Already July?

This measure was taken at High normal High tide, 45" above was the surge from TS Debby

Three Baby herons almost grown still depending on mom for food.

Three Baby Green Herons

We were surprised to spot this Wood Stork in a Detention pond by the local Target.



St Pete Beach after Debby removed a substantial amount of sound and created a sand bar just about 50-75 yards out.you



You can see the line where the sand starts and ends the length of the beach..Everything to the left of the Admiral is Shell.

Some hotels had these large tubular bags filled with sand to ward off the errosion.

We came back from the beach to find this vessel all wrapped up for fumigation, not sure what was in habiting the boat?

I did not want to go on this boat anyway!

Impromtu cruise to Downtown Tampa and Davis Island

Well it took 2 hours just to get this close to Downtown Tampa, we did not really plan this trip so since we had limited time we headed back to try again another day.

The little truck that Can is all better now.

Step 1 to rehab the Endeavour emblems: get the drimmal and spend about 45 minutes on each one with the three drimmal tools. The emblems were coroded and they seemed to have at least three layers of different types of metal coatings on top of the base metal.

Then I used a metal-primer 2 coats, re-sandedwith 320, then two more coats.

Third step was a couple of coats of this metallic spray from Home Depot, perfect match for the original color.



Hard to believe July is already here. Debby has come and gone and we have begun the traditional summer weather patterns here in Central Florida with prevailing Southwesterly winds 0-15, 90-92 degrees with 50-65% humidity and the every afternoon popup thunderstorms that evaporate after sunset. We measured the distance the docks went up with Debby's storm surge and it was 45 inches on our docks here at Westshore. The little rookery island just outside the marina seawall seems to have survived just fine. All the baby shore birds were out showing themselves a bit more. Debby blew in a couple of Magnificent Frigate Birds but they just stayed a few days, and then we spotted a Wood Stork in a detention pond next to Target one day, now there are two there. This is the first Stork we have seen in the wild, the Admiral says they normally are difficult to spot since they stay away from humans.

We took a day to run over to St. Pete Beach and Treasure Island. Debby certainly took a lot of sand off the miles of beach and deposited it about 50-75 yards offshore and created a long sand bar. The news is all about how they are going to have to spend millions hauling in sand to restore the beaches. Gotta protect those tourist dollars. Treasure Island is just down the road from St Pete Beach but it has a completely different feel. It is more funky and has a more laid back feel..Less big commercial development.

When.we returned to the marina that day we were surprised to see this large motor vessel being completely covered in a red tarp. Turns out the 2 guys doing the work were exterminators, not sure what the infestation was but we were glad the boat was not moored close to us. The cover just stayed on 2 days then the boat was gone?

We did not have a plan one day so I thought we might just spend the afternoon and cruise around to the Southwest side of Tampa Bay and go up the channel next to Davis Island to Downtown Tampa. Well it was farther than I thought and since we started out so late we really did not have more than about 5 hours to be out, it was going to take 3 hours just to get over there so after about 2 hours we turned around and just enjoyed the trip back.We will go back and just find a good 2 days so we can stay at the Davis Island Marina and then take the dingy to cruise Channelside and the Hillsbourgh River.

The Little Truck that Can is fixed, 2 weeks of navigating the repair shop and the insurance company. This part does not belong in paradise or anyone's dream.

Every Endeavour sailboat has two Gold color plated Emblems. But like anything else metal, they get coroaded and need restoration or replacement. This is not something you can just go out and buy so I took ours off and went to a metal plating company here in Tampa. He said they would have to be Gold Plated and his esitmate was $120 each. At the time I thought that was a bit expensive and asked if there was another solution. He said ProCoat Performance Coatings could do it for 1/2 the price and it would look just as good. So he gave me directions and the people at ProCoat took the job on, well three weeks later they still had not been able to solve this particular coating problem. So I went back to pick them up to hunt for another solution, I asked the ProCoat guy if just regular metal plating would work. He was unsure since these emblems several different types of coating on them and some pitting issues.

I just decided to try it myself so I carefully used a Drimmal tool to grind and sand each emblem. It took about 45 minutes for each emblem to get all the flaking metal and corrosion off. I then sprayed on 2 coats of primer, sanded with 320 grit then 2 more coats of primer. Then 2 coats of the metallic gold that matched the original color. They look OK but not as good as I would want close up, from a few feet away they are just.fine. I had considered using a small bit of epoxy to fill in the pitting but then if this did not work out I might be faced with trying to grind out the epoxy. I put them back on today and see if they grow on me, if they continue to be a concern I will take them off and see if metal plating place can successfully gold plate them.