Puzzle Joints, Covering Boards and Rub Rails

We needed to replace the teak on Leap. Charlie created a puzzle joint for the covering boards which enabled us to lock them together for a continuous smooth finish and they look beautiful.
The rub rail we made in the shop and brought with us with the exception of the bow pieces. Charlie laminated together thin strips of teak and built a mold to bend them and then laid them up with epoxy. Once dry he scribed the pieces to fit the bow. We have been varnishing when weather allows and we have one more coat to apply before we can put on the rigging parts and the stainless rub rail.
Hopefully tomorrow will bring us a break in the weather for varnishing.

Demopolis Gypsy Camp

Life in dry dock at the Demopolis Yacht Basin. We brought a work bench from home as well as a borrowed trailer and we use these as staging and storage for all the projects.

Pictures of our view off the bow and stern from our dry dock perch.

As well as a typical foggy morning view of the river from the marina.

Christmas Day in Demopolis Alabama

Dec 25th
Sitting here in the Demopolis Yacht Basin Dry Storage yard, hoping that we can dodge the threatened Chrismas tornados causes me to ponder the energy needed to break earth's gravity. Tornados are known to break entire towns free of earth's gravity, at least momentarily. Rockets do a better job of totally breaking free and with a little added energy, are able to maintain a prolonged gravitational break. Gravity as we all understand keeps us planted firmly on our planet. I am willing to surmise that there is an equal force at work in our Political/Economic/Social system. Leaving one's home, friends, and employment, for us has taken as much effort and planning as shooting a rocket into space. Months of dreaming, scheming, planning, saving, prepping and finally execution , makes me aware that changing one's life in any significant way, is a major undertaking. Breaking free of our personal gravity is so difficult, it is a wonder anybody does it at all.

Our goal for this trip is not to reach any particular destination but to wander and to "Be" wherever we are. Happiness and fulfillment are not longitude and latitude locations but a fullness of "Being". We are out to make new friends and gather new stories so our old friends do not have to suffer thought the latent stories re-told so many times before. We are out to adventure and challenge ourselves, to break free of our customary perspectives and see if there isn't a perspective that we have been ignoring, to our detriment. The pitfall is remaining stationary too long in any one place and growing accustom to the pleasure and comfort of a newly developing gravitational field. In short, we want this trip to be more like a space launch than a tornado. We are not attempting to just slightly adjust our location , like a tornado, but rather permanently move ourselves into a stable orbit through tropical islands, reefs, beaches and villages.

This blog will be a mirror and magnifying glass to our progress. Are we truly free of our historic gravity or have we simply substituted a new one to replace the one left behind. This will be a log of the accomplishments of our trip and the people that will make it memorable for years to come. Hopefully, we will see some of you along the way. For those of you dreamers out there, may this serve as an inspiration or a warning post as our adventure proceeds.

The storm has started in earnest. Let 's see how we fair. Merry Christmas and All the Best in the New Year.

Ahoy to All

This is a test of the Life and Times Aboard Leap. We are experimenting with two formats for sharing this blog.  One can simply follow the posts or, open the pages listed in the Home header at the top of the page for a more traditional chronological photo album style.