Spring Cleaning

Green is my favorite color!

Every Spring presents a new opportunity to inspect your boat, marvel at how much growth accumulates both above and below the waterline during the Winter months. It never ceases to amaze me how hard Mother Nature works to take full ownership.

HULL

This year is no different. We have a creek that brings fresh water into our cove and with it nutrients that feed the various living organisms just waiting to make their home on your vessel. I prefer to have one of the local divers scrape the barnacles and do a light scrub on the hull, being careful not to take off the ablative paint. But every year it gets harder to schedule a diver so I have dive gear and in a pinch, can take the plunge.

Local divers from Kingston/Kitsap

• T & C Divers: 360.471.1724 Brian
• Reliable Dive Service: 360.509.6850 John
• Jim Dent: 360.900.9656 Catamaran on the guest dock

Local divers from Seattle/Edmonds

• Double J Diving: 206.282.7900
• Emerald City Diving: 206.789.8000
• Bottom Time: 206.310.7849
• ZEI Diving: 360.961.1627

I'll be hauling out in Port Townsend in June so don't need to go too crazy when I'll soon have the high pressure sprayer doing the real work.What I really need is just 20 minutes with a scraper to knock the barnacles off the prop and shaft.

TOPSIDES

This year I discovered hydrogen peroxide in a squirt bottle works great to kill the growth that accumulates anywhere rain water makes it's path. The Northside is always worse than the Southside, but both need a full scrubbing with a good boat soap and then hit the trouble spots with peroxide. No more bleach!

MORE INFO

• Edmonds Vendors or call 425-775-4588