Maintenance - An Ongoing Mission of Love - Summer 2021

 You can cover a lot of sins with an old can of thick paint.  That has been my maintenance strategy with Lillie May so far.  Jeff is different. He prefers to go at it full bore (and likely "properly" I will admit).   He is rife with great advice, which I sometimes listen to.  For instance, he insisted that I remove the handles, sand them ALL the way down and refinish them properly.  Which I did.  But the old blistered painted cabin roof?  Bleh.  I want to ENJOY the boat, not endlessly WORK on the boat.  As Jeff is working full time and the painting job was left in my hands, we defaulted to Susie-style.

There is a time and place for "doing it properly" for sure, but that old chipped and blistered roof?  Nope.  A can of old paint gets blissfully thick and gooey if left out in the sun for a bit.  I scraped the big hunks off,  sanded a bit, and gooped it on.  Poor Jeff.  I know he was shuddering.

But, out in that hot sun that gooey mess got baked on good and it turned out great.  It actually was shiny and new looking and maybe will hold the cabin together for an extra year or two!  We know it will have to be upgraded it at some point, but for now....

Sooo shiny.  And I like shiny things!   (Don't look too closely!)

The other big maintenance job included the base of the cabin where water sits instead of running off through the scuppers as it should.  The cabin walls had begun to rot away and that had to be stopped.  In this case I wisely stood back and let Jeff do it his way.  Graeme, our son-in-law who is the owner/operator of Harbour West Marina, lent us a few days in his shop and Jeff cut away the damaged wood and added a lovely strip along the bottom of the cabin. He'll never admit it, but I think he's developing an affection for my slow little funny boat.  We took the opportunity to repaint the red cabin. 

Lillie May was getting so perty.

Inspired, I decided to tackle the interior of the pilot house.  It was varnished tongue and groove wood that had aged and been water stained over the years.  It was still solid, but needed a face lift.  There, I sanded and fussed and painted over, ending up with a much freshened pilot house.

Jeff had designed a make-shift double bed in the cabin, so by grabbing a cooler and a portable barbeque, we were basically good to go.  Bring on summer!!

Primer coat.  

Tug Fest - Summer 2021

Over the years Lillie May has participated in Tug Fest, first with her original owner and then several times with us.  Tug Fest is a local annual festival for workboats, most of which have been modified to become cruisers.  They all dock at the Municipal wharf and offer tours, parades and races for the locals to enjoy.  There are usually musicians and a festive atmosphere on the dock.  

We were glad to re-enter Lillie May as many locals remembered her.  Again, she was a hit with the little ones and made a great backdrop for pictures with kids at the helm donning a captain's hat.

Lillie May alongside a beautifully
restored 100' vessel, the Prescotont

Pirates in Midland...  He didn't know
who he was dealing with.

Such beautifully restored vessels

Lillie May racing the Mink Isle - which is funny as
it is only the camera angle that is making it look like
Lillie May is a big girl.  The Mink Isle is a 49' steel tug
that is beautifully restored and travels quite a bit faster 
than little Lillie May.  Lillie May will take her glory how she can.

Lillie May taking part in the parade

Toot toot - Along side the Prescotont


Below, participating in the races aboard the Mink Isle, 
one of the big boy Tugs.

Lillie May the Therapy Boat - Summer 2019

 Lillie May fell nicely into our summer lifestyle.  Being busy building our cruising kitty,  it was nice to be able to just jump in the boat and putt-putt out for a quick swim, sunset cruise or weekend get-away.

This summer, our attention was mostly on our Airbnb project.  Jeff had purchased several travel trailers.  We parked them over at the marina on the shore overlooking the water and rented them out on Airbnb.  They were a big hit and we were busy all summer.  

Most of our customers were people escaping the city for a few days.  We are so lucky to live here on beautiful Georgian Bay.  One of our favourite ways to enjoy our Airbnb hosting experience was to take our guests out for a sunset cruise on Lillie May.  What was especially appreciated by our customers was that we liked to give them a chance at the helm (closely supervised).  Lillie May only chugs along at about five knots. Nothing happens fast.  It was great fun and provided many great photo opportunities for the families, with their kids at the helm driving a "real boat".  Folks said it was like summer therapy for them and more than one customer came away eager to start shopping for a boat of their own.  We were just happy enough to get out on the water after a long day and chit-chat to city folks, often from very different worlds.