto some paints it can run and leave a lighter bleached out streak. The streak eventually fades but it is best to apply the TILEX sparingly in small locations, a little goes a long way. Test it out in an inconspicuous area and as always, read the application and health hazard information on the bottle. The Porter Cable cordless Wet/Dry Vac makes short work of sucking muck out of the bilge, 2 1/2 gallons at a time. Nice to not have electrical cords in wet locations.

ST. JACQUES rode out the Hurricane mostly carefree, she did get a little rash on her lower strakes, possibly from the boat next to her or the dolly. 

Very small rub on the gunwale, which was protected by a Sunbrella cover. The cover didn't fare so well, it needs a few repairs, but it did Yeoman's work protecting the boat as no water got inside during the storm. Interestingly enough, the wooden boats in the Sunfish Shack did amazingly well, the fiberglass boats not so much.

In other news we put down 12 tons of #4 crushed limestone along the inland side of the seawall, with help from a Toro Dingo, along with topsoil and sod and. We are going to call restoration of the quay, aka Mini Gun Deck, complete.

Log of ST. JACQUES.

Maybe We Should Change Our Name To Small Marine Construction and Landscaping...

 11 Oct 20:

Hurricane Sally did a number on our pier, seawall and our yard. In the whole scheme of things, non-essential but as property owners we like to protect our investment by keeping things in order. We spent about 2 weeks cleaning things up, vegetative debris, broken pier and dock parts from across the bay and starting to reassemble the seawall and pier. 

Skipper lost her beer keg burn barrel to storm surge, so we sourced a new fire pit from Lowes. Felt good to burn a little of the yard debris.

Here's a shot of some of the damage to PHOENIX.  Boat repairs will be slow in coming, but we are beginning to gather parts and materials.

All repairs suspended as we were in the cone for Hurricane Delta for a few days. We expected some storm surge and tropical storm winds, so we loaded as many boats as we could into the Carriage House, still room for the canoe and kayaks if Delta gets closer.

Lowered the mast on the Catfish SMEDLEY and mover her into the front yard, WILLOW got moved also, so it's Boatapalooza up front now. WAVE and PHOENIX on the Wheel Deck.

We put a small slatted cap on top of the seawall to help dissipate wave energy, it was tested out this morning with 2 feet of surge from Delta on top of high tide, with 18 mph wind driven waves from the West. The splash zone on the yard side of the seawall filled up but there were no waves crashing down to redistribute yard bits.

Our anole buddy Henry helps us with pier work, he hung out in the cone for a few days.

Finished the seawall cap, realigned the border stones and put in fence posts and new fence panels. Sand, dirt and sod are on the list now to replace some divots.

Skipper salvaged some bay lumber and we made carpenter's trestles out of some of the pieces. They come in handy as boat stands, benches and plant stands.

Planked out 64 feet now, 186 to go.

Quay Drainage

25-27 Oct 19:

We had our seawall rebuilt earlier this year, back to how it had been in 2004. It had been destroyed during Hurricane Ivan, and had been repaired piecemeal through the years. We had not seen how it fared with the wind and waves before, once we got it rebuilt we could see where water would splash onto the first foot or so past the wall during high Westerly winds and high tide. Subsequently the grass that we put in dies and some dirt got flushed out. Skipper designed a splash zone to upgrade that area, kind of a reverse french drain with filter cloth 18 inches down, river rock, and castewall blocks to make a nice border for the wall.

Day one we evened the remaining dirt out, put down the cloth and start adding rock and block. One end of the seawall gets a little more wave action, so we set the splash zone back 4 feet in that area and made a nice viewing area for the rip rap habitat.

Days 2 and 3, more rock and block. Luckily there was dirt left at one end that we could move down to areas that had been washed out. We used our Honda Odyssey to do the hauling, she made about 10 trips to Lowes.

Back to boating!

Sunset

26 Jan 19:

Wrapping up seawall repairs. New wildlife habitat installed, a little bit of limestone for critters to hang out in along the shoreline and for the heron to go fishing. Nice place for us to hang out also.